Some of the bodies from this morning’s tragic mass-murder in Aurora, Colo., hadn’t even been identified before pundits on either side and their enablers in the mainstream media were rushing to use the incident as a political pawn.
By shortly after 8 a.m. EDT, less than six hours after the incident occurred, CNN’s Piers Morgan was calling for gun control and the network had taken to Twitter to begin promoting Morgan’s show tonight, promising a gun control debate.
NYC’s Republican mayor and anti-gun zealot, Michael Bloomberg, was also quick to sound off, demanding that Barack Obama and Mitt Romney “tell us what they’re going to do” about shootings such as this morning’s.
ABC News was quick to link the accused shooter — James Holmes, 24, a med school dropout — to the Tea Party. Reporter Brian Ross rushed to the camera with his information after seeing a Jim Holes of Aurora registered on Colorado’s tea party website, saying, “Now, we don’t know if this is the same Jim Holmes, but it’s Jim Holmes of Aurora, Colorado.” Translation: We have no clue whether this guy is our guy but, hell, he’s got the same name and he’s from the same town, so let’s just say that he is. Linking mass murderers to the tea party is becoming old hat for the mainstream media, which also attempted to link Tucson shooter Jared Loughner to the tea party . . . except it turned out that Loughner wasn’t linked in any way to the tea party and was, in fact, liberal in his political ideologies. Not surprisingly, the media turned out to be wrong again; ABC News has since said that Ross’s report was incorrect . . . which, of course, underscores the inherit dangers of doing exactly what ABC News did.
Meanwhile, conservative website Breitbart.com was just as bad, quickly pushing a story suggesting that the shooter is a registered Democrat.
That journalists are busily digging to see what political party this nutcase is linked to before the bodies of his victims are even cold, and when Obama and Romney clearly had nothing to do with his actions, is absolutely ludicrous.
There will be a time and place to exploit this incident for political capital. Six hours after the fact isn’t it.
I don’t think Bloomberg is governor of NYC, but rather the mayor.
Just pointing it out before someone else.
Thank you Randy. That’s what happens when I try to multitask.
sorry another correction, bloomberg is a fascist, not a rep.
thanks
Of course, Ross or someone from his staff would have to be combing tea party web sites looking for a guy named Holmes. That’s not journalism; that’s working backwards from a narrative.
As awful as this is, it pretty much has to be done (if you are political) because that’s what sticks.
It doesn’t matter what the truth is, it’s the story that gets told the widest and people hear that sticks.
People don’t pay attention to followups or the retractions. They pay attention to the first story.
If you just lay back and let the other side paint the story their way, you’ve lost.
Bloomberg is no longer a Republican.
ABC d*mn well knew what it was doing when it tied the TEA Party with the shooting. They did it before and they’ll do it again unless Mr. Holmes (and anyone else slimed this way) start bringing in the nasties in the form of greedy lawyers who want a LOT law suit money. ABC needs to be sued back to the stone ages.