Hmmm, let's see ... In the wake of the Boston bombings, we have Alex Jones claiming it's a "false flag" designed to drum up support for infringements on civil liberties. In response to an unconfirmed New York Post report claiming that a Saudi suspect is in custody, we have Fox's Erik Rush tweeting that we should kill all Muslims. And we have Pamela Geller declaring the bombers "Slaughterers in the cause of jihad," part of nonstop Twitter torrent of anti-Muslim outrage on her part.
So, when Dylan Byers of Politico harrumphed a while ago about "The Boston explosions, politicized," what struck him as so outrageous?
Answer: a tweet from Nicholas Kristof of The New York Times -- since deleted -- that read as follows:
explosion is a reminder that ATF needs a director. Shame on Senate Republicans for blocking apptment articles.washingtonpost.com/2013-02-01/wor...Kristof later apologized -- which didn't prevent Jeffrey Goldberg from also going self-righteous:
Part of talking for a living is knowing when to shut up. It is obviously true that the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives needs a director. It might even be true that Republicans could try a lot harder to put a director in place. But after an explosion about which we know almost nothing, and in the face of sudden, violent death at the finish line of the Boston Marathon, this is not the time to guess about the perpetrators or to recommend policy fixes that would prevent such attacks from taking place. It certainly is no time to suggest that a political party you happen not to like is to blame for a tragedy about which you know nothing.But Kristof did none of those things. He didn't speculate about the perpetrators, suggest that having an ATF director in place could have stopped the bombing, or say the GOP is responsible for the bloodshed. As I read the tweet, he just said that it would be nice to have a goddamn director for an agency that might be critical in getting to the bottom of this horrible act.
Should that be a controversial belief? Is it political to say that out loud? And is it not, in fact, the case that one party bears nearly all the responsibility for the fact that a full-time ATF director can't be confirmed?
Kristof never should have taken this back. He was right to post what he posted. I don't see any difference whatsoever between Byers and Goldberg's harrumphing and the attempt to silence anyone who mentioned gun control in the aftermath of Sandy Hook by saying it was "not the time to talk about it."
5 comments:
Boiled down brass monkey binary it either or it isn't bottom line these people just can't handle the truth.
Cowards. Candyasses. Got no dick.
No fear.
Wait...Goldberg's thesis is that saying something that is completely true is the equivalent of him recklessly speculating about the Norway attacks?
I'd call Goldberg a hack, but he would take it as a compliment.
What gets me is, how pammy and her Zionist hack friends are so damned sure it was Muslims. What if it wasn't? What if it was Jewish extremists? What if it was Israel's Mossad that did it in retaliation for Obama's dissing of Israel?
That's the shit that pisses me off. The sick part is everyone will just automatically swallow what their government tells them. They'll find some Muzzie who happened to be there and doesn't speak good English and dump the blame on him.
And it's bullshit.
There's this and then there are the knuckleheaded right wing trolls who whipped out their stop-watches to time how long it was between the attack and the White House using the magic word "terrorism" - because "Act of terror" isn't good enough for them - and apparently in order to be properly American the POTUS has to utter a statement they approve of within 2 hours of an incident occurring (at least, that's the standard set by Maggie Thatcher's death.)
The problem is, that in today's MSM environment, what the idiot's screaming for Muslim blood, or calling to pick-up every Muslim, on the right said, and what Kristof said, are two sides of the same coin.
They are clearly not.
The fact is, that while having an ATF head might not solve this problem, not having one certainly is of no help.
Let's wait and see how this plays out, before we recklessly start to jump to conclusions on who did it and why.
Our law enforcement people, under the right leadership, are remarkable at being able to solve terrorist attacks like this one. Give them some time and space, and let them do what they are trained to do.
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