By Larry Elder
Thursday, January 13, 2011
Pima County Sheriff Clarence Dupnik took time from gathering the facts about the Tucson, Ariz., shooting to denounce the "vitriolic rhetoric" that he claims played a role in the carnage. He insisted, without any evidence, that Democratic Rep. Gabrielle Giffords' support for ObamaCare helped trigger the shooter's wrath, resulting in six dead and 13 wounded, including Rep. Giffords, who was shot point-blank in the head.
"I think it's time as a country," said Dupnik, "that we ... do a little soul-searching, because I think it's the vitriolic rhetoric that we hear day in and day out from people in the radio business and some people in the TV business, and what we see on TV and how our youngsters are being raised, that this has not become the nice United States of America that most of us grew up in, and I think it's time that we do the soul-searching."
Would the "vitriolic rhetoric" requiring "soul-searching" include Dupnik's pronouncements that the popular Arizona immigration law is "stupid" and "disgusting" and "racist"?
Would the "vitriolic rhetoric" include former President Jimmy Carter's ugly assertion that "an overwhelming portion of the intensely demonstrated animosity toward President Barack Obama is based on the fact that he is a black man, that he's African-American"?
Would it include former Democratic National Chairman Howard Dean's description of the contest between Democrats and Republicans as "a struggle between good and evil -- and we're the good"?
Would it include Democratic Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid's characterization of then-President George W. Bush as "a loser and a liar"?
Would it include Democratic Sen. Debbie Stabenow's denunciation of President Bush as "dangerously incompetent"?
Would it include the late Democratic Sen. Ted Kennedy's assertion that the Bush administration fabricated a case for war in Iraq, or, as Kennedy put it, "week after week after week, we were told lie after lie after lie"?
Would the "vitriolic rhetoric" include Democratic Rep. Charlie Rangel's referring to Bush as "our Bull Connor," the infamous Southern lawman who, in the 1960s, turned police dogs and water hoses on black civil rights protesters?
Would it include the declaration by Comedy Central's Jon Stewart -- a man astonishingly described as a modern Edward R. Murrow -- that former President Harry Truman was "a war criminal"?
Would it include then-presidential candidate Barack Obama's declaration made at a fundraiser that "if they bring a knife to the fight, we bring a gun"?
Would it include the false accusation that the N-word was yelled at black congressmen as they walked across the Capitol grounds, a still unproven charge stated as fact numerous times by the "mainstream" media?
Would it include Hillary Clinton's telling a black audience that the then-Republican majority Congress was "run like a plantation"?
Would it include Democratic Sen. John Kerry's demonstrably false claim that he lost the 2004 presidential election because Ohio was "stolen"?
Would it include the Rev. Al Sharpton, who, long before meeting with the FCC and demanding broadcasting decency standards, called the then mayor of New York a "nigger whore"?
Would it include the chairwoman of the California chapter of NOW who, after the female Republican gubernatorial candidate was called a "whore," said that yes, "Meg Whitman could be described as 'a political whore'"?
Would it include then-Rep. Diane Watson, D-Calif., who attacked a black political opponent: "He's married to a white woman. He wants to be white. He wants a colorless society. He has no ethnic pride. He doesn't want to be black. I said that"?
Would it include the way then-President Bill Clinton, according to aide Dick Morris, described his 1996 Republican opponent: "Bob Dole is not a nice man. Bob Dole is evil. The things he wants to do to children are evil. The things he wants to do to poor people and old people and sick people are evil. Let's get that straight"?
Would it include the editor of Bartlett's Familiar Quotations who, in explaining why Ronald Reagan had so few entries, said, "I'm not going to disguise the fact that I despise Ronald Reagan"?
Would it include the British director who made an assassination-of-President-Bush "documentary" called "Death of a President"? Or the British columnist who reviewed it and said, "You will never, ever be able to overestimate the degree to which the British people loathe George Bush. It will be a free round of drinks in every pub for the person who plays the assassin"?
Would it include the unhinged MSNBC host Ed Schultz, who, days before the Tucson shooting, said: "This is an ideological war. ... I will fight these bastards every night at 6 o'clock because I know what they're up against. I know what they want to do. They want to take down American workers. ... They want to destroy the American dream, concentrate the wealth to the top and control minorities"?
Would the "vitriolic rhetoric" include ... oh, never mind.
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