Monday, March 22, 2010

Are the Media Having a "Burning of the Reichstag " Moment?

First there was no note attached to the brick tossed through a window of local Democratic Headquarters.   Now, conveniently, according to the Democrat and Chronicle, a note has miraculously turned up, bearing a quote from Barry Goldwater, no less!

Reminiscent of the Nazis using the burning of the Reichstag in 1933 to blame their political opponents, as a pretext to imposing martial law.   It's believed they torched it themselves, for that very purpose.

Our local media has been quick to try to connect the incident to a brick-tossing through Louise Slaughter's office window in Niagara Falls.   None except Channel 10 have made the connection with the picketing and protest just hours before, by a hostile union crowd at the annual County Democratic fundraiser downtown, over displeasure at the Democratic Mayor seeking control of the City schools, and the County Democratic Chairman supporting him.

The Channel 10 story actually quoted Democratic Chairman Joe Morelle saying he believed the act of vandalism "could be about mayoral control" of the City School District, "not health care."   But the rest of the media seems intent on using this incident to portray opponents of the health care disgrace as "extremists."   An act as base and uncivil as the brick-tossing itself.

5 comments:

Rottenchester said...

You're on the wrong side of this one. The note exists, Slaughter's children were threatened, the FBI is involved, and some teabagger blogger is behind the effort. You'd be wise to disassociate yourself from these cretins.

Philbrick said...

Rottenchester,

That the brickthrower is a cretin is a certainty.

We never associated ourselves with whoever's behind this, regardless of their motive. So I'm not sure what we need to "disassociate" from.

Our post yesterday described the act as "base and uncivil."

Just like Joe Morelle -- see the Channel 10 story -- we wondered whether the incident might have had to do with unhappiness over the Mayor's school plan.

The point of our post was to criticize much of the local media, which seemed immediately to assume the vandalism was the work of a health care bill-opponent, without anything more than surmise, at least at that point, upon which to base that supposition.

And we're not sure they have more today. Why the gap between discovery of the broken window and discovery of the note? Slaughter says the threat came before the critical health-care vote on Sunday. Why didn't her office publicize it before the vote, when it would have helped to discredit the opposition and help win more votes in Congress?

And a sorry head-case blogging down South advocated window smashing and takes credit for instigating the incident in Rochester. That tells us nothing about who threw the brick or why.

We really don't care why. It's vandalism pure and simple, having no place in the political context.

Bricks are impotent, compared to the power of ideas, and of elections.

Rottenchester said...

It stretches credulity to believe that someone who can't spell "extremism" would have known about the Goldwater quote independent of that jerk blogger in Alabama, who advocated exactly the action that occurred at the MCDC HQ.

And I believe that someone on Slaughter's staff got a death threat. When Members of Congress are spat upon, and called "nigger" and "faggot" by an angry mob, believing that death threats have occurred is no big step.

In addition, there's a big difference between a political figure whining about something to the press, and even making up a story, and a political figure calling the authorities to report a crime. I don't hold Morelle or Slaughter in high esteem, but if either is going to call the cops about something, the scales tip to their side of the story.

(Here's the Fox News affiliate report on the spitting incident:
http://www.fox4kc.com/news/wdaf-protester-spit-cleaver-032210,0,7420601.story)

Philbrick said...

We're not saying for a moment that every one of your conclusions regarding these points won't turn out to be true. We think the person or people responsible should be punished no matter who they are or why they did it.

Again, our beef was with the media, which largely seemed to jump to a conclusion when the official word was still that there wasn't any note, and before knowledge of any personal threats became public, and it came right after that big anti-Mayor demonstration downtown.

Anonymous said...

@6:50 AM - So it's been proven that the blogger was behind the brick toss at Slaughter's and Morelle's offices? Then why isn't he being charged since it's fact now? Or is that not really the situation?