The big story of the day is the shooting of congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords seriuously wounding her and 12 others, leaving another five people, including a federal judge dead.
And craziness ensues - in the media, in the blogosphere and on Twitter.
An early claim was the culprit was an veteran of Afghanistan, appearing in many reports - nope turns out the fellow tried to enlist but was rejected. Too bad the crazed vet meme is a dog that wont run.
More persistent is a campaign map from the girl everyone loves to hate. It had targets over seats believed to be winnable by the Republicans in the last election cycle. And one of those seats was the one held by congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords. And this may have incited todays events according to the excitable.
Phooey - everyone knows its a metaphor and it is highly unlikely the culprit ever saw it unless he was directly engaged in the campaign or is a total political junkie. Neither of which seems likely.
And nor is modern American politics more divisive than in days or yore. Far from it.
For example Vice President Aaron Burr killed United States Secretary of the Treasury Alexander Hamilton in a duel back in 1804. In fact through the years several congressmen have died this way.
In just about all the assassinations and attempted assassinations of politicians since Lincoln the assassins have been loopy, upset about things that are not on either parties agenda or anybodies else's for that matter.
John Hinckley, Jr's motivation you may recall for shooting Ronald Reagan had something to do with Jodie Foster. You can't really unravel that, it doesn't make sense but it happened.
It had nothing to do with partisan politics though.
Same with todays tragedy - I predict we will never get any sensible explanation as to why.
And empty chatter about campaign maps and KOS postings is just a waste of time.
And craziness ensues - in the media, in the blogosphere and on Twitter.
An early claim was the culprit was an veteran of Afghanistan, appearing in many reports - nope turns out the fellow tried to enlist but was rejected. Too bad the crazed vet meme is a dog that wont run.
More persistent is a campaign map from the girl everyone loves to hate. It had targets over seats believed to be winnable by the Republicans in the last election cycle. And one of those seats was the one held by congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords. And this may have incited todays events according to the excitable.
Phooey - everyone knows its a metaphor and it is highly unlikely the culprit ever saw it unless he was directly engaged in the campaign or is a total political junkie. Neither of which seems likely.
And nor is modern American politics more divisive than in days or yore. Far from it.
For example Vice President Aaron Burr killed United States Secretary of the Treasury Alexander Hamilton in a duel back in 1804. In fact through the years several congressmen have died this way.
In just about all the assassinations and attempted assassinations of politicians since Lincoln the assassins have been loopy, upset about things that are not on either parties agenda or anybodies else's for that matter.
John Hinckley, Jr's motivation you may recall for shooting Ronald Reagan had something to do with Jodie Foster. You can't really unravel that, it doesn't make sense but it happened.
It had nothing to do with partisan politics though.
Same with todays tragedy - I predict we will never get any sensible explanation as to why.
And empty chatter about campaign maps and KOS postings is just a waste of time.
"craziness ensues" - i work in the emergency response field, and while i see some value in the media, twitter, cellphone gotta have it immediately onslaught after a violent event, it also creates havoc and misinformation which makes it bad for people like me who are trying to get the job done and the relatives, etc. of those involved
ReplyDeletefor example, we had a shooting at a hospital several months ago that i was taking calls for, and the television media in its haste to keep up with the twits, were putting out info that created panic and was not true (i.e. the shooter is still at large and his whereabouts unknown) - no one called them on this however, but on my end people were terrified...