The usual suspects (Chris Trotter, Whale Oil) have leapt on the bandwagon.
Meanwhile, Edward Peters has a good post up pinpointing the media tactic here and why they've used it - When nothing else will work, accuse a Catholic prelate of NSO:
The mainstream media is in panic over Pope Francis.
The new pope is solidly opposed to everything big media wants (contraception, abortion, ‘same-sex marriage’, etc.), but it can’t simply write him off as an out-of-touch academic (Benedict) or as a provincial Slav suffering Nazi and Communist induced post-traumatic stress disorder (John Paul II). Worse, the first prelate of the Catholic world is a man of proven commitment to the poor (far more demonstrably than are his limousine liberal critics), and has lived his whole life in a simplicity that is utterly beyond the ken of Manhattan or the Beltway sophisticates.
So, confronted by a major Catholic prelate of such palpable integrity, what’s the media to do? Only one thing: Look up what country the prelate calls home, find out what trauma that country suffered (that’s not hard to do, all modern countries suffer from traumas, generally those organized by their governments), and accuse the prelate of—wait for it—Not Speaking Out.
"not" doing is a claim of universal knowledge in many ways.
ReplyDeleteEven if you've done a comprehensive search, you still may have missed something. Of course, those who make such accusations have often don't bother to search at all. I recall one person who claimed that no one from the CHP had condemned Capill - only to have Matt Flanagan point to a press release (still online) that had done exactly that.
That's assuming that the person had the opportunity to speak out of course. There are instances where public opposition is impossible and can compromise behind the scenes actions that are more effective. For example, people who loudly condemned the Nazis were not very well placed to hide Jews.
Yep.
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