When in Doubt Blame The Tea Party

When in Doubt Blame The Tea Party
By Aaron Goldstein on 7.20.12 @ 1:49PM

Jeff Lord put forward an eloquent assessment of the evil which was visited upon a movie theater in Aurora, Colorado this morning resulting in the deaths of a dozen moviegoers viewing a midnight screening of The Dark Knight Rises. Amongst other things, Jeff noted:

The left will seek to make an issue of this, as they did most recently with the shooting by a disturbed loner of then-Arizona Congresswoman Gabby Giffords. There will be the usual shrieking about gun control. There will be mind-numbing discussions of whatever violence is in the Batman movie and isn't our culture all ot blame. Some conservative somewhere will be targeted for doing something if this guy has ever watched Fox, belonged to the NRA, listened to talk radio or picked up a book by Ayn Rand.

Or belongs to the Tea Party. As Ross Kaminsky told us, once James Holmes had been identified as the alleged shooter, Brian Ross of ABC News told viewers there was a Jim Holmes who is a member of the Colorado Tea Party. Only Jim Holmes the Tea Partier is a 52-year old Hispanic male while James Holmes the alleged shooter is a 24-year old Caucasian ex-medical student. ABC News issued an apology but I second Ross' motion: "Go screw yourself."

What this tells me is that the moment ABC News found out who the shooter was, a researcher did a Google search "James Holmes Colorado Tea Party" and hit paydirt. Or so they thought. But what is it in the mindset of ABC News, other mainstream media outlets and liberals at large that they would immediately connect mass murder to a member of the local Tea Party?

I'll tell you what it is. It's hatred and ignorance. Not surprisingly the two go hand in hand. Too many liberals and progressives in this country hate conservatives and this hatred causes them to attribute the worst possible deeds upon our doorstep. Consider what I said in my speech to Tea Party activists in Worcester, Massachusetts back in April:

Of course, the facts seldom deter liberals and progressives. But when the race card doesn't work liberals and progressives shift the narrative. They say the Tea Party is violent. Thomas Friedman of The New York Times once compared the Tea Party to Hezbollah, MSNBC's Chris Matthews likens the Tea Party to Wahhabis and Vice-President Biden says the Tea Party acts like terrorists. How dare they. How dare they compare peaceful, law-abiding Americans to those who murdered our soldiers in Beirut, Baghad and Bagram. How dare they compare peaceful, law-abiding Americans to those who murdered innocent civilians in New York, Washington, D.C. and Shanksville, Pennsylvania. And for what? Simplay because we dare to publicly express a point of view that is contrary to their own.

Scarcely three months after making those remarks, the Tea Party finds itself vilified for this act of evil. Sadly, there are too many liberals and progressives in this country who have a) either abandoned reason or b) have never utilized it in the first place. It goes a long way in explaining liberalism's intellectual bankruptcy. This isn't to say that liberals aren't entitled to their opinions. As such I don't expect liberals to agree with the aims and objectives of the Tea Party. But if liberals are going to insist that the Tea Party is responsible for evil then the least they could do is to name a single Tea Party activist who has been arrested either for harming another person or causing damage to property during a Tea Party event. The problem is they can't because it has never happened and probably never will. None of which, however, prevents liberals from believing the worst about the Tea Party. With regard to ABC News, some of their employees want to believe a Tea Partier was responsible for this carnage.

But at this point, all we know about the man who is alleged to have shot and killed twelve people is a) his name b) that he was a former student and c) that he was dressed up as the villain in the Batman movie which suggests some premeditation. Apart from that, the only other thing we know is that twelve people who went to see a movie are never coming home.
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Colorado Shooting Victim Narrowly Escaped Toronto Shooting
By Aaron Goldstein on 7.20.12 @ 3:57PM

Jessica Ghawi, one of the twelve people killed by a gunman at a movie theater in Aurora, Colorado this morning, narrowly escaped being a shooting victim last month during a visit to Toronto.

You may recall that two people were killed and half a dozen people were injured during a shooting at the Eaton Centre in downtown Toronto.

In her blog, Ghawi had been in the food court shortly before the shooting began. She had wanted sushi but at the last minute had a burger and poutine instead. Ghawi wrote, "An odd feeling which led me to go outside and unknowningly out of harm's way. It's hard for me to wrap my mind around how a weird feeling saved me from being in the middle of a deadly shooting."

We will never know if Ghawi had that weird feeling again this morning. If she did this time she could not escape to safety.

Ghawi had recently moved to Colorado from Texas to pursue a career in sports journalism.

There but for the grace of God.
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