As I write this, Pres. Obama has just finished giving his surprisingly long speech at the memorial ceremony in Tuscon for those shot last weekend after a day when members of Congress paid tribute to Rep. Gabrielle Giffords in the House. Admittedly, a white member of Congress and other white people, including a little white girl, getting shot will get top of the news for a while. And while what happened is obviously a tragedy, isn’t there at least a little bit of hypocrisy in it all?

– How many other innocent people injured or murdered by attackers in the past year who weren’t famous got such attention?
– How many others were killed by someone who, for lack of funds for mental health treatment, were on the streets untreated?
– How many service people killed heroically serving over seas got such attention?
– How many ordinary people will get the health care now and afterwards that Giffords will get?

I could go on, but you see what I’m getting at. I don’t begrudge the attention and so on to the victims and to what happened, but don’t others unknown to the President and Congress deserve at least a little attention, too?




  1. sam says:

    Omar Thornton killed two more people than that jewish guy in arizona. Have you heard about the 12 year old killed and tortured with a blow torch in houston texas? There is over 12000 murders in U.S. every year. Its nice to know that the six in Arizona were much more important people than the 12 thousand!

  2. rottinapple says:

    Stating the obvious Unc.

    This is nothing new at all and it won’t change.

  3. Olo Baggins of Bywater says:

    #31 mike…with persuasive language like that, and your interesting collection of facts, the message practically jumps off the page.

    In fact, too bad it doesn’t literally.

  4. BigBoyBC says:

    Sam, it’s all about taking advantage of a good crisis. The moment the shootings happened Left-wing shills were on the net pushing the meme that is was the tea party’s, Palin’s, and other conservative’s fault. Even though no one knew who this guy was, his political affiliations, motivations and such were.

    Simply shameful and inexcusable.

  5. Olo Baggins of Bywater says:

    BC…the interesting part is that all the earliest indicators pointed to an easy fit with an enraged teabagger.

    Amazing how that happens sometimes.

  6. Mustafa says:

    The whole issue is a matter of justice, justice for all, at home and abroad. Clearly this government is not just, either to its citizens or to the millions of innocents and those who are being subjugated and oppressed daily abroad.

    We make a media circus out of an unfortunate incident, proclaiming the injustice of it, yet while killing, indirectly or directly, hundreds or thousands of innocents.

  7. chuck says:

    It turns out that the 9-year-old girl who was shot and killed was born on Sept 11, 2001.

    This can mean only one thing: Sarah Palin is a member of Al-Qaeda.

  8. foobar says:

    Dave, were you this pissed when he eulogized the miners in West Virginia or the soldiers at Fort Hood?

  9. soundwash says:

    Memorial T-shirts?

    #35 BigBoyBC said,
    Sam, it’s all about taking advantage of a good crisis.

    i’m not sure, but i think we may have now seen the peak of “advantage sleaze politics” take place in this memorial.

    -i’d love to know what PR idiot thought it would be a great idea to offer up “together we thrive” T-Shirts as a memento for a memorial of this type?

    fitting perhaps for a memorial of a comedian who dies of natural causes, but a mini mass-murder?

    i have a jaded, dark sense of humour, but this to me just de-humanizes the whole event.

    -s

  10. Dallas says:

    Right wingdings have their panties in a wad because President Obama has the gall to behave like a white president.

  11. godfish says:

    I turned it on just as it was starting and all of the cheering and happiness just made me feel sick to my stomach and it felt creepy, What was everybody so happy about? my wife and I both voted for Obama and thank he’s doing okay job, we normally watch all of his speeches but we couldn’t watch this one it was just too damn creepy.

  12. gquaglia says:

    It was an assassination attempt on a sitting member of Congress, that’s why. Too hard to figure out Uncle Dave??

  13. foobar says:

    #44 I am sure if Jesus were alive today, he’d say word-for-word exactly what you wrote.

  14. Dallas says:

    #45 Alfred the tool is in for a disappointment when he checks into the Purgatory holding area and informed he’s gonna be in a warm place.

  15. Olo Baggins of Bywater says:

    Alfred, does Rush always make you that bitter and angry? Maybe you should listen to something else…new wave jazz, for example. More soothing for the restless and lost soul.

  16. chris says:

    #48 “It was disgusting, completely inappropriate…if her husband had any chops at all…he he wasn’t a boot licking progressive, ”

    From the first words I thought you had looked deeply into yourself. Then I saw that you called the spouse of a critically injured woman a “boot licking…”

    Shame on you. Shame.

  17. So what says:

    Wow Alfred you listen to Rush Limbaugh. Given your leaning towards the right I would have thought you found him to liberal for you.

  18. bobbo, with BSOD says:

    I’ve posted before “I don’t do ceremony.” And thats my beef here too. Whether black or white, famous or not, 6/none/or 50==hooman ceremonies around death are meaningless. Strangers honoring other strangers.

    All doing nothing. 6 die and 14 injured in a toll of 12K per year and NOTHING WILL RESULT FROM THIS. No gun control, no clip control, no referral from the Army Induction Review Process to the Civil Authorities, a six month hiatus on gun imagery until the campaign really gets going.

    Gods, Guns, and Gays. Obama nailed the Pukes on that one. And how crazy are people: Several Gay Republican Groups still “fighting” for their right to be included with the other PUKES. Imagine a person putting their own humanity secondary to whatever it is they have put first?

    Silly Hoomans. Wave a flag.

  19. MikeN says:

    Maybe the ACLU shouldn’t have gone around getting everyone released from mental institutions.

  20. bobbo, the evangelical anti-theist says:

    Mike, thats a “fair” point given I don’t have the details. Seems to me though that the ACLU indeed advocates against INVOLUNTARY hospitalization for mental health, but isn’t the crunch here that mental health hospitals/services were shut down for anyone who couldn’t pay private pay rates?

    Even now, I just heard that ObamaCare finally brought “Mental Health Care Parity” in that if you have health coverage, there has to be mental health coverage as well?

    Mike, you were “almost” honest on the last hypo, so I’ll give you another one: should anyone found to be unfit for military service for psychiatric reasons have a mandatory referral for psych evaluation/hospitalization on the governments dime?–or should these failures just be let loose back into society.

    Just reminded of some show (Olbermann) recounting the impassioned and reasonable concern of a gun loving schizophrenic who was totally “OK” when on his medications. “Its not fair my gun rights be taken away from me just because I have a mental illness!” Seems the only people agreeing with him are other mentally ill people and PUKES!

    Sadly, its going to take another revolution–at the voting booth to get sanity restored to America.

  21. jescott418 says:

    My thoughts the same. These people were given special treatment because of their stature in the community. Not that they don’t deserve some sympathy. But this was a Political and media event. The liberal media made it out at first as a Politically motivated shooting and although I thought the President gave a heart warming speech. I felt the same way about all the other shootings that happen everyday in this country.

  22. bobbo, the evangelical anti-theist says:

    and jescott==what would you DO—ACTUALLY DO in recognition of your heartfelt feelings for the 12-18K people MURDERED by guns in the GOUSA every year?

    A==give everyone more guns, bigger clips, and no license hide and carry?

    B==something other than insanity showing itself year in and year out?

    Or are your sentiments/thoughts as meaningless as the ceremony heading this thread?

  23. chris says:

    #57

    “Maybe the ACLU shouldn’t have gone around getting everyone released from mental institutions.”

    That was Reagan. We are too cheap to treat the mentally ill when that money can be diverted for rich people.

  24. So what says:

    “they because stupid in their praise of his inappropriate rally.” Say what?

  25. David Malone says:

    Pathetic web blog entry. You are not only a
    cynic with a capital C, but lack the taste and judgement to demonstrate common courtesy and civility. Pathetic


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