Joan Swirsky

Mourning in America
January 21, 2011
 

Our entire country, indeed the world, mourns the victims of the savage attack in Tucson that left six dead, including an esteemed federal judge and beautiful nine-year-old Christina Taylor Green; 14 seriously wounded; and Rep. Gabrielle Giffords fighting for her life after a bullet from the gun of her crazed killer and apparent stalker Jared Loughner entered and then exited her brain.

While millions of words have been written about this unspeakable tragedy, I write here of another mourning, specifically the agony of the left at having irrevocably lost the American public, and with that loss their grandiose ambitions of turning our Democratic Republic into a Communist stronghold.

Simply, the leftists-cum-progressives among us have never recovered from their thundering defeat in the midterm elections of November 2—not just 63 seats in the House and six in the Senate, but also an overwhelming number of Republican governorships and control over more state legislative seats than any time since 1928.

As Daniel Henninger explains in Why the Left Lost It,

"The tea partiers' fiscal concerns were real" but a leftist Democrat president and his Congress "spent 2009 and 2010 passing the biggest economic entitlement since 1965 and driving U.S. spending to 25%. They expected to take losses in November. What they got instead was Armageddon."

If Democrats can't regain the Independents they lost in the midterms, Henninger adds,

"...they could be looking in from the outside for as many years as some of them have left to write about politics. A wilderness is a terrible place to be."

Panic time! The left simply cannot believe that virtually all of Mr. Obama's domestic policies—malevolently designed, I believe, to bankrupt Americans and to create their dependence on Big Government—were thoroughly repudiated at the polls, as were his foreign policies, which have been engineered to weaken both our military and our country. One must go back more than 70 years to find another such decisive drubbing.

This mortifying defeat left the leftists smarting, stinging, inflamed, incredulous and vengeful. They didn't know what hit them or what to do about it.

It's not like their supporters weren't suggesting—encouraging? hoping for?—that something horrible happen. Right after the midterm meltdown, Mark Penn, the former chief strategist forHillary Clinton's failed presidential campaign, told a TV audience that it took the Oklahoma City tragedy for President Clinton to "reconnect" with the American people and that maybe Democrats needed "a similar event" to help Obama. Vile, yes, but then again typical leftism.

Timing Is Everything

Well, what do you know! Like manna from heaven, along came the Tucson massacre, which roused the leftists from their paralyzing depression. Only a tragedy could have that effect—leftists are not good at good news. But give them an attack on our homeland, a mass murder (except if it's committed by a Muslim U.S. Army officer and the victims are other officers), or simply a gorgeous Republican woman with a resonating message, and they become maniacally animated.

This is because the left sees in any and all disasters that befall our nation the opportunity to regain the political traction they invariably lose when a naive public gives them yet another chance to prove they are grown-ups who actually like America.

The timing of the tragedy fell right into the left's area of expertise: Exploiting a crisis for political leverage by blaming it on the opposition, particularly those like Sarah Palin and conservative radio commentators who are perceived as threats to the very survival of liberalism. In addition to blame, their strategy is always to work toward shredding the U.S. Constitution, in this instance to stomp on the first and second amendments by seeking to limit the free speech of conservatives and to take away the right to own a gun.

At exactly the time they are facing the systematic undoing of all the punishing laws that were passed by a leftist Democrat Congress, starting with the socialized-medicine scheme that, among other monstrosities, puts radical flunkies in charge of every citizen's health care, and extending to the cap-and-tax scheme based on the now-proven fraudulence of man-made global warming, along comes a mass murder in Arizona. For leftists, just what the death-panel doctor ordered!

And what better time than when Team Obama desperately needs a distraction from the laundry list of other failures that Clarice Feldman writes about when she channels Leni Riefenstahl in advice to Mr. Obama, in which she mentions that:

▪ Oil is reaching $100 a barrel

▪ Jobless claims are jumping

▪ Consumer confidence is down

▪ Foreclosures are increasing

▪ Wholesale food prices are soaring

▪ The USA's AAA credit rating is in jeopardy

▪ The public is catching on that the taxpayers are unlikely to recoup on the GM bailout

▪ One half of the states are suing to have ObamaCare declared unconstitutional

▪ The Lebanese government fell at the hands of the Iranian and Syrian-led Hezb'allah

The Plan

To distract an increasingly disaffected public from these failures, the Obama minions promptly launched into the strategy that in 2008 resulted in a man of highly-questionable credentials and zero experience in domestic issues and foreign affairs occupying the White House. When you see the kind of choreographed, premeditated hysteria the left has generated since the first shots in Arizona were fired, the paroxysms of uncontrollable rage spewing non-stop from leftist media hacks, and their relentless accusations toward Tea Party activists, conservative media, and Sarah Palin for having "caused" the Tucson tragedy, it is, as Yankees catcher Yogi Berra once said: "deja vu all over again!"

In short order, they reactivated the Journo List of 400 exclusively leftwing so-called journalists who colluded during the 2008 election season to, collectively:

▪ Attack anyone who questioned the mountain of Obama's missing documents (birth certificate, medical records, college transcripts, etc.), and his close relationships with his self-described "mentor," the black-liberation-theology- (i.e., Marxism) spewing Rev. Wright, convicted slumlord Tony Rezko, the unrepentant-domestic-terrorist William Ayers, whose Weather Underground fellow thugs left two NY policemen and the Brinks truck driver dead and five children without fathers. That's the short list!

▪ Target all of Obama's opponents by engaging in the Big Lie technique refined by Hitler, which is to fabricate untruths, slanders, malicious gossip, and outright lies—yes, blood libels—against all opposition.

▪ Accuse the opposition of the vitriol and duplicity they themselves routinely engage in. If there is one thing that embodies leftist pathology, it is the psychological defense mechanism of projection, where a person ascribes his or her own attributes, thoughts and emotions to other people.

Media Madness

In an article entitled Political Vultures, historian Victor Davis Hanson writes that of all the leftwing media bias in reporting the Tucson massacre, "the three worst offenders" were Paul Daly of the New York Daily News, the NY Times' Paul Krugman, and Andrew Sullivan, a longtime Palin obsessive. Hanson could have thrown in The New Yorker‘s George Packer as well, along with a raft of others who produced an avalanche of words which amounted to variations of a single theme: those big bad scary right wingers caused the problem!

Writer Michael Filozof agrees with Hanson and says that Krugman's immediate response was "perhaps the most egregious" when Krugman wrote: "We don't have proof yet that this was political, but the odds are that it was.(The newspaper that published plagiarized and fabricated accounts of the `D.C. sniper' by affirmative-action hire Jayson Blair in 2003 is still publishing unsubstantiated suppositions without `proof,' eh?)."

Filozof then documents extensively the degree to which the left, not the right, owns political violence, with examples ranging from:

▪ The leftist anarchist who inspired the assassination of President William McKinley.

▪ The leftists who to this day lionize Fidel Castro, Che Guevara, Malcolm X, and Eldridge "rape is an insurrectionary act" Cleaver and his Black Panthers.

▪ The leftist Weathermen who perpetrated multiple bombings.

▪ The Communist who was said to have murdered President John F. Kennedy.

▪ The pardoning by President Clinton of the Marxist-Leninist-inspired Puerto Rican terrorist group FALN.

▪ The pardoning by President Clinton of radical Susan Rosenberg, who was imprisoned for her role in the murder of two police officers and a security guard.

▪ The leftist playwrights in New York who created a stage performance about killing president Bush.

In a not-too-subtle suggestion that Obama's own bellicosity may have contributed to the AZ disaster, Hanson writes: "Why would a president boast about figuring out `whose ass to kick,' or, in a climate of fear about terrorism, call his opponents `hostage takers'? In a post-9/11 world, is it prudent for the commander-in-chief to say of his political opponents, `Here's the problem: It's almost like they've got—they've got a bomb strapped to them and they've got their hand on the trigger. You don't want them to blow up'? What about, `But you've got to kind of talk them, ease that finger off the trigger'?

Charitably, Hanson omitted the following Obama rants, all of them far more inflammatory than anything a Tea Party participant or conservative Talk Radio host or Sarah Palin ever said:

▪ Obama on ACORN supporters: "I don't want to quell anger. I think people are right to be angry! I'm angry!"

▪ Obama to supporters: "Hit Back—Twice as hard"

▪ Obama at a Philadelphia fundraiser two years ago how to deal with Republicans: "They Bring a Knife—We Bring a Gun."

▪ Obama to his followers: "Get in Their Faces!"

▪ Obama on the private sector: "We talk to these folks…so I know whose ##### to kick."

▪ Obama to voters: Republican victory would mean "hand-to-hand combat."

▪ Obama to Latino supporters: "Punish your enemies."

▪ Obama to Democrats: "I'm itching for a fight."

Dr. Jack Wheeler, a Washington insider, writes that the mass murderer Jared Loughner is both sick and "evil," as are the leftists in what he calls the Enemedia.

"Their clinically around-the-bend fascist politicalization of the Arizona Massacre is final confirming proof," he says. "We always suspected as much, and now, with their claim that "Rep. Gabrielle Giffords' blood is on Sarah Palin's hands" we know for sure and certain. What moral code they do possess is straight Marxist-Leninist:the ends justify the means."

The good news, Wheeler adds, is that "now we know what they look like. From this moment on, the face that will appear in our mind's eye whenever we read what they write or hear what they say is the Face of the Loughner Left."

The Loughner Left is on full display in a report from the Media Research Center, including some sputum from left-wing hosts:

▪ Mike Malloy ("Michele Bachmann…would have gladly rounded up the Jews in Germany and shipped them off to death camps…This is an evil #$%^ from Hell."...and "I'm waiting for the day when I pick up the newspaper or click on the Internet and find that [Rush Limbaugh] has choked to death on his own throat fat, or a great big wad of saliva or something, whatever.").

▪ Montel Williams ("So, Michele, slit your wrist! Go ahead! I mean, you know, why not? I mean, if you want to—or, you know, do us all a better thing. Move that knife up about two feet. I mean, start right at the collarbone").

▪ MSNBC's Ed Schultz ("I really think there are conservative broadcasters in this country who would love to see Obama taken out.")

Is that the kind of "civil" tone Mr. Obama was touting at the Tucson pep rally…oops, I mean memorial service?

Did I leave out Chris Matthews? When I saw his splenetic ravings on TV, I actually felt sorry for the guy. He must look at himself in the mirror and wonder, as I do, how a man with such a keen intellect and impressive political credentials could preside over a show that is so consistently in the ratings cellar. Hint: the public isn't buying what you're selling, Chris…the hate, the vitriol, the far-left views that are so blatantly at odds with the overwhelming majority of Americans.

As one of the main targets of the "blame conservatives" mantra, Rush Limbaugh wasted no time in dispensing with the leftist blather: "When I think of the left wing," he said, "I think civil, don't you? Code Pink, the New Black Panthers, union bosses beating up black conservatives in St. Louis, ACORN, illegal alien marches…why, it doesn't get more civil than that!"

Columnist Michelle Malkin also dispensed with the myth of Democrat civility, exhaustively documenting (including stunning graphics) the left's ongoing and historical orgy of hate.

The Memorial Service That Never Was

Why did Mr. Obama wait a full two days (or was it three?) before he said even one word about this horrific national tragedy? It only took him five minutes to accuse the policemen of Cambridge, MA—on national television—of being "stupid" for detaining one of his pals, and even less time to tell people "not to jump to conclusions" after the Fort Hood massacre.

Was Obama's indefensible delay in responding to the tragedy to allow time for Arizona State University to acquire all the accoutrements of the pep rally they cravenly advertised as a memorial service, including the t-shirts on every chair emblazoned with what appeared to be a 2012 presidential kickoff campaign theme: "Together We Thrive"?

The managing editor of CanadaFreePress.com, Judi McLeod, explains the origins of this slogan...and it's not pretty. In short, it goes back to Obama's 2008 campaign. What a coincidence that it made its inappropriate return at the saddest time in Arizona's recent history.

One Internet wit suggested that the slogan should have been "Together We Connive." And Jim Hoft blogged, "The White House wants you to believe that they had nothing to do with the planning of the Tucson pep rally…even though the president, the First Lady and several top members of Congress attended the event. Of course, that's utter nonsense."

"Together we writhe would have been a more appropriate `sloganeering,'" blogged Pamela Geller of atlasshrugs.com, who followed the rally here: The Cheering in Arizona.

If, indeed, the White House did not help to coordinate this shameful event, then why did Mr. Obama fail to depart even one syllable from his speechwriter's words to stop the rah-rahing and hooting and cheering and to remind the raucous crowd that the event was to memorialize the dead and pray for the injured?

Even before he spoke, the "service" took on surrealistic qualities. Only the left—who worship before the divisive icon called multiculturalism and whose every breath is steeped in political correctness—could plan a memorial for the murdered Catholics, Federal Judge John Roll and nine-year-old Christina Taylor Green, for murdered 30-year-old Gabe Zimmerman, who was Jewish and an aide to the gravely injured Jewish Congresswoman (among the other dead and wounded), and have neither a Catholic priest nor a rabbi nor a Protestant minister anywhere in sight. Instead a Native American blessing was recited without once mentioning the word God! This is the alternative universe the left would like to inflict on the rest of us!

The King's Speech

As for Mr. Obama's speech, of course the left touted it. They are desperate to regain the momentum they lost—I think forever—on November 2^nd, but their praise sounded more like relief to me. The conservatives who joined in the touting reminded me of the group-think crowd who told the naked emperor that his clothes were oh-so beautiful.

More troubling were the prompts on the Jumbotron—the gigantic screen on which Obama appeared while delivering his speech—prompts saying APPLAUSE.

Did the same prompter—a human being, no doubt—post the directive to BOO when Arizona Governor Jan Brewer was introduced? Do the parents who send their children to Arizona State University think they're getting their money's worth?

Why did Patti H, who apparently took the Flickr picture of the Jumbotron, take down the picture and threaten to sue the BigFurHat site that ran with it?

Morning In America

Less than two weeks after the devastating Tucson tragedy, respectful mourners—unlike the pep-rally crowd—continue to blanket the lawns of University Medical Center with flowers, candles, and fervent prayers for the survivors of Loughner's rampage as well as the victims who died.

Congresswoman Giffords is reported to be on the mend, her husband, U.S. Navy Captain and astronaut Mark E. Kelly unfailingly by her side. The parents of the little Christina Taylor Green had the strength to donate their daughter's organs.

The sheriff of Pima County, AZ, Clarence Dupnik, who essentially launched the myth that conservatives caused Loughner's actions, was effectively slapped down by Megyn Kelly of Fox News, who exposed him as just another leftist crank spouting the tired talking points of the left.

Poll after poll showed an uptick in popularity and approval for Sarah Palin, the belief that the worse political rhetoric comes from the left , and every indication that the American public bought none of the toxic blather that the left and their evil twins in the media were hawking.

For me, witnessing the behavior of leftists throughout the entire Arizona tragedy was like watching the death throes of a huge beast that continues to flail, even after a harpoon has hit an artery. The midterm elections was that harpoon. The second blow was struck by leftists themselves during the Arizona tragedy when they displayed for the entire world to see the depths of their classlessness and meanness, dishonesty and hypocrisy.