Comfortably dumb
by Tom Sullivan
Very serious people Ron Fournier and Andrea Mitchell discussed the political fallout from the San Bernadino massacre last night with Chuck Todd. To their credit, they spoke at length about the intensification of xenophobia on the right among Republican presidential candidates. Mitchell called out Donald Trump for bragging that tragedies boost his poll numbers.
Of course, no Village discussion is fair and balanced without "both sides do it":On Obama's response to yet another mass shooting:Andrea Mitchell: There's a creepiness going on here on both sides - the fact that there was, you know, prayer shaming going on and the bloggers...
Todd: I don't know what the left was doing on that. By the way, it was some people, and there were plenty of liberals that said 'What are you guys doing here?' There's nothing wrong with offering prayer.
Fournier: He knows where this is headed and he knows his party is headed in the wrong direction ... In a sane political environment, if you have one party doing prayer shaming and another party demonizing and profiling Muslims, they'd be laughed out of politics. They would be marginalized. We wouldn't write about them [crosstalk] We have two very dysfunctional parties and a media now that is not even [crosstalk]
Mitchell: This is not a serious political debate.
Todd: No.
Fournier: It's dangerous.
Prayer shaming? They were talking about Igor Volsky's Tweetstorm and the New York Daily News calling out political "leaders" for offering only thoughts and prayers in the wake of this and every mass shooting, rather than kind of action they demand, say, when terrorists behead a journalist or shoot up a foreign nightclub. Those kinds of tragedies demand a show of strength — boots on the ground and bombers in the sky. Mass shootings at home get only thoughts and prayers and more impotent hand wringing.
And right on cue:
A day after 14 people were killed in the mass shooting in San Bernardino, California, all four Republican presidential candidates in the US senate – Ted Cruz, Lindsey Graham, Rand Paul and Marco Rubio – opposed a measure that would introduce tighter gun laws.
They were among Republicans who overwhelmingly voted down a measure that would introduce tighter gun laws by extending FBI background checks on every firearms purchase.
As the country is becoming numb to these tragedies, we have Villagers comfortably dumb — if not deliberately obtuse — about why people might be fed up with Washington dysfunction on gun violence in the midst of an epidemic of mass shootings.
What is laughable is not marginalizing idiots who insist the answer is that every citizen go about her/his daily business packing for a gunfight at the O.K. Corral. But then, this is America. In Guns We Trust.
Mike Luckovich: pic.twitter.com/BkY5dktyeD
— Diane Sweet (@DianeSweet) December 3, 2015