Joe Huffman wrote on Friday about the WaPo overly praising Edward O. Welles of the Brady Campaign after his death a couple weeks back and contrasts it with the complete lack of any kind words for any pro-gun advocate, people who actually worked to preserve the Constitution and save lives. We have had a couple hard passings as of recent days.
Where was the praise for Neal Knox or Jeff Cooper in the main stream press when they died? Knox and Cooper were major players in organizations larger and more influential than Welles. And Welles helped violate the rights of millions of people and bears some responsibile for the deaths of thousands of disarmed victims. Where is the mention of that?
Also on Friday, James Taranto writes about the Seattle PI and their kind words towards a pair of women who just so happen to be domestic terrorists of the eco-socialist bent.
Passionate Arsonists
Mostly the piece is more puffery–we learn that Phillabaum “was socially conscious even as a teenager,” that she had “a strong mind of her own,” and that she once worked for a nonprofit where she was “an exemplary employee.” Kolar is a bit less appealing: “bright and skilled but distracted” while in college, “passionate about animal rights.” Her doctoral adviser says, “It’s not the least bit surprising to me that she carried her passions that far.”
But here’s a question for you: Suppose this pair were “pro-life” rather than “environmental” activists. Suppose they had firebombed not a research lab but an abortion clinic–or, for that matter, suppose they’d firebombed a lab that conducted embryonic stem-cell research.
Would an establishment newspaper ever give them such favorable treatment?
It is not the best analogy, but what if the young ladies were appealing their convictions of having carried firearms for their own protection while on campus at their respective colleges?
Methinks that perhaps the papers would be more than just a little less kind.
The lefty press is split on this type of reportage. Some, like our own Oregonian newspaper, tend not to write these puff pieces after one of their darlings proves to have feet of clay. The Oregonian’s style is to scratch them off their subject list, but without writing a “finis” pice that might reveal how the paper had been fooled all along.
The other style of handling this is more typical of Seattle papers, the WaPo and the NYT, who either pretend that the discovery of a dark side didn’t happen, or they make excuses like in your example above, “oh well, at least she had a vibrant youth.”
Neither style is correct. It is perfectly appropriate for a media outlet to have an about-face when new facts come in about the culpability of someone who was leading a double life.
I’ve had several in my blog, the latest regarding Randy “Duke” Cunningham, who I once praised to the skies for his being an actual fighter ace in ‘Nam.
The example of ex-Governor and ex-Sec’y of Transportation Neil Goldschmidt are the best ones hereabouts. He’s the one, of course, who boinked his 14-year old babysitter and fell from grace as a (D)onk icon of Oregon when it was revealed, 30 years later, by his victim, who had run out of hush money. Goldschmidt was perhaps the highest icon ever to fall in disgrace, but to their credit, the Oregonian now uses him as an example of anus majoris, not of “bright guy with a foible” as some other rags were wont to do.