Thursday, June 18, 2015

CHARLESTON 2015: WE HAVE A WINNER.

Feeling bad about what happened in Charleston yesterday? Spare some sympathy for Mona Charen at National Review:
The heinousness of a person who can sit for an hour studying the Bible and then open fire is unfathomable. Even more depressing, if that’s possible, is my suspicion – and I truly hope I’m wrong – that this event will play a role in the 2016 presidential campaign.
This was treated with appropriate contempt on Twitter and elsewhere, and Charen roared back:
Some people, determined to see bad faith in those with whom they disagree, are seizing upon my post earlier today...
("Seizing upon" means "accurately quoting," in this case.)
Am I someone who’s more upset about politics than murder, hatred, and death? Um, no.
She said "um," that settles it. Wait, Charen has more:
I should have put it more precisely. The feelings of grief, rage, and horror at an atrocity such as we saw last night should be taken for granted among all civilized people. One doesn’t feel “depressed” about an event like a mass shooting. One does get depressed at the cynical uses to which such outrages have lately been put.
She didn't mean what she said, and we're monsters to think she did. Context doesn't redeem her, though. I've read quite a bit of Mona Charen's work. Here she's beating up on unwed mothers ("Of course some women want babies the way others crave shoes..."). Here she's tying thwarted attacks on the White House to Obama's "divisiveness"  ("his death at the hands of an assassin could still well be more pain and stress than our republic could stand. It’s a good bet that close to 100 percent of blacks and a good percentage of others would believe that a demonic conspiracy brought him down..."). Here's "Democrats do tend to be less patriotic than Republicans. There, I've said it out loud." I could go on, but if there's one thing covering these guys for years has taught me, it's that with someone like Charen there's no reason to interpret anything she says charitably.

Nine dead and she and the Republican Party are the victims. Sheesh.

UPDATE. Now Ian Tuttle is over there defending the Confederate flag:
But with respect to Ms. Kendall, this hateful man’s use of a slogan is no proof that the slogan itself is hateful. Elected leaders make this distinction constantly when it comes to Islamic terrorism, after all: The teachings of Muhammad, the Koran, the black flag with the Shahada (the flag of ISIS) — they have been “hijacked” and “perverted.” Why hasn’t Dylann Roof merely “hijacked” or “perverted” the main symbol of the Confederacy?
Interesting approach -- if you think Islam is different from Islamic terror, you must accept that those who fly the Battle Flag aren't necessarily endorsing the Peculiar Institution. But apparently it doesn't work the other way around: Here's Tuttle last year with a post called "No, Pointing Out Muslims Have Been Beheading People for Centuries Isn’t Islamophobic":
The larger question is whether Islam qua Islam sanctions beheading — or if jihadists pervert a religion that, in its orthodox form, is peaceful.

That debate can be left to religious scholars. What is evident is that, as Tantaros observes, the masked men in our age who delight in chopping off heads are typically Muslim, and they believe that they have the sanction of their religion. Furthermore, that religious fervor has made them less than amenable to reasoned, dispassionate negotiation.
If you tried this approach on the Charleston killer -- "the question is whether racism is a perversion of the neo-Confederate cause," for example, "but what is evident is that racists are typically neo-Confederates..." I expect Tuttle would be grievously offended on behalf of Nathan Bedford Forrest and the rest of his heroes.

143 comments:

  1. Rand Careaga3:54 PM

    "...my suspicion – and I truly hope I’m wrong – that this event will play a role in the 2016 presidential campaign." Cripes, I hope as well that she's wrong. The notion that the poisonous rhetoric Charen and her co-enablers have been injecting into our discourse for decades should actually be discussed in polite society...it's too depressing to contemplate.

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  2. Ubu Imperator4:01 PM

    The only role it will play is from the GOP contenders oozing forth variations on how MOAR GUNS are what we need to prevent further tragedies like this one.

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  3. Cato the Censor4:03 PM

    I've never had the misfortune of meeting Mona Charen, but I did several decades ago know a woman who claims she's one of Ms. Charen's best friends and she's definitely one of the most horrible human beings that I've ever seen.

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  4. coozledad4:12 PM

    The Republicans were the first out of the gate with 'They're targeting us Christians."


    It was a political murder, inspired by the Republican rhetoric of the past forty years. The depressing thing is they will not be forced to wear it around their goddamn pencil necks until they die.


    Also there is this:
    if everyone in that church had been packing heat, this wouldn’t have happened (!)
    If that creep had gone into that church and got himself shot every wingnut in the country would be out on the street baying for black blood. They’d be screaming “Al Sharpton, Al Sharpton!” at the top of their frothy lungs, and there’d be cries for martial law. This country is racist to its bones. Blacks are forbidden access to any kind of justice, particularly of the frontier variety.

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  5. montag24:18 PM

    I'm actually a bit surprised that she didn't say this was going to cause a lot of unnecessary unpleasantness for the NRA.



    Maybe that comes after she's finished tapdancing around her most recent stab at manufacturing victimhood for her team.

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  6. Ellis_Weiner4:25 PM

    Yes. And we will wait--let some other cynic say "in vain"--for Mona Charen to deplore it when it happens.

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  7. tigrismus4:26 PM

    "I really hope nobody tries to cynically politicize this tragedy, like those low and divisive Democrats often do."

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  8. montag24:28 PM

    Fox was pretty much leading with the "attack on Christians" fantasy.

    As Charlie Pierce said, approximately, if Nikki Haley has cause to wonder why this happened, as she's apparently been quoted, maybe she ought to look out at that Confederate battle flag flying over the state capital. It might give her a hint.

    This is precisely the sort of event that brings out the weapons-grade denial in great swathes of the reactionary segment of the American public, so it's no wonder that Roger Ailes' sandbox is doing its best to spin this as something it very, very clearly isn't.

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  9. Am I someone who’s more upset about politics than murder, hatred, and death? Um, no.


    No. of words Charen wrote about the shooting: 117


    No. of words Charen wrote about how she thought evil race-baiting poopyhead Democrats would talk about the shooting: 442


    Now, I'm not saying that Mona Charen is 3.77 times more upset about politics than murder, hatred and death. However, all evidence suggests that she does find outrage 3.77 times more enjoyable than sympathy.

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  10. coozledad4:31 PM

    You know they're shitting bricks since the bastard got caught alive. He and his trashy family will be repeating right wing talking points every time they get near a camera or a mic.

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  11. ken_lov4:34 PM

    You could have added that Charen, after writing a whole post leveraging this atrocity into a crude attack on liberals, piously concluded 'I very much fear that in short order, last night’s horrible massacre in Charleston will be deployed for the lowest kind of divisive politics'.

    A truly despicable human being, but her comments thread proves she's playing to the sympathies of her readership. Sample: 'You can be sure the newsroom at the NYTimes and WaPo were high-fiving one another, cheering, hugging. This is the greatest day ever for America's progressives.'



    Truly deranged people.

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  12. montag24:35 PM

    I'm picturing Megyn Kelly interviewing Bill-O and asking him, "uhm, uh, Bill, what do you think the South African and Rhodesian flags mean in his Facebook photo? Is this some sort of anti-Knights of Malta code?"

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  13. Helmut Monotreme4:37 PM

    She's reading off a freaking script and she still trips over her forked tongue. She's supposed to say "lone wolf", "terrible tragedy", "no one could have foreseen", and then a few mealy mouthed regrets about "politicizing the tragedy" before winding up with "if only the victims had been armed". Hell she could have written it up beforehand, it's not like a search & replace couldn't generate the column the eight or ten times a year it applies.

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  14. montag24:38 PM

    Charen has friends? Wonders never cease.

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  15. Im pretty sure charen used to appear in the boston globe. She was one of the girst, and worst, op ed writers whose basic lies were so obvious that even my teenaged self could see through it.

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  16. ken_lov4:40 PM

    I'm sure Charlie Cooke will copy/paste his usual NRO post, like he does after every mass shooting. It explains why all the stupid arguments in favor of gun control, which the liberals will cynically exploit the tragedy to make even though they haven't yet, are wrong wrong wrong and in fact the solution to mass shootings is for everyone to carry, all the time.

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  17. montag24:42 PM

    Well, that would explain why Cooke emigrated to the U.S., because the Brits would never let a fuckin' git like him have a gun, and for very good reason.

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  18. Gromet4:45 PM

    Let's make a deal: One year, everyone age 18+ gets a gun and open carry is national policy. The next year, no one can have a gun. Both years we'll compile violent death statistics, and whichever policy produces fewer violent deaths, that's the policy we'll deem safer and automatically enshrine in the Constitution. Deal?

    (Btw I'll spend that first year overseas.)

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  19. JennOfArk4:47 PM

    Jim Hoft, the Dumbest Man on the Internets™, was braying about Sharpton only an hour or so after the shootings. Have they started yet with "...what about black-on-black crime, huh?" I was surprised not to see that on twitter last night, but you know they'll get there before the end of the day if they haven't already.

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  20. JennOfArk4:48 PM

    Those will never be mentioned at all.

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  21. BigHank534:49 PM

    Aw, Mona, don't feel bad! I also find many of your suspicions to be depressing as hell!

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  22. Atrios4:49 PM

    my "favorite" Mona Charen moment was years ago. For some reason - who knows why at this point - it was part of conservative lore that ADHD diagnoses were just some liberal plot because something something I have no idea. I don't even think she ever even came right out and said it, but obviously her kid had been diagnosed with it so suddenly it was a very important serious issue requiring concern and caring. She wrote a couple "hey guys, I know I'm a conservative and all, but this ADHD thing is really I promise please still be nice to me" columns. They just lack empathy.

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  23. John Wesley Hardin4:50 PM

    "Democrats have often used attacks on African Americans not just as opportunities to express their horror at racism or violence, but also to imply that Republicans secretly approve of racism."

    Horrors! It would be wrong for anybody to imply that Republicans approve of racism.

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  24. BigHank534:53 PM

    My inner cynic is wondering how long it will take the right to stuff eyewitness accounts of Roof's remarks to the survivors down the memory hole.

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  25. JennOfArk4:54 PM

    Has Fox even reported his remarks? I doubt it. It doesn't support their attack-on-the-faithful fantasy.

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  26. ken_lov4:57 PM

    Charen's only first runner-up I'm afraid. Rick Santorum wins the prize by crawling out from under his rock to trumpet that this was an attack on religious liberty. '"[W]e don’t know the rationale, but what other rationale could there be?" Santorum said on the New York radio station AM 970.'

    I was thinking possibly 'race', Rick, but I'm sure your rationale is much more likely. http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/santorum-charleston-religious-liberty-shooting.

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  27. That she conflates "the newsroom[s] at the NYTimes and WaPo" with "America's progressives" is proof that she's irremediably deranged. Although I suppose that the newsrooms may be marginally more "progressive" than their editorial boards and most of their pundits. ... OMG. Now I'm thinking that David Brooks will surely be writing something about this. Please, no.

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  28. MarkBarton4:58 PM

    Hell, it's not all that secret, most of the time.

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  29. DN Nation5:10 PM

    The concepts of "racism"/"racist" have been so whittled down by passive-aggressive white racists (e.g., "I'm not racist, but...", "you're the real racist for noticing my racism," etc.) that there's only two entries left. 1) White hoods, burning crosses; and 2) Black people voicing legitimate complaints. Well, we can strike #1 off the list. This fine feller obviously identifies as white supremacist in every conceivable aspect, and yet- it's not *really* about race, it's about poor, poor put-upon Christianity as an entire concept! It's about attacks on the faithful! It's about Obama somehow! So without #1, we are left with only #2. The only racists are blacks. Racism is only Al Sharpton existing. Well done, everyone. Good show.

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  30. DN Nation5:16 PM

    Jim Hoft, who has oopsie-whoopsie-daisies "accidentally" linked to white supremacist websites numerous times in the past. That Jim Hoft. Ayup.

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  31. mortimer20005:27 PM

    The heinousness of a person who can sit for an hour studying the Bible and then open fire is unfathomable.

    Okay, I'm guessing that we don't even have to look if Mona (or any other wingnut) wrote the same thing about Scott Roeder.

    On another note, the NRA issued a statement:
    "The only thing that stops a bad white guy with a gun is a good black guy with a... wait, hold on..."

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  32. Alveda King was on Fox blaming abortion. Gotta leave it to those theocons - there's no tragedy that they can't bring back around to their own pet cause.

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  33. It's a truism among wingnuts that filthy libs are always using tragedies to their own ends. Thing is, there are plenty of single-issue cause hijackers on the left who do this, but none of them have drawn any attention since, what...the Iraq War protests? Dubya's second term at the latest?
    ("But they always want to talk about guns!" Yes, yes, how coarse and distracting to talk about guns after a shooting)

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  34. I'm wondering if they'll "forget" to take his shoelaces and the guy "overwhelmed by the guild" is found hanging in his cell.

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  35. I should have put it more precisely. The feelings of grief, rage, and horror at an atrocity such as we saw last night should be taken for granted among all civilized people.

    There's no reason to assume that she's a civilized person.

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  36. It's a truism among wingnuts that filthy libs are always using tragedies to their own ends. Thing is, there are plenty of single-issue cause hijackers on the left who do this, but none of them have drawn any attention since, what...the Iraq War protests? Dubya's second term at the latest? Meanwhile, nearly three years later and the FRC is still crowing about that security guard who was shot. If he had died, they probably would have interred him in their lobby

    ("But they always want to talk about guns!" Yes, yes, how coarse and distracting and irrelevant to talk about guns after a shooting)

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  37. Meanwhile, studying the Bible for an hour and beating up a gay guy is S.O.P.

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  38. I'm torn up about all this. I'm so sad.

    I can't say anything else about it right now.

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  39. For some reason - who knows why at this point - it was part of conservative lore that ADHD diagnoses were just some liberal plot because something something I have no idea.
    It's part of that weird "war on boys" shit that the antifeminists have been testing out for the last few years, the idea being that they're punishing boys for being boys by overmedicating them. And if you're wondering how the hell you can pin misuse of meds on liberals...well, for a certain group of cons, everything they dislike is a liberal plot. I've heard multiple cranks claim that whole word English learning is a liberal plot.

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  40. What I learned on the intertubes today:

    A white racist who murders nine black people in a church with a handgun while spouting racist bile is in no way indicative of racism or gun fetishism in America.

    A white racist who murders nine black people in a church with a handgun while spouting racist bile is a bad thing, but the partisan political sniping afterwards is something with which some people cannot put up.

    A white racist who murders nine black people in a church with a handgun while spouting racist bile is not a heinous enough act for some people to reconsider their consciences in regards to guns and racism in America.

    The Pope is acting like he never shits in the woods and a bearish market isn’t Catholic.

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  41. BigHank535:57 PM

    Don't worry, phonics gets singled out for conservative hate too. It encourages children to figure things out for themselves! That's Satan talking!

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  42. Gromet5:57 PM

    The heinousness of a person who can sit for an hour studying the Bible and then open fire is unfathomable.


    Yes, this is why the US Army specifically forbids the reading of Bible passages. Our troops need to be able to open fire on a moment's notice, and if they were to read the Bible, as Nonheinous-Americans? We can't fathom how they would do their job.

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  43. coozledad6:06 PM

    "Well, yeah, we forgot to take his tie, but we thought it was a clip-on."

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  44. Colleen6:11 PM

    I just wanted to personally thank you for counting this persons words. I couldn't even. I've gone back 10 times over my message to you and finally decided that, "person", would be the word I choose to describe Charen. Of course I'm only three drinks in. Alcohol just ain't cuttin' it so off to bed on a beautiful summer evening at 6:00.

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  45. Colleen6:15 PM

    I'm with you.

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  46. gocart mozart6:15 PM

    Cooter from the Dukes of Hazzard says we must not besmirch the good
    name of the Confederacy by tying it to a racist ideology. Irony, in
    response, gouged its own eyes out with a melon baller.

    “Now to hear that this son of a b**ch had a Confederate
    plate,” Jones said in an interview with The News moments ago. “That said
    it all for me. Those people are the ones who are defining this issue
    and not the millions and millions of good people who see it as a symbol
    honoring their ancestors. It’s a crying shame. Symbolism is a power
    thing. Carl Jung said that. And it’s the winners who write the history.
    There’s nothing we can do about it. You can’t appeal the Supreme Court.
    “But it won’t make me feel any differently [about his ancestors}.
    Except to make me more angry at the bigots and racists who desecrate the
    Confederate symbols,” he said. He said the events in Charleston, where nine people were killed, had left him devastated."

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  47. tigrismus6:17 PM

    It is shocking someone could sit with normal, decent human beings for an hour, hearing them read something and earnestly discuss what they thought it meant, and then shoot them, but merely studying the Bible for an hour? I can only guess she's either not read it at all or skipped large portions.

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  48. Colleen6:17 PM

    What I also learned on NPR and MSNBC today, ya know, liberal media.

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  49. Colleen6:18 PM

    Thank you.

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  50. gocart mozart6:21 PM

    Drat, my coffee is called. Fucking liberals.

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  51. Brooks'll probably just work a mention into his next breakdown-of-civic-virtues piece, and it will be as mealy and ambiguously offensive as everything else he writes. I'm more concerned about Douthat's take.

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  52. gocart mozart6:24 PM

    How do we know he is a lone wolf, maybe he is a Muslim convert.

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  53. gocart mozart6:28 PM

    "Study: Connecticut Gun Control Laws Saved 300 Lives In Decade"
    http://radionb.com/news/fox-news-radio/article26728/study-connecticut-gun-control-laws-saved-300-lives-decade

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  54. John Griffone6:30 PM

    Fox News:

    4 white men killed in a Libyan war zone by angry militants: Multiple congressional investigations costing millions of dollars are warranted.

    3 black men and 6 black women killed in a church in South Carolina: Nothing to investigate here, this is obviously an attack on Christianity.

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  55. susanoftexas6:33 PM

    Yes, and I expect Fox will show a photo of a random African-American man as the shooter at some point.

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  56. gocart mozart6:33 PM

    Apparently the kid's family was from South Africa. I found a loophole, it's African-American on African-American Crime after all.

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  57. M. Krebs7:34 PM

    If Charles Krauthammer were a woman (and stupider), he'd be Mona Charen.

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  58. gocart mozart7:38 PM

    The above comment is now front paged at LGM. I guess I am now a stupidity middleman.


    What Are the Odds That a Symbol of Treason in Defense of Slavery Would be Associated With A Racist Nut?
    http://www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/2015/06/what-are-the-odds-that-a-symbol-of-treason-in-defense-of-slavery-would-be-associated-with-a-racist-nut/comment-page-1#comment-1523122

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  59. M. Krebs7:56 PM

    I can see where one might blame a certain non-abortion.

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  60. I would upvote this comment for being so on-target with rightwing reasoning, but I also want to downvote it because it is so on-target with rightwing reasoning that I fear we'll be hearing exactly this line bilge within the next 24 hours.

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  61. Oh, I heard this crap already today from an Air Force guy I was talking to. "Well, if the shooter was a Black guy, you'd never hear about this at all, would you? Just another Black guy killing Black people!"

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  62. Jay B.8:02 PM

    But with respect to Ms. Kendall, this hateful man’s use of a slogan is no proof that the slogan itself is hateful...Why hasn’t Dylann Roof merely “hijacked” or “perverted” the main symbol of the Confederacy?


    Because the main symbol of the Confederacy was created in service to war and white supremacy, he's using the 'slogan' accurately and in context. As an atheist, I also think Islam is as crazy as Christianity and both are chock full o' nuts. So what's your point Ian?

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  63. hellslittlestangel8:48 PM

    I have temporarily lost my sense of humor about what horrible human beings so many Americans are.

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  64. redoubtagain8:49 PM

    Said African-American shooter will also be identified as a Democrat.

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  65. Howlin Wolfe8:51 PM

    My local rag used to (still might, I gave up my subscription) carry Mona. She was a source of an unnecessary rise in my blood pressure.

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  66. TGuerrant8:52 PM

    Yeah.

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  67. M. Krebs9:06 PM

    https://youtu.be/pe6kR3hCzC8

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  68. YNWA405159:07 PM

    That particular morsel of derp will be left for some other conservative welfare recipient to use to fill their column inches. As will the inevitable "false flag" idiocy.

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  69. redoubtagain9:08 PM

    But with respect to Ms. Kendall, this hateful man’s use of a slogan is no proof that the slogan itself is hateful.

    I live in Georgia, where you can still pay extra for this license plate.



    But you know, in all the time I've been here I've never seen that plate on a non-white person's car.

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  70. montag29:09 PM

    Hmm. If that's the case, then i guess we can have every reason to expect that we'll soon hear the right-wing Hallelujah chorus thrumming away at that old standard, "Letting Crazed Immigrants In To Kill Us," right?

    [Crickets.]

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  71. YNWA405159:09 PM

    Per Steve M., that (and so, so much more) was already happening beneath the story published over at Fox Nation:

    http://nomoremister.blogspot.com/2015/06/charleston-shooting-brings-out-worst-in.html

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  72. tigrismus9:58 PM

    One does not need to think the Civil War was the “War of Northern
    Aggression” to think that the “Blood-Stained Banner” represents
    something more than visceral racial hatred.


    Standing for racial hatred AND whatever else doesn't negate the racial hatred.

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  73. mgmonklewis9:58 PM

    Charen is like Kathleen Parker without the charm and towering intellect.

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  74. Yes, its just a matter of time before we Liberals are blaming fracking, drilling for oil in the arctic, climate change, Greek debt, Calif drought, and god-knows-what on the Racist Charleston Massacre.

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  75. Bitter Scribe10:03 PM

    I hope whoever is consoling the victims' loved ones remembers to add, "Don't worry. This event probably won't play a role in the 2016 presidential campaign."

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  76. Oh shit, oh shit, it's going to be almost impossible to say this wasn't racism. Uh ... QUICK LOOK OVER THERE! MUSLIMS!!!! CHOPPING OFF HEADS!!!

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  77. "millions of "good" people who see it as a symbol honoring their slave owning ancestors" Fixed.

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  78. If I'd known the Confederacy was a religion like Islam I'd totally have been more respectful. I suppose they have different sects, too, like Orthodox and Reform and Carlebach Confederacy and so on.

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  79. What is evident is that, as Tantaros observes, the masked men in our
    age who delight in chopping off heads are typically Muslim, and they
    believe that they have the sanction of their religion.


    Of course, delighting in chopping people's heads off is so much more barbaric than delighting in filling their bodies with hot lead.

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  80. From the news reports, the shooter had the South Carolinian version.

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  81. Except to make me more angry at the bigots and racists who desecrate the Confederate symbols

    Desecrate? Are they any non-bigots and non-racists who embrace the Stars and Bars?

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  82. That is the most horrific aspect of this crime. The victims welcomed him into their lives and he still killed them.

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  83. M. Krebs10:28 PM

    Heritage! I'm so fucking sick of that dodge/codeword.


    On the plus side, I'm really glad that the AG is a black woman named Loretta Lynch.

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  84. redoubtagain10:37 PM

    This. "My ancestors didn't own slaves" -- yet they fought for the rebels anyway. Because, given a couple of breaks, someday, they might.

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  85. redoubtagain10:38 PM

    He was welcomed with open arms, and answered by opening fire.

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  86. montag210:42 PM

    Not to mention that we never hear this same argument directed at our partners in crime, the Saudi royal family.

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  87. billcinsd10:46 PM

    Drat, my coffee is called.

    what is your coffee called? I usually go with Wheeler in honor of Shannon Wheeler's Too Much Coffee Man

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  88. I bumped on that line too. What must be taken for granted is that this atrocity absolutely inevitably and who would have doubted otherwise has happened in the USA and not, say, in Iceland or Japan or among any other "civilized" people. Charen and the company she keeps don't want us asking why.

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  89. "But with respect to Ms. Kendall, this hateful man’s use of a slogan is no proof that the slogan itself is hateful."

    When I first read this I thought the slogan being referred to was "You rape our women… you have to go." And I thought: wow, they're really all-in this time.

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  90. M. Krebs11:11 PM

    https://youtu.be/oa3uuj0gx4g

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  91. AGoodQuestion11:16 PM

    One does not need to think the Civil War was the “War of Northern Aggression” to think that the “Blood-Stained Banner” represents something more than visceral racial hatred.


    You can read Tuttle's post forwards, backwards, and sideways and not hear from him what that "something" might be. Whether this is a sign that he doesn't know himself or a case of discretion being the better part of not losing your gig I leave to your imagination.

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  92. montag211:18 PM

    Kind of a metaphor for Iraq....

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  93. AGoodQuestion11:22 PM

    If that creep had gone into that church and got himself shot every wingnut in the country would be out on the street baying for black blood.
    This all over. An armed white guy gets blown away in a black church, especially if he doesn't get a lucky shot himself? Obviously he's just an innocent open carry enthusiast, they're thugs, and the church is officially just a crackhouse with a cross.

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  94. AGoodQuestion11:25 PM

    Fox's line in events like this is "Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain." At this point pretty much everything is the man behind the curtain.

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  95. montag211:30 PM

    Watch the fuck out for that Confederate Missouri Synod.

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  96. AGoodQuestion11:36 PM

    She's bought her own press. So many righty mouthbreathers have told her she's a genius she thinks she can actually do this shit cold.

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  97. AGoodQuestion11:46 PM

    The thing is that ADHD meds almost certainly are overprescribed. Obviously, though, the blame belongs to a nebulous feminist conspiracy, not pharmaceutical giants and their sweet campaign contributions.

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  98. Or blowing them up from an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle*, like civilized nations do.

    * The expensiver, the more civilized.
    ~

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  99. AGoodQuestion11:55 PM

    Did some in the confederate forces fight with honor and valor, as these things are defined? I'm sure. However, if you want to make important distinctions between the Confederacy and Nazi Germany (as Tuttle does) that is not the place to start. U-boat warfare takes some balls, no matter how you slice it.

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  100. Where'd you get that? I found Roofs all over Columbia area for generations, many Lutheran pastors.

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  101. Buffalo Rude12:34 AM

    Me too. Aside from a couple words I wouldn't say in front of my dear Ma', I'm at a loss for words.

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  102. Buffalo Rude12:36 AM

    Haha! "Secretly"? Yeah, no.

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  103. montag22:50 AM

    And we all get unpleasant little shivers knowing that the man behind the curtain is the fat Fox fuck, Roger Ailes.

    Here's hoping that he does his level best to piss off his new bosses and they send him packing back to his little fiefdom on the Hudson. Hell, even if didn't retire and hired himself out to Marco Rubio or Donald Trump, he couldn't possibly do as much damage as compared to where he is now.

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  104. montag22:59 AM

    Gotta admit, though--being able to turn a complete non sequitur into something that the mouthbreathers will believe is a kind of perverse gift. Maybe it depends only on the will to say something that stupid. Most of us would think, "I can't possibly make that sound like it makes sense," and wouldn't try, while the true believer just blurts it out and nods with conviction.

    Call it "the Reagan method."

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  105. And Richard Nixon lives on.

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  106. Who can argue with Carl Jung? Case closed!

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  107. I'm disgusted that FOX "News" and Rick Santorum are trying to twist this around to further their myth about some kind of "War On Christianity."

    There's no stupid "War On Christianity." Shame on them for using this act of domestic terrorism to further their own political ends.

    When someone commits an act of violence to further their own political agenda, that's called terrorism. When someone USES another's act of violence to further their own political agenda..... what is that? Is there some word for that?

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  108. montag26:04 AM

    Well, even if Ailes were to die of a broken heart, G. Gordon Liddy is still alive and kicking. The black heart of Nixon continues to give us no peace.

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  109. montag26:06 AM

    " what is that? Is there some word for that?"

    Two, actually. Black propaganda.

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  110. tickticktick8:38 AM

    "Why hasn’t Dylann Roof merely 'hijacked' or 'perverted' the main symbol of the Confederacy?"

    Maybe because his actions are the logical end of a philosophy whose "foundations are laid, its cornerstone rests, upon the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man." http://teachingamericanhistory.org/library/document/cornerstone-speech/

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  111. Helmut Monotreme8:54 AM

    Critical thinking is officially on the Texas GOP shit list:
    http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/post/texas-gop-rejects-critical-thinking-skills-really/2012/07/08/gJQAHNpFXW_blog.html

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  112. Helmut Monotreme8:56 AM

    Nostalgic fans of the Dukes of Hazard? Writers of Lincoln/Davis slashfic?

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  113. Helmut Monotreme8:58 AM

    Its a Heritage of slavery and treason, in the name of racism.

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  114. Professor Fate9:27 AM

    Of course they can't say this was a racist action - ever. Even if the shooter was wearing a KKK outfit as he gunned the folks down they wouldn't say this is racist. They can't say it because racists are a significant percentage of their voting base - exile the racists from the GOP and they don't win another election anywhere for anything.

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  115. satch9:29 AM

    "Sample: 'You can be sure the newsroom at the NYTimes and WaPo were
    high-fiving one another, cheering, hugging. This is the greatest day
    ever for America's progressives."


    More likely to be the case:


    "You can be sure the newsrooms at Fox News and the Wall Street Journal were weeping bitter tears that the hoped-for race war did not materialize. This is the saddest day ever for America's conservatives."

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  116. satch9:32 AM

    I'm picturing Megyn Kelly not noticing those flags at all.

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  117. satch9:36 AM

    Any con requires a talented grifter and a gullible mark.

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  118. satch9:42 AM

    "3 black men and 6 black women killed in a church in South Carolina: Nothing to investigate here,..."


    Wingnut bonus points for anyone who can connect the massacre to Hillary's campaign.

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  119. satch9:52 AM

    The Springfield Republican also runs Charen, but she gets lost in the miasma with Michelle Malkin, Cal Thomas, Thomas Sowell, George Will, Krauthammer, you get the idea. They think balance is achieved when they run Krugman or Leonard Pitts every week or so.

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  120. dstatton9:56 AM

    As we constantly say, it's always about projection.

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  121. Halloween_Jack10:16 AM

    I'm only obsessed about Rommel to learn about his tactics, honest! And the shrine with the candles that are never allowed to go out are part of that.

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  122. Many, many years ago, someone referred to her as "the execrable Mona Charon". The description was so apt that for the past decade or so, my brain automatically inserts 'the execrable' whenever I see her name. Every. Time.


    And it never fails to fit.

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  123. studying the Bible for an hourWait, does looking at the pictures count?

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  124. Confederate Missouri Synod.
    Based on my experience, this is redundant.

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  125. J Neo Marvin12:53 PM

    Is this dipshit calling a flag a "slogan", or have I misread something?

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  126. slavdude1:13 PM

    So, what I want to know is, where is the NRA? Why isn't Wayne LaPierre on the airwaves pointing out that if people had been allowed to carry in the church they could have stopped the bad guy?

    Oh wait, that only applies to white people.

    Sorry, somebody had to say it. Feh. Now I have to go shower.

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  127. slavdude1:27 PM

    Wait a minute--do you think she would even recognize the Rhodesian flag?

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  128. Huh? Who was "welcomed" in Iraq? If Roof had announced for months his intentions to wreak revenge on this church for something another church in another state did, and then forced his way in, shot a bunch of people, then tried to run the church as his own, killing more people, then looted everything of value and sold it to his friends, then killed some more, then left a bunch of weapons among the now crazy and angry survivors and went outside to hurl grenades through the window from a distance while picking a fight with the church next door, then it would work better as a metaphor.


    Iraq would probably be better off if all we'd done was invade, shoot up the place, and leave like in 1991.

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  129. SKelley2:17 PM

    Mona Charen's still alive? I haven't seen her in a decade. I thought Laura Ingraham made her bones by whacking her and taking her place on the corner i.e. Fox News.

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  130. Douthat's act seems to me one of treading the very thin ledge of respectable conservatism that hasn't been occupied by the President.

    Since this leaves very little space to work with, mostly dull thudd views on Catholicism, I expect he'll be worrying the Pope's cassock ragged for the next little while.

    -dlj.

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  131. My point exactly. And of course, when you think about it, the "black heart" of Richard Nixon lives on outside the souls of ghouls like Ailes and Liddy. He was the inspiration to millions (including my old man, if you must know) who think the apex of politics and social engagement is to beat down on the nearest hippie/liberal.

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  132. Nice try, Keta, but the corruption of public judgement -- of which Fox and the like are both symptom and feed-forward-loop cause -- is a serious and difficult question facing, threatening, America today.

    The conversation here is the early stage of getting at that problem, seems to me.

    Best,

    -dlj.

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  133. StringOnAStick4:55 PM

    We have the same father!

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  134. StringOnAStick5:07 PM

    My coffee is called Divine Elixer of the Gods", but YMMV.

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  135. ...the corruption of public judgement -- of which Fox and the like are both symptom and feed-forward-loop cause -- is a serious and difficult question facing, threatening, America today.

    No fucking kidding, Sparky. That was what I was getting at.



    But I'm certain your big-boy condescension will have have all solved by the end of the weekend. Idiot.

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  136. Keta,

    If you'll read your post over you'll see that it is divided into two, one in italics, obviously quotes, and an ending in roman, looking like a stupid commentary on the quotes.

    I'm afraid this is your error of expression, not mine of comprehension of a normally understood way of posting a half-witted message..

    The word you're looking for is "Oops."

    -dlj.

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  137. And yet most seemed to understand it just fine. Except you and your big brain.


    Your neck must work overtime supporting that gigantic head.

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  138. Your graceful and thoughtful style are noted.

    -dlj.

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  139. Lancelot Link2:01 AM

    Considering that Clementa Pinckney had been campaigning for Hillary Clinton earlier that same day, I don't think they want to go there.

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  140. SqueakyRat2:47 AM

    What better target for a false-flag operation?

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  141. DerBrunoStroszek11:15 AM

    "You can be sure that Mitt Romney walked off smirking after accusing the President of sympathising with the Benghazi attackers before the bodies were even cold, because it actually happened and we saw it."

    Projection, always, etc.

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  142. LittlePig1:34 PM

    "My ancestors didn't own slaves"

    Oh, they were just useful idiots then...

    And now, come of think of it.

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