A Tale of Two Shootings
Why The Difference In “Rhetoric” Here?
Two madmen slaughtered Americans in both Tucson, AZ and Fort Hood, TX in bloody killing sprees. Both were despicable and cowardly acts which ended in tragic death and wounding of many people. Certainly the critical wounding of Representative Gabrielle Giffords (D-AZ) and the killing of six people and wounding of 14 others on January 8, 2011 were horrendous acts of a very sick individual and called for an appropriate response, and Barack Obama pulled out all the stops. He sent the FBI Director, Robert Mueller, to Tucson to oversee the investigation, ordered the flags in Washington. D.C. to fly at half-staff, and observed a moment of silence with his wife and staffers on the South Lawn of the White House. Those were all appropriate responses to a national tragedy and could be expected for any similar situation.
However, Obama’s response to the Fort Hood shooting which took place on November 5, 2009, was bizarre and totally insufficient for the magnitude of the crime. Muslim doctor and soldier, Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, killed 13 fellow military personnel and wounded dozens of others. Christopher Hitchens, columnist for Vanity Fair, provided an interesting glimpse into the backdrop behind Hasan’s deadly and religion-fueled assault. And what was our putative president’s response to the Fort Hood massacre? His news conference was flippant, light-hearted replete with a “shout-out” and completely devoid of any real compassion for the slain and injured troops, and not one word of jihad or terrorism. And how is the Army’s investigation of Hasan’s holy war against his fellow soldiers coming along? Well, here we are more than fourteen months later and the investigation drags on.
The faux-conservative medium, FoxNews, made a paltry attempt at comparing both shootings, and simply chalked up Barack Obama’s drastically different responses to the two tragedies as an “evolved” reaction. In other words, Obama’s response to a national tragedy just got better with time. Really? That analysis begs for one to suspend credibility towards what was so obviously a purposefully detached, delayed, and muted reaction to the Fort Hood killing spree from the man who occupies our White House and is the putative Commander-in-Chief of those who were slaughtered at a military installation.
Harold
ACGR's "News with Attitude" 