NC Democrat assaults student reporterFollow

Yeah, it's like this all the time, especially when the people getting assaulted are plants from the opposite party trying to deliberately stir the hornets nest.

/shrug

I would suggest that to a degree *all* public outrage is "manufactured" to some degree. What makes it "public outrage"? How do you know when it's happening? When something happens in the news you might think "Wow. That's just wrong!", but if that's the end of it, then that's the end of it. If the news decides to run a story about how outraged people are about that something, guess what? The story continues and now it's about how outraged people are about said thing. Given the volume of stories in which this *could* be done, it's kinda telling to pay attention to which ones it *is* done.

And not to place all the blame on the media industry itself, there are whole organizations which seem to exist for not much else than to create exactly that sort of public outrage. They pick and choose which things they then make a big deal about, and they have enough pull with the media to get their "outrage" covered. Done properly, they can keep a story which might be forgotten in a couple days in front of the people for several news cycles.

Please tell me you didn't just realize that this goes on?

If it was a deliberate attempt at antagonism, then Etheridge gave in faster than a drunk cheer leader on prom night.

Edited, Jun 15th 2010 8:35pm by Allegory

Yeah, that's crazy talk. Sure there's circumstantial for a deliberate attempt at antagonism, but there is nothing in the video to indicate with any certainty beyond that. And all the supposition in the world behind the interviewer's motive doesn't really change what occurred.

Edited, Jun 15th 2010 8:38pm by Allegory

No, because Sarah Palin asked for that sort of press interview. She agreed to it beforehand. This particular Congresscritter didn't exactly go out of his way to seek press coverage from students.

I disagree with Catwho that the wording of it is important. However, asking Palin about the Bush Doctrine is radically different from asking about the Obama agenda. The Bush Doctrine is a specific point of foreign policy - you can readily agree or disagree with the general idea behind it, and nitpick the details with relative ease. Trying to answer about your feelings towards the Obama agenda, however, is essentially the interviewer going "list off every political view you have and explain the rationale, but by the way, we're only going to take the incriminating soundbites".

Gbaji,



Yes you do. The Democrats expected that this race was a lock and they wouldn't have to spend any money on it. This single act of violence and stupidity has changed all that. If the Democrats can quickly sell the story that these kids asked for what they got they can move on secure in the knowledge that this guys still a lock. If the general public see this as an out of control violent senator attempting to use his position and rank to intimidate citizens then the people of NC will be far less likely to re-elect this guy and the Dems will have to spend money they wouldn't have had to otherwise.

That's why the liberals on this site are like 'meh he's not my reprsentative and the kids started it anyway'. They know they're in trouble in Nov and things like this make it that much harder on them to retain the power they've been abusing.

Jophed,

It's not just the liberal posters on this forum alone but that groupthink mentality.

Joph,



But the amount of coverage this event receives will have a direct impact on the outcome of the Nov elections; and specifically which states receive what funding.

Do you remember the Maccaca incident a couple of years ago? Allow me to refresh your memory;




http://bigjournalism.com/fross/2010/06/14/macaca-this-the-tu-quoque-left-violence-the-msm-and-the-rise-of-the-flip-cam-citizen-journalist/

What are you talking about? Taliban Jack plays those same tactics.

Sometimes a story has legs. The George Allen incident, for example, had legs because there was plenty of racist dirt to dig up.

If it turns out that Etheridge has a pattern of being a physically abusive *******, then I'll be more interested in following his fall from power. If this is an isolated incident, then I'm staying with "meh".

In fairness to Varus, Rush & Hannity rarely mention the Chicago Tribune, because it's in fly-over country. The Washington Post is covering the Capital and, as such, warrants more coverage by the right wing media outlets. To him the Washington Post is national news.