Chris Matthews' "Let Me Finish" tonight was probably, for me, the low point of his commentaries. It must have been Mark Halperin's toxic presence, Chris's reactionary Republican "brother" attempting to throw cold water on any talk of sensible gun control with his usual, cloying insincerity and biased, highly partisan commentary. It obviously went right over Chris's head, but wasn't lost on this political observer, with a nose for phonies like Halperin.
He ticked off the 2008 Democratic candidates — Barack Obama, John Edwards, and Hillary Clinton — as examples of politicians who rejected gun control, apparently a "coastal" liberals' thing. Halperin archly suggested that these "well-meaning people" lack the "intensity" and "resources" of the other side. Perhaps. But I cannot believe that reasonable people, Independent suburbanites, the voters Obama is
courting in this election, would oppose common sense legislation, e.g., to outlaw high-capacity clips and close the gun show "loophole," among other reasonable regulatory proposals. The deviant, one-issue gun nuts, like Chris's brother, will never vote for Obama anyway, so who cares?
Meanwhile, Chris stayed mum as Halperin weaved his craven deception of plausible-sounding LIES, with Chris wrapped around his little finger. Allow me to set the record straight on Mark Halperin's usual misinformation:
BY RICHARD SISK
DAILY NEWS WASHINGTON BUREAU
Thursday,
March 26, 2009
WASHINGTON
- Secretary of State Clinton called for a new assault weapon ban in the
U.S. on Thursday in hopes of cutting off arms flowing to Mexican drug
gangs — and was immediately blasted by the gun lobby. Clinton was naive
in thinking that "if Americans give up their freedoms, that it's somehow
going to affect the operations of the Mexican drug cartels," said
National Rifle Association spokesman Andrew Arulanandam.
White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs also signaled that President
Obama wasn't itching for a fight with Congress to renew the assault
weapon ban enacted by former President Bill Clinton. It expired in
2004.
I would remind Matthews that Hillary's
husband, Bill Clinton, at great personal political risk to his
presidency, passed the assault weapons ban in 1994. Then, as early as
2009, after the 2008 campaign referenced by the LIAR Halperin, Hillary
expressed support for a new assault weapons ban to keep such military
weapons away from the Mexican drug cartels. Made sense. To the Mexican
president, too. Naturally, Chris compounded his imbecility by gushing,
"Mark, my colleague, my idol, you nailed it, as usual!"
But it gets worse. Chris raised the white flag of surrender to the NRA with
this bromide-laced statement of helpless spiritual abdication to the
world's bloodiest, most violent society:
"I wonder if some events are not just beyond our
control, but well beyond. Even if we could outlaw the sale of guns,
let's face it: we've outlawed murder for centuries and that hasn't
stopped it. We could check on people with mental and emotional
problems but, let's face it...there are millions of people facing them —
people who live in their own private grief and confusion and pain, but
don't wreak havoc and horror on others."
"Well beyond?" Really!? Chris's triangulating hero, Bill Clinton didn't think
so. Nor, for that matter did Hillary, only three years ago. And isn't it
precious how Chris the Chameleon (he gets that way in Mark Halperin's
toxic presence) reverted to his reactionary Goldwater supporter self,
even drawling "CA-LA-RA-DUH" as if he's the Duke, John Wayne, playing
cowboys and indians, and no doubt killing lots of them
injuns.
Let's face it: No one calling for stricter gun safety laws in the wake of
this latest carnage has
ever suggested outlawing the sale of guns, much
less impinging on the Second Amendment. So Chris's gratuitous and gross
exaggeration is a self-evident red herring exposing the dishonesty of
his puerile, hand-wringing acceptance of mass murder, and the horrific
slaughter of innocent people out enjoying a movie, that he called "this
crime in Colorado." There's "crime," Chris. And then there's massacre.
Chris explains. We're a BIG COUNTRY, starring Gregory Peck and Jeanne Simmons, directed by Billy Wilder:
"Besides, this is a big country.
Millions of us live in our own private worlds, worlds that are good or
bad but have little to do with others. We have no right as a society to
go around checking in on people with all kinds of problems — mental,
emotional, or simply social. They certainly don't want us doing that,
I'm sure of that."
Um Chris, I hate to break it to you, but we're not that big by population density. America's percentage of the world's population is only 4.47% despite our huge carbon footprint, contributing fully 25% of the world's greenhouse gases. Geographically, we come in behind Russia and Canada.
Yeah, I get it; some may hazard a hunting expedition with Dick Cheney —
pronounced CHAY-NEE; pay no mind to Chris's ridiculous losing obsession,
mispronouncing the Dark Lord's name, from, amusing irony, a dude with a
heavy Philly accent — wandering the open Wyoming range with guns
strapped close to genitals. I get it.
But not this bizarre, gratuitous remark: "We have no right as a society to
go around checking in on people with all kinds of problems — mental,
emotional, or simply social. They certainly don't want us doing that,
I'm sure of that." I don't know from what dark recesses of Chris's mind
this sprang, but no one addressing the mental illness aspect of mass
killers has suggested any such intrusive Big Brother therapy. Chris
would be better served worrying about the state's capacity to track our
locations through cellular phone signals, not to mention the privacy
issues involving e-mails, phone conversations, and ubiquitous surveillance.
What has been suggested, however, is to the extent we make mental health care available to a larger population, as part of President Obama's ACA, the ability of mental health professionals to catch the warning signs in a disturbed individual will have increased exponentially before they become homicidal. The argument that because we cannot catch every potential mass murderer or suicidal individual means we should throw our hands in despair, give up, and do nothing, is absurd.
Norway's Andres Breivik slipped through the cracks and massacred 77 people, in one of the worst mass murders in history. Still —
still, Norway ranks seventh from the bottom in murders. It remains one of the world's safest nations.
In 2009, Norway had .6 intentional homicides per 100,000 population compared with America's 5 murders per 100,000. Proportionally the U.S. has 8 times as many homicides. The incarceration rate in Norway is 71 per 100,000 citizens. In America it's 743 out of 100,000 citizens.The recidivism rate in Norway is around 20 percent. In America it's an astonishing 67% which says a couple of things about Bain Capital
USA: (1) The trafficking of prisoners is a huge profit-making enterprise which Mitt might very well be invested in; and (2) governments — state, local and federal have no interest whatsoever in rehabilitation; the Big Money is in warehousing bodies, the majority of them African American males, in for relatively minor drug offenses. Until they become hardened criminals behind bars.
Out of sight out of mind. Such is Chris's
exceptionalist America; a hand-over-fist profit-making prison industry so that he can go to the movies in peace in the 'Burbs of wealthy Virginia. It works. Most of the time. Statistically, it's sort of like flying. Chris concludes with a pious whimper unworthy of his better efforts:
"We are still a strong, caring society of people who can hurt when someone three thousand miles away has their life robbed from them, when someone we can tell is just like us feels the loss of someone they care about. And that is the one good thing to come of this, but it is — and do not let this pass like so many events in the news — far more important than the arguments we have here. Being united is always better than being divided. On this tragedy in Aurora, Colorado, we are surely
together."
Yes of course, we feel empathy for those who are hurting, victims of an unspeakable crime. Not only in America; anywhere in the world that people are suffering. We are human, after all. We are not unfeeling psychopaths, or sociopaths, like the killer. But I could not disagree more with the self-serving statement that the "one good thing to come of this" is that we are "a strong, caring society of people who
can hurt when someone three thousand miles away has their life robbed from them" and we are "united" ... "surely together" in sharing the survivors' grief.
With great respect for the victims of this heinous tragedy in Aurora, Colorado, I reject Chris's sentiments. He has a right to them, of course. But he is only parroting the familiar gun advocates' line, that
resistance is futile; that some things are beyond our capacity to "understand" and better that we accept and be supportive of the victims. For the second clause of this argument, like the second clause of the Second Amendment, is that "
now is not the time to be speaking of gun control." How often have we heard this meme the last couple of days? Mark Halperin has delivered his verdict of lies to reinforce Chris's unconditional surrender to the NRA — like Edward G. Robinson in
Soylent Green, preparing to be processed.
But in another program, Ari Melber dared to defy the conventional narrative. "There is a "systemic problem in the way we deal with this tragedy," he said defiantly. "They, the NRA do not have the right to shut the rest of us up." Good on Ari. The NRA is a despicable outlaw organization soaking in the blood of thousands of
innocent victims. Taking them on is a patriotic and moral imperative for every fair-minded citizen across this land.
of you have sat, and perhaps thought, with us!