Human existence is replete with tragedy. The fragility of life itself is what renders life so precious. All that we know and love can be taken from us at any time and at almost any place. Fires, earthquakes, floods and tsunamis sweep away thousands. Stages collapse and kill concert audiences. Balconies collapse and kill partiers.
Psychos engage in killing rampages. The Aurora shooting reminds us that dangerous psychos are and have forever been in our midst and can strike at any time and almost anywhere. Tragedy seems almost a cliche and certainly an understated word for the horrific mass murder last night in Aurora Colorado.
Modern science rarely knows what makes the mass murderer kill those he does not know. An obvious lack of humanity is the easy answer. The deeper or more proximate motivation is perhaps unknowable.
Upon hearing the news of the shooting, in the most apolitical of environments-a movie theater-every person of decency (indeed, perhaps every person who is capable of human empathy at any level) could have only one response: heartfelt anguish for the victims and their shattered families. What else could one feel?
We here at TRS certainly did not suspect an act of domestic terror, as practiced and advocated by President Obama's close friends and allies, William Ayres and Bernadette Dohrn. We did not believe the monstrosity to be the product of the political violence advocated by the Occupy Wall Street movement. Nor did we suspect the massacre was motivated by the racial hatred of the New Black Panther Party. Politics and political motivation were the furthest thoughts from our reaction.
It is often said that adversity reveals character, it does not make it. ABC News and Brian Ross revealed the true nature of their character this morning.
Brian Ross actually went on air with the following:
The baseless speculation of Ross' commentary is far more than an example of liberal bias that motivates most of the news media; it is a spectacular display of the hatred the liberal media feels for conservatives. Running on air with a smear of conservatives, with no or distorted evidence is nothing new, of course.
But, imagine the thought process that lead to Ross' statement. Someone almost immediately engaged in the inference that this shooter (like the Gabby Giffords shooter, which at least occurred in a political setting) was somehow connected to a conservative political group. Only the deepest of hatred of one's political adversaries could have triggered even the initial suspicion of Tea Party's complicity in a horrific mass murder. The initial suspicion itself is the product of nothing more than a conviction that the Tea Party is composed of persons of such profound evil that they were presumptively involved in the worst of crimes.
We do not need to wait for an apology or a correction, but we should wait for the Tea Party in Colorado and whoever is the James Holmes involved with the Tea Party to drop one whale of a defamation suit on ABC and Ross. Hopefully the verdict will be so large that ABC News is simply put out of business. That might provide some justice and it just might make Ross' fellow traveller's with some circumspection before they indulge their impulse to engage in defamatory speculation for political gain.
