In 2010, some Obamacare opponents conducted scattered protests at politicians' homes. They backed away from the tactic when Tea Party groups and others declared that home protests should be out of bounds.
Don't expect leftist protesters to receive any similar admonishments — especially if they continue to receive borderline-sympathetic coverage like protesting gun-control promoters, and even a person arrested for vandalism, received at the Washington Post on Friday.
The Post's Rachel Weiner opened her story using a classic "victim says" tactic to create uncertainty about actions concerning which there is no meaningful doubt:
From all appearances, all we have is what Chris Cox "says" — as if there's no other evidence that these fake-blood incidents happened. (Also, Weiner, though she did so much later, should have properly described Cox's job right off the bat. He is "the executive director of the NRA Institute for Legislative Action," not just a "lobbyist.")
Weiner waited until Paragraphs 16 and 17 to disclose the vandal's arrest (the person was described in Paragraph 4 as an "alleged vandal" without the arrest being mentioned):
Some supposedly "peaceful" protesters also engaged in a form of vandalism online:
... someone made a fake website for his wife’s interior design business, altering images of artwork to show photos of child gun violence victims.
After endless hypocritical lectures from the left about how opponents' families should be off-limits, Weiner cited this quote from another University of Nebraska-Lincoln prof who somehow made her mischievous way to Washington, and was one of two women who protested outside Cox's home and "handed out fliers outside his wife’s nearby business":
“Mr. and Mrs. Cox have been targeted over the past few months by repeated acts of criminal and unlawful conduct, including having their home vandalized on two occasions ,” Elizabeth Locke, attorney for the Cox family, said in a statement. “These coordinated tactics have crossed the line of civility and human decency.”
....Meanwhile, the NRA has become more forceful, opposing any new gun regulations and blasting dissenters with vitriol. These more radical activists say Cox, the executive director of the NRA’s Institute for Legislative Action since 2002, deserve to be singled out for that intransigence.
“I don’t think the Cox family is getting enough social pressure,” said (Amanda) Gailey, a professor at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln who (also) said, “People need to stop treating these predatory, sick people like they’re just a neighbor.”
That stance starkly contrasts with the Tea Party movement's reaction to a protest at a Cincinnati congressman's home in March 2010, as reported in the Post:
Weiner didn't cite any gun-control movement leaders who have distanced themselves from home and business protest tactics. That's likely because there aren't any.
John Sexton at Hot Air also learned the following about Ms. Gailey:
Amanda Gailey is the leader of a group called Nebraskans Against Gun Violence. In 2016, she was invited by the Obama White House to personally meet President Obama when he gave a speech in Omaha.
Weiner paraphrased a UCLA law professor who claimed that the gun-control movement "has been one of conciliation and increasingly modest demands over the past 50 years," while "the NRA has gotten more forceful, opposing any new gun regulations and blasting dissenters with vitriol."
What rubbish.
Cross-posted at BizzyBlog.com.
