Let's see if this lasts. I'm guessing it will.
Here's the opening paragraph of the Associated Press's 8:16 p.m. ET report on the arrest of Eric Fuller:
One of the Arizona shooting victims was arrested Saturday and then taken for a psychiatric evaluation after authorities said he took a picture of a tea party leader at televised town hall meeting and yelled: "you're dead."
The rest of Bob Christie's dispatch reflects either a failure by "The Essential Global News Network" to do a simple Google search on the guy, or, if such a search was attempted, a failure to report what was found.
Three of the results appearing on the first page of a Google Web Search on ["Eric Fuller" Tucson] (typed as indicated between brackets) are Friday items about an interview Fuller did on the far-left "Democracy Now!" program on that same day. One is at the Politico, which would seem to eliminate lack of knowledge as an AP excuse.
Another reference is directly to the interview. Here is all of what Fuller had to say from a transcript found at that "Democracy Now!" link (bolds are mine):
Once she walked up to me, she said, "I’ll answer your questions, but you have to wait." And there was a line forming up there, so I went over and I sat down and looked over my questions, only two of them, kind of long ones, and was trying to figure out which one and whether I should, you know, ask those questions, when I heard the sound of gunshots. And I looked over only about 10 or 15 feet away, where Gabrielle Giffords had been standing, and in her place was a very excited gunman who was athletically pumping out the rounds and pointing the gun at anybody that he could get a bead on.
People around me were being hit. I just dove for the ground. And while I was diving for the ground, a round hit me in the knee. I was conscious of that. And while I was on the ground, I guess another one, another round, hit me in the back. A fragment did; it hit me in the back. A woman went over and knocked the clip out of his hand. He was reloading. He had a Glock 9mm with a 30-round clip in it. And my thought on the ground was that he’s going to come and finish us off. But this woman knocked the other clip out of his hand. Then a couple of guys came along, bystanders, and they tackled him, knocked him to the ground.
I was in shock, and I just wandered out into the parking lot. And a woman was pushing a cart full of groceries out there. And I said to her, "I’ve been shot." And she just looked at me like I was crazy. I was taken to the hospital. And even though I was sedated and everything, I stayed up—I was staying up, stayed most of the night. And I didn’t know how to calm myself down, so I wrote down the Declaration of Independence, which I memorized some time ago. And that did help to organize my thoughts. And the first thing that I wrote down and what my reaction was to it was: "How many other people? How many other demented people are out there? It looks like Palin, Beck, Sharron Angle and the rest got their first target. Their wish for Second Amendment activism has been fulfilled—senseless hatred leading to murder, lunatic fringe anarchism, subscribed to by John Boehner, mainstream rebels with vengeance for all, even nine-year-old girls." There was a little girl named Christina Green, nine years old, who is one of the deceased.
Another thing I wrote down was, "Can we have another fundraiser at the target range, Jesse Kelly?" Jesse Kelly ran against her in the election. And I’ve heard him speak several—a couple of times, and I couldn’t believe he was a real candidate. I thought he was just like a fake candidate. It didn’t seem like anybody would consider him seriously. He came within 4,000 votes of winning the election. One of his slogans was: "Shoot a fully automatic M16 with Jesse Kelly." Kind of a very marginal personality and a low mentality.
I worked hard to elect Gabrielle Giffords. I would rather she was busy doing her job today than lying in a hospital with a gunshot wound in the head.
For what it's worth, Fuller's claim above that "I was taken to the hospital" contradicts what CBS's Early Show reported, presumably based on what Fuller told the program, on Tuesday: "He drove himself to the hospital and was released Monday."
Also, as an aside, if you listen to the end of the audio at the "Democracy Now!" link, you'll hear host Amy Goodman tell her audience that her next guest will be Frances Fox Piven (of Cloward-Piven Strategy fame). Other persons of not described as "frequent guests" at Democracy Now's Wikipedia entry include Noam Chomsky, Danny Glover, and Robert Fisk.
Back on point: Since when is the previous day's unhinged rant of a guy arrested for making a very public "you're dead" threat to someone with whom he happens not to agree not news? It would appear that the answer is: "It's not news if it came from a hateful leftist whose exposure would ruin the 'right-wing vitriol' meme which we're still trying to milk."
Cross-posted at BizzyBlog.com.
