I expect union activists and Democrats to use violent, uncivil rhetoric and imagery when referring to Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker.
Of course, their protest signs and their chants are offensive. Their tactics of choice are ugly. That's documented.
I expect TIME magazine, however, to be more responsible than those protesters. I expect TIME to take care when it comes to its choice of headline language.
TIME's headline for an article by Dawn Reiss is absolutely awful.
"Wisconsin's Governor Wins But Is He Still Dead Man Walker?"
The state capitol of Wisconsin had taken on an eerie quiet on Friday. Gone were the throngs of protesters who occupied its marble floors like a campground in summer. The midnight honking of cars circling the white building had ceased. The chalk "dead man" outlines etched with Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker's name on the sidewalks remained in dismembered parts, incompletely washed away by clean-up hoses.
"DEAD MAN Walker" as a headline?
What were they thinking?
The chalk outlines left by protesters are disgusting. The hate comes from the Right. Yeah, sure it does.
If chalk "dead man" outlines with Obama's name were on the sidewalk outside the White House, the Secret Service would be investigating. There would be outrage.
...The protesters do have a lot of contained anger to vent. The demonstrations — a "quiet riot" according to some — managed not to turn violent. Though tensions mounted toward the end, there were never any real door-busting down, glass-breaking riots. It's been horn-blowing and buttons instead of fist fights. There's been drum-beating and dancing instead of destruction. There were lots of baby strollers and wheelchairs decked out in snarky signs. When Bill Hoyt, 52, saw his middle and high school daughters and their friends banging on glass panels on the capitol grounds, he reminded them to be respectful of government property, that destroying anything wouldn't be a good use of their frustration and only create more problems.
The frustration from the defeat will be channeled elsewhere. Wiping tears from beneath her dark rimmed glasses, Anne Moser, 47, who works for University of Wisconsin Madison's science-based Water Library, said, "People know that violence doesn't get you anywhere. The attack the Republicans have made is violent and a violation of human rights. It is an attack on the middle class. We teach our children to follow rules and to sit and the table and work it out, but that certainly hasn't happened here." And so she and her allies may seek there revenge elsewhere: in a court of law or, most probably, in a polling booth.
I'm sick of the liberal media declaring that the protests weren't violent.
The thugs forced their way into the Capitol, breaking doors and defying police. I don't think chalk "dead man" outlines are "snarky." I think they're gory and threatening. I don't think Gandhi would have approved of such displays. That's not peaceful protest.
Words and images can be violent, too. Protesters don't have to break windows and burn buildings to be breaking the peace.
To be sure, many protesters expressed themselves peacefully. Thousands did not.
Dawn Reiss seems to want readers to accept that the protesters' behavior was appropriate, that it's OK to depict Governor Walker with the chalk outline of a murder victim.
Calling Wisconsin's governor "Dead Man Walker" isn't clever. It's irresponsible. It suggests assassination and execution.
Did Gordon Hintz write the headline?
New tone?
I don't think so.
Double standard?
Absolutely.
4 comments:
I couldn't have said it better myself. The whole Democratic/Union/Protest response was pretty disgusting from start to finish. Oddly enough, when Representative Gabrielle Giffords was shot and after the persecution of Sarah Palin, out of curiosity, I executed a Google investigation looking for "hate speech" committed by the "Left" and/or press against the "Right". I was really surprised, because, while I remembered observing quite a few off color comments while the political conflicts of the past were still "hot", very few.. almost none of them seemed to survive as a matter of public record. Many cached on Google had actually disappeared (or were removed) on their respective original servers.
I found this to be interesting, if not slightly weird.. What does this mean? Has my memory failed me? There has never been a Liberal bias in the press? Has no one on the "Left" ever used distasteful speech toward someone on the "Right"? Could they be that organized to have taken down or erased all references to their use of questionable speech before skewering Sarah Palin of for the use of “crosshairs” in her political propaganda? Was my memory failing me?
I can’t say, and I hate to cry conspiracy, but I suggest we, in the future, the next time the press or the “Left” chooses to criticize someone else on the “Right” for their poor choice of words, quickly scan the internet for this story. I would be surprised, unless something occurs really really soon, like next week, if it still exists in print online.
The whole Sarah Palin controversy was such a stretch. Trying to connect the “crosshairs” on a piece of meaningless tangentially related propaganda in an attempt to crucify Sarah Palin in the eyes of the public was “dirty” to begin with. This is much worse and grossly blatent. I predict though, if and when the "Left" feigns uproar again, all traces of this disgusting and hypocritical Time article will be gone.
Uh, ahem, er, what about that target thing on Palin's website? These people are despicable.
The "media" is officially "dead," BTW; they no longer exist. They are now irrelevant. They have failed beyond belief.
The coverage, the double standards, the bias -- pathetic.
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