The left has gone unchecked for so long now that its members, from political people to the press, must feel incredibly empowered. Only from that interpretation can we possibly explain much of what they do and say.
The "say" part is not just the outrageous content itself, but the hypocrisy with which it is delivered.
Exhibit A goes back to Thursday, when Donald Trump, presumptive nominee for president on the Republican side, gave a speech at the San Jose Convention Center in San Jose, California. The "California" part may have tipped you off to the fact that something nutty was on tap.
And it wasn't the speech.
About 300 storm troopers from the Clinton and Sanders campaigns (if they're paid by them it's OK to call them part of the campaign, right?) broke into full riot mode outside the venue. At one point, they surrounded a woman with a Trump shirt on and backed her into the glass door of the Marriott hotel there which, while the hotel people were slow to open the door to save her, left her open to being pelted with food, including eggs.
Finally the Marriott opened its doors and let the now egg-haired woman into the lobby. The rioters were ultimately taken care of by police, and the woman ... well, I didn't hear what ended up happening to her, but presumably she was made safe at some point. At the same time, thousands were safely listening to and enjoying the speech by Mr. Trump.
Now, when you hear that there is a riot at a political speech, it is almost assumed that it is leftists rioting. Admit it, goes without saying, right? Why did none of the media accounts on Friday point out that it was Bernie and Hillary supporters who are always the ones rioting, and it is never conservatives doing the damage?
We know the answer -- the media (who are the left) don't want anyone to differentiate the left and its riotous default position with the right and their, well, lack of rioting. Might make someone look bad, y'know.
As if on cue, the left-slanted Associated Press made a phone call to San Jose's mayor, the (dis)honorable Sam Liccardo -- a Democrat and Hillary Clinton supporter, to see what he thought. Liccardo criticized Trump for "coming to cities and igniting problems that local
police departments had to deal with."
“At some point Donald Trump needs to take responsibility for the
irresponsible behavior of his campaign,” he told the AP.
Do we not have to look at that statement and wonder how deep in his cocoon Liccardo is to have thought he could just -- well, say that and get away with it? I mean really -- Trump comes to San Jose and gives a speech, 300 paid leftists riot and cause Liccardo's police force to have to intervene, and Trump is to blame? The "irresponsible behavior" deserving blame is not that of the rioters?
What does that even mean? OK, we know what he meant. But if he thinks Trump is that riot-inciting, then why didn't he just invoke some kind of power and stop the speech in the first place? We know why -- that would have turned San Jose into Brown University, where conservatives are not allowed to speak to the little precious snowflakes who might be hurt by new ideas. And that might work for an Ivy League campus (it doesn't, but they think it does), but not so much for an actual city where free people live including people who vote for mayors.
All of which leads me to a separate point. You know how there's a big issue about people saying that rape victims -- actual ones, not the liars like "Jackie" at the University of Virginia (who really needs to be named now that she's been exposed for her lying) -- "brought it on themselves" by provocative clothing and the like. You've heard that.
I'll tell you right now -- there is no justification, none at all, for rape. No woman who is attacked should be accused of "inviting it by virtue of what she wore." Can I be more clear?
But there are media accounts of the incident in front of the Marriott that point out that the woman who was hit was arguing back with the rioters in defense of her candidate, and this was presented in such a way as to appear to defend the actions of the rioters. This was last week, but I certainly recall seeing such coverage and the odd slant to it when describing her actions.
What happened was not rape, but it was a gang attack on a woman, by a rioting crowd. Even while watching the attack on TV, I was immediately thinking "How can the newscast try to portray this as something she brought on herself, even just by implication -- and there was certainly implication?
Is it not hypocritical of the left to say, out of one side of their mouth, that there is no defense for one kind of attack on a woman by saying she dressed provocatively, but out of the other side that it is OK to defend another kind of attack because she allegedly spoke provocatively? I know I was thinking of exactly that analogy as I watched the coverage.
In both parts of this piece, it is clear that the left believes it can say whatever it jolly well pleases, no matter how ridiculous. No one will take them to task for their hypocrisies. No one.
OK, I will. I had nothing better to do anyway.
Copyright 2016 by Robert Sutton
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