The insanity of the blogosphere is on display today, and it's pretty embarrassing for all involved. Happily, the wingnuts are, as usual, even more deranged than we moonbats. The tale begins in Florida.
Channel 13; a local news station in Florida had two important announcements this morning. One was that "a soldier from Flagler County has died in Iraq." It was the first published announcement of the death of Sgt John Mele, who died Friday from injuries sustained from a roadside bomb. There also was a story on a student named Andrew Meyer. A left winger, he had vociferously interrupted a forum with John Kerry at the University of Florida. Police intervened, handcuffed him, and hit him with a taser. Videos on the subject abound.
As of an hour ago, there were over fifty links to the story of Meyer on memeorandum. Bloggers from the right were doubled over in their outrage, even if they were unsure why. (There were no comments linked to about Sgt Mele. None. He is of no interest to our friends on the right) Although the right initiated the outrage, we on the left were far too distracted by this minor event.
Was Kerry aware of what was going on? Did he do enough to 'deescalate' the situation? Why does this matter?
After viewing the video, Macho Michael Goldfarb of the Weakly Standard made fun of the "pathetic wailing when the cops tase him[Meyer]. I've been tased before, the company's PR reps hooked me up for a three second jolt at our office one day and it wasn't that bad." The Standard Chickenhawk seems not to have figured out that there are different levels of tasing. (It took six cops to get the cuffs on Meyer - how many do you think would be needed to pacify Macho Mike?)
Generally the right is outraged that the police intervened so swiftly. It would never have happened if a conservative was being heckled, they say. It surprises me to hear that so many police officers in Florida are Democrats - but who am I to argue?
Of course one of the first to malkinize the incident was none other than Michelle Malkin herself. She predictably donned her tin hat, adjusted the antennae, and proclaimed "that there was more than meets the eye". One has to assume that she was careless in her praise of one of her readers who made it clear that the Taser was used after the six (6) cops had handcuffed Mr. Meyer. Not that it slowed her down one bit.
The real problem is that some great bloggers from the left got sucked in. The Huffington Post condemned John Kerry's response, or lack thereof. There is much speculation as to whether or not he condemned the police strongly enough. He is not our standard bearer. Debating the manliness of John Kerry's reaction is about as stupid as we can get. It's reminiscent of arguments about Hillary's reaction to the move on ad about Petraeus. Are we going to grant hysterical wing nuts control of the conversation or not?
As Atrios put it, we suck. Why are we spending any time on such crap? The kid misbehaved. The cops over reacted. Let the University investigate.
Leave it.
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