John Lennon murdered Sharon Tate. Jodie Foster shot Ronald Reagan. Oliver Stone and Marilyn Manson caused Columbine. A dog ordered the Son of Sam killings. And Fox News, the Tea Party and the American right compelled Jared Loughner to shoot Gabrielle Giffords and 18 others in Tucson.

The only reason these parallels don’t work is that while Charles Manson did in fact draw inspiration from “The White Album,” John Hinckley from “Taxi Driver,” Harris and Klebold from “Natural Born Killers” and (somewhat debatably) Marilyn Manson, and David Berkowitz from a Labrador retriever, there is no evidence Jared Loughner even watched Fox News or leaned right. Inconveniently, a former friend and bandmate described Loughern as “left-wing political radical” and “quite liberal,” and Loughner claimed The Communist Manifesto as one of his favorite books on his YouTube page where he also released video burning the American flag.

But when it comes to exploiting human tragedy to “pick a target, freeze it, personalize it and polarize it” (in Saul Alinsky’s words), no facts will obstruct a perfectly salvageable mainstream media narrative.

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UPDATE: The bounty is now $100,000 for any audio/video footage of the N-word being hurled at Congressmen John Lewis and Andre Carson.

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After 14 months of committing 100% to health care reform, the day after the signing of the Health Care bill was to mark the Democratic Party’s new primary concern: destroy the uprising, annihilate by all means necessary, the Tea Party movement.

The first sign that a plan was in place was the ham-fisted, high-camp posturing of the most controversial members of the Democratic caucus walking through the peaceful but animated “Tea Party” demonstrators on Capitol Hill. There is no reason for these elected officials to walk above ground through the media circus amid their ideological foes. The natural route is the tunnels between the House office buildings and the Capitol. By crafting a highly symbolic walk of the Congressional Black Caucus through the majority white crowd, the Democratic Party was looking to provoke a negative reaction. They didn’t get it. So they made it up.

The proof that the N-word wasn’t said once, let alone 15 times, as Rep. Andre Carson claimed, is that soon thereafter — even though the press dutifully reported it as truth — Nancy Pelosi followed the alleged hate fest, which allegedly included someone spitting, by walking through the crowd with a gavel in hand and a shit-eating grin on her face. Had the incidents reported by the Congressional Black Caucus actually occurred the Capitol Police would have been negligent to allow the least popular person to that crowd – the Speaker – to put herself in harm’s way.

That crowd was a sea of new-media equipment. Not only were tens of thousands people armed with handicams, BlackBerrys and iPods, so also was the mainstream media there, covering every inch of the event. Why did not one mainstream media outlet raise the specter that perhaps a video would exist to prove the events occurred? I am still dealing with the same press telling me we didn’t prove that ACORN was aiding and abetting criminal activity because we “did not provide enough audio and video evidence.” (Insert laugh track.) Is there not a blatant double standard at play here? Nancy Pelosi tipped her hand that race was a central part of her strategy. She invoked the Civil Rights Act and compared it with the universally reviled health care bill. Her caucus is doubling down on the civil-rights rhetoric. There are no coincidences.

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Yesterday’s big upset in Massachusetts, placing Republican Scott Brown in Ted Kennedy’s old seat, was a clear message from the voters to the Democrats, especially the president, that even lifelong Dems are balking at the crazed zealotry on display in Washington.

Obama’s response?  Full speed ahead.  “In substance, the mission can’t change.”

To prove he’s determined to stick to his plans, including nationalizing student loans, “card check,” cap and trade and immigration reform are also slated to be pushed by this administration. All are unpopular. The voters are disturbed by the backroom deals to special interests, the disregard for the public’s outrage, the marginalization of dissenters like the tea party movement.

All of this has lead to an anti-incumbent voter rebellion which resulted in yesterday’s Bay State thumping, just as it did in New Jersey and Virginia last November. The Democrats tried to rationalize away those defeats last year. The question is, will they do that again? Many long-term Democrat legislators are feeling the ground shifting beneath their feet as even safe Dems are no longer secure. The leadership of the party is putting on a brave face, saying they plan to plow ahead with Obamacare.  But many of the rank and file who voted for the earlier bills may bail on it now, seeing their political futures in peril. (more…)