The argument, untouched and unconceived by mainstream conservatives, which would put the liberals on the defensive

Two days ago I wrote:

The left, through its wild charge that “conservative hatred” is responsible for the Tucson mass murder, is spreading hatred of conservatives. The left is actually doing to conservatives what it falsely accuses conservatives of doing to liberals. That is the Big Lie.

Now imagine if a conservative on one of the talking heads TV programs said to his liberal counterpart exactly what I said above. Imagine that instead of merely defending conservatives from the false charge of having caused the Tucson mass murder by “spreading hatred,” instead of merely politely criticizing the left for their smears, a mainstream conservative commentator accused the liberals of spreading hatred—accused the liberals of actually doing to conservatives what they are falsely accusing the conservatives of doing. If a conservative spoke such words, it would make the liberals’ heads explode. It would transform this whole debate and put the liberals on the defensive. To my knowledge no mainstream conservative has made such an argument. It probably hasn’t remotely occurred to any of them.

- end of initial entry -

LA writes (4:17 p.m.):

Well, here might be the sort of thing I’ve been hoping to see. A reader sent this from Jim Hoft’s blog, Gateway Pundit:

Franklin Graham on Tucson Shooting: The Left Is “Inciting Hatred” (Video)

Unfortunately the video contains no more information than Hoft’s headline. James Rosen of Fox says that Franklin Graham said that the left is “inciting hatred.” That’s the full extent of the Graham quote. There is no video of Graham. And it didn’t occur to Hoft to inform his readers that there were no further statements from Graham in the linked video beyond what Hoft had already quoted. This is why sites like Gateway Pundit are largely a waste of time. They contain very little text, and lots of video links, and very often the videos don’t contain anything worthwhile, but there’s no way of knowing that until you’ve wasted several minutes watching them.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at January 10, 2011 03:24 PM | Send