Wednesday, January 12, 2011

Foxx-Speak

Today's Watauga Democrat just arrived, and we noticed the headline, "Mood subdued in wake of Tucson shootings." It never occurred to us that the "mood" being described was Virginia Foxx's ... until we began reading and learned that "U.S. Rep. Virginia Foxx is staying guarded in her response...."

That brought us up short.

So what mood, exactly, was she in when she gave the Winston-Salem Journal that extensive quote published in Monday's paper?

Nary a word about the many victims in that long screed. Not one. Instead, we got -- first -- defensiveness. It has nothing to do with any member of Congress, and nothing they've ever said, nor especially anything to do with Sarah Palin and anything she's ever said. Nut-jobs happen. If she'd stopped there, she could (almost) get away with "Virginia Foxx's response is guarded."

But then she launched into her own brand of inflamatory up-the-ante-ism.

"This guy appears to be a communist," she said. Really? Because Karl Marx was on his reading list? Ayn Rand is on there too. She might just as easily have suggested that "this guy is a doctrinaire libertarian." But she was only warming up for her real target.

She grabbed the single worst noun she could personally think of ... liberal. He's a liberal. And not just any liberal, but "the liberal of the liberals" [sic]. What evidence she would have to base that assessment on is not only invisible but also mythic.

Her intention, however, is crystal clear.

9 comments:

have you watched the news? said...

What about all the comments from the people that knew him that described him as a left wing nut job, or a liberal whacko?

RV said...

Sometimes a deranged person is just a deranged person.

Opinionated said...

I have carefully sorted through those comments. There was ONE person who described him that way. His closest friends (2 guys) simply described a pattern of withdrawal and disjointed speech that sound a lot like schizophrenia. And I would NEVER hang a political label, Left or Right, on someone with severe mental illness.

RV said...

I agree with you Opinionated. He is severely mentally ill. Schizophrenia often develops in the teenage years. It seems his parents knew that something was wrong but had no idea he was capable of doing such a thing.

no you hven't watached the news said...

Maybe you should watch more news. I saw four different people describe him as liberal on three different newscasts.

Henery said...

Yeah, people like this have said he was "liberal" (http://thinkprogress.org/2011/01/13/gohmert-fbi-critic/)

No ulterior motive there at all!

Thanks Henery said...

Thanks for the link, Henery. The man makes perfect sense.

Brushfire said...

From The American Heritage Dictionary -
Liberal: Of, relating to, or characteristic of representative forms of government
Tolerant of the ideas or behaviors of others, broadminded
Tending to give freely, generous

Clearly these are characteristics that will lead a person to take up an automatic weapon and shoot randomly into crowds. (irony alert)
Paranoid Tea Partiers who love guns, hate Democrats, and fear liberals on the other hand....

Mike D. said...

J.W.,

My post did not appear here, and I do not believe there were any comments on this thread when I submitted it. Was it lost or censored? If it was censored, was its content at least taken to heart?