Huff and Puff Plays Blame Bush Card
What’s the best way to let Eric Holder and President Obama off the hook for Fast and Furious? Why Blame Bush. It is the way to pass the buck on the economy, on unemployment and just about everything else… so why not Fast and Furious.
Today the Huffington Post offered this headline, “Fast and Furious-Like ‘Gun-Walking’ Probe Mentioned in 2007 Bush Administration Memo.” Well, there you have it, the smoking gun. Except maybe Huff and Puff didn’t get the memo that this is actually old news. No one is disputing this fact.
There are some differences. For one Brian Terry, the border control agent who was killed with guns from Fast and Furious. So far nothing this significant happened with the guns in Wide Receiver.
But that’s beside the points for the liberals, because somehow in their world two wrongs can make a right as long as they can blame Bush!
Crime Report Cites WaPo Figures Without Checking
Why bother reporting a story if you’re not going to do any additional reporting? That’s the question for the Crime Report, which essentially just boiled down information that ran in The Washington Post. The problem is that this capsulated piece does no original research. It simply reports what others have said:
“President Felipe Calderon says Mexican forces have captured more than 93,000 weapons in four years. Mexican authorities insist that 90 percent have been smuggled from the U.S.”
Of course this 90 percent figure has been widely debunked, but Crime Report failed to note that fact.
WaPo Offers Another Anti-Gun Editorial
We almost thought the year would run out before the editors at The Washington Post offered another anti-gun rant that blamed America for Mexico’s woes. No such luck. This week the editors at WaPo essentially pulled some paragraphs from past editorials and posted it once again.
The op-ed piece includes this passage:
“Over the past three years, some 30,000 people have been gunned down in Mexico in attacks fueled by drug cartels. Military and law enforcement officers there have seized some 60,000 weapons that were used in these crimes and traced to the United States. Mexican President Felipe Calderon has pleaded with U.S. officials to step up enforcement of gun laws and reinstate the assault-weapons ban. Doing so would be good policy but would trigger a fierce fight. For the moment, the administration has something much more modest in mind.” Read more
WCVB TV 5 Boston Offers No New News on Old Anti-Gun Story
Blame a slow news day, but some stories won’t die. This week we noted that WCVB TV 5 in Boston reported that the mayors of the Big Apple and Beantown teamed up to release a report “Trace the Guns.” The biased reporting, which noted “the study is aimed at helping mayors around the United States as they try to persuade state and national lawmakers to close state gun law loopholes and reduce gun violence,” offered no counterpoint.
Instead it was just simply akin to a press release.
The coverage included quotes from Mayor Michael Bloomberg of New York City, founder of Mayors Against Illegal Guns. But worrisome to us is that this is old news. It almost seems as if the media doesn’t want this story to die for some reason.
Mexico City Mayor Claims Undisputed
In a news story mostly about the new crime legislation in Chicago, CBS2Chicago.com included this passage:
“Mexico City Mayor Marcelo Ebrard Casauban said at the forum that 85 percent of the guns used by Mexican drug cartels come from the U.S., according to a published report.”
The problem is that this remains untrue. It was widely debunked a year ago, yet the mainstream media still reports this figure as if it is fact.
CBS News Loose With Facts on Gun Story, Cites 90 Percent Number Again
In a story posted on its Web site titled “Gun Laws Loosen in States, Even as Gun Policy Changes Little Under Obama,” writer Stephanie Condon is a little “loose” with the facts. The article includes this passage:
“‘This war is being waged with guns purchased not here, but in the United States,’ Mr. Obama said in Mexico City in April, 2009. ‘More than 90 percent of the guns recovered in Mexico come from the United States, many from gun shops that line our shared border.’
“The Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence said the administration’s plans to help Mexico fight drug cartels would be inadequate without new gun restrictions, but the administration’s call to reinstitute the Assault Weapons Ban went nowhere. The administration has also failed to close the gun show loophole.”
The problem with this statement is that the 90 percent number, as we’ve reported on for nearly a year, is that it is wrong. 90 percent of guns recovered in Mexico do NOT come from the United States. This story clearly has the typical mainstream media liberal agenda to present a message without presenting all the facts.
WaPo Editorial Provides False Facts: Cites 90% Figure Again
An editorial doesn’t need to be unbiased, but it shouldn’t try to use information that has been proven false to make its point. In this weekend’s Washington Post editorial titled “Massacre in Mexico,” the paper cites this fact:
“Some 90 percent of the guns seized from operations against organized crime in Mexico come from the United States.”
As we have reported throughout 2009, this is false. Some 90 percent of guns seized in Mexico do NOT come from the United States. Let’s hope the media does a better job of reporting on these facts in 2010.
Ammo Story Goes International Via WaPo
Apparently there has been so much hype about an increase in the sale of ammunition in the United States that the story continues to go international, and alas with the same liberal bias. This week The Canadian Free Press ran a story with this passage:
“In a year of job losses, foreclosures and bag lunches, Americans have spent record-breaking amounts of money on guns and ammunition. The most obvious sign of their demand: empty ammunition shelves. At points during the past year, bullets have been selling faster than factories could make them.”
First, we’d like ask our colleagues north of the border for a source on the point that bullets are actually being sold “faster than factories could make them.” Yes, ammo is selling, but so far even the American press hasn’t stated that dubious claim. Or has it?
A closer look at the story reveals that this wasn’t actually original copy – as in an original article from Canada, but is in fact just a passage quoted from The Washington Post. This story of course offers the usual suggestions that it is fear of Obama taking away guns that are driving the sales.
Additionally, what the Canadian abridged version fails to point out is at least in the WaPo version, which stresses that America is involved in two wars right now. Factor in the additional training, and maybe the ammo shortage isn’t just people hording. While WaPo offers this suggestion, via the argument from ammo makers, the rest of the mainstream media – including that in Canada now – just blames gun owners of course.
Firing Back: Ammo Shortage Caused by…
The UnionLeader.com poses and interesting question: “What’s triggering a shortage of guns?” Consider this another example of the mainstream media being a little late on the story. As we’ve complained for months now, this is really old news, but the issue of ammo and even gun shortage comes up time and time again.
Maybe if these stories stopped appearing readers who were on the fence about stockpiling guns and ammo would stop stockpiling guns and ammo, and you know what… the stories would probably stop too. But instead, we’d probably see twisted stores claiming that gun owners now see the light that legislation isn’t coming, that fears about the president were unfounded or that many decided guns aren’t just safe. In other words, look for the MSM to concoct some farfetched stories without doing the requisite research. If it easy enough to report about false fears, why not report about other falsehoods.
Candidate From South Carolina Holds Machine Gun Social
Dean Allen, a GOP candidate for South Carolina’s Adjutant General, held a “machine gun social” last Saturday. Allen, from Greenville SC, said the fund raiser was his way of celebrating the 2nd Amendment as well as showing solidarity against gun control opponents. Read more
