Friday, November 04, 2005

It's not the lying, it's ... well, actually, it IS the lying.


There's a reason I dislike reading Crazy-Assed Bitch™ Michelle Malkin, and that's that she lies. Constantly and pathologically.

Take this recent piece, where one reads the glaring headline "THEY SUPPORT THE TROOPS ... by throwing Molotov cocktails at police officers." Now, if you were a normal, objective human being (and not a congenital moron like, say, Weasel Boy), if you read that teaser, you'd think that, if you followed the link, you'd read about something involving people allegedly supporting troops and throwing Molotov cocktails at police officers. Or something like that.

You'd be wrong on both counts.

Let's read the actual linked-to article, shall we, which opens with the title: "Molotov Cocktail Hits Officer During Anti-Bush Protest." Gosh, the title alone tells a different story, doesn't it?

In the first place, the "protest" didn't appear to have anything to do with supporting the troops one way or the other. In fact, the word "troop" or any variation of it doesn't appear anywhere in the article, so it's not clear why Crazy-Assed ... uh, why Malkin used that word. This wasn't a troop protest, it was an anti-Bush protest. There's a difference.

Worse, though, we have this further down (emphasis added):

Officer Gary Constantine said the cocktail fell on his shoulder and lit the side of his uniform on fire. He was able to put the fire out with his hand and was not seriously injured.

A witness told NBC11 that he saw the cocktail hit the side of a building and ricocheted down onto the police officer.

Ah, that's not quite the same thing, is it? It's still an inexcusably stupid thing to do but, from the article, it's clear that the officer wasn't the actual target, it was just an accident that he was struck with the bottle. And, yes, there is a difference, unless of course you're prepared to accept that Laura Bush, as a teenager, murdered her boyfriend in cold blood.

Oh, sure, the article claims it was an accident but, if you don't feel like drawing those kinds of distinctions, well, you're kind of stuck with it, aren't you?

P.S. It's fascinating how much slant you can get on an article from the headline alone. Malkin's was clearly designed to portray the protestors as anti-troop sociopaths. Personally, I would have gone with something like, "Lots and lots of people really, really hate George Bush." And, unlike Malkin's headline, mine would at least have been accurate.

PLACE YOUR BETS: How long until the first wanker links to this piece with a headline, "CC defends protestors who want to burn police officers to death"? Come on, you know it's coming.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

It's the usual assertion that if you don't support Bush's little war, you aren't supporting the troops.

Somewhat akin to the same logical derivation that concludes that ID is science, it requires a leap of faith to make it work.