HuffPo Moron Turns Tragedy Into Political Screed

We don't even have an identity on the crazed shooter from Virginia Tech, but at the Huffington Post, one Joseph A. Palermo exploits the incident in an incoherent screed, ultimately targeting George W. Bush, AIPAC, ExxonMobil, the NRA, pharmaceutical companies and HMO's.

The news about the biggest mass shooting in American history is pouring across the Internet and cable news shows, and the facts are being assembled as I write. I don't know who the killer was or even how many people will be counted as dead by the end of the day, but of one thing I am certain: the vapid and predictable "debate" that will dominate the next five or six news cycles.

Like the Columbine shootings ten years ago this month, or the Oklahoma City bombing two years earlier, or the Waco stand-off two years before that, the corporate media will immediately label it a "tragedy," like a force of nature, and then commence with the usual punditry about the causes of violence in American society.

Actually, Columbine occured April 20, 1999, but hey, he's venting, why bother with facts? The Oklahoma City bombing was April 19, 1995 and the Branch Davidian Waco siege ended in a massacre April 19, 1993.

Palermo then starts in on "right-wingers".

We will hear right-wingers, like David "Bobo in Paradise" Brooks, blame the shootings at Virginia Tech on Quentin Tarrantino [sic] movies and violent video games. They will single out the "culture" as the problem, thereby exonerating their friends at the National Rifle Association (NRA). Then they will lecture us on being responsible for our actions and bash "liberal" Hollywood.

The liberals, like Hillary Clinton and Nicholas Kristof, will launch into hand-wringing "analyzes" [sic] about the availability of guns in our society, and then make half-hearted calls for tighter background checks and other restrictions on gun ownership. (They know this will never happen.)

The 24-hour news cycle will shove Virginia Tech down our throats for at least a week now because it guarantees high ratings as the corporate media exploit the raw emotions of the event, and allow voyeuristic viewers to experience vicariously the seven stages of grief along with the victims. (Nancy Grace and Bill O'Reilly are sure to milk this one for all its worth. Don Imus would have been bumped out of the news and would still have his job if the killer had struck a week ago.)

There you go, someone worked Imus into it.

Also, if David Brooks and the Rightwing can blame video games and the violent movies coming out of Hollywood for the school shootings, then I think it is also fair to place some of the blame on our political leaders who called for us to invade and occupy Iraq. The bloodbath and carnage daily reported out of Iraq, as well as our young people going in and out of that death trap, provide the background noise for the violence that pervades our society.

Let's break the NRA's grip on our politics by publicly financing just one election cycle -- how about 2012? There will be no money from the NRA dictating our gun policies; no money from AIPAC dictating our Middle East policy; no money from the Pharmaceutical and HMO industries dictating our health care policy; no money from the ExxonMobiles of the world dictating our energy policies; no money from the financial services industry dictating our trade and pension policies; etc. Let's just try it once in 2012 and see what happens.

Breathtaking stupidity.

Elsewhere, Michelle Malkin is tracking some of the media bias. This will get out of control quickly.