[Guest post by Aaron Worthing; if you have tips, please send them here.]
Update: Althouse has seven good points about the silliness of trying to turn this into proof that the Tea Party is a violent movement. Read the whole thing.
Update: Thanks to “Longwalker” in the comments who directed us toward Red State, where they have new video shot just before the incident, showing Valle’s aggressive behavior beforehand. It doesn’t justify stepping on her, but it does justify taking her down and restraining her.
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Terrible violence visited the debate between Rand Paul and Jack Conway. The Kentucky Post has the details:
The [incident] occurred after a Conway supporter stepped on the foot of a female Rand supporter, who recently had foot surgery, according to police.
The woman was wearing a surgical boot, but after the injury, her incision was cut open. Police say she refused medical treatment and also filed an assault report.
No arrests were made at the debate broadcast on Kentucky Education Television. No other information is available at this time.
Oh, wait, that’s not the assault everyone has been hearing about. Nope, the assault everyone has been hearing about is the so-called curbstomper, who by the way didn’t actually stomp on her. To quote Ann Althouse, “look closely. There is no head stomp. The head is on the curb, but the foot presses down on the shoulder. That ends pretty quickly.” She later calls it a “restraint.”
Of course nothing could bring more joy to the hearts of the left than to see a woman assaulted on TV, given that they figured they could use it to their advantage. How else do you explain the complete lack of interest in the other woman attacked? And bear in mind, the moveon.org woman (who has a history of violence) had been charging toward Paul at that moment. That is why most people don’t bother to criticize the decision to pull her down, because there was an understandable security concern. Stepping on her, of course, was unjustified and indeed was condemned by an apparent Paul supporter at the scene, but gee could we turn down the drama queen routine a bit? By comparison, read that quoted passage again about the other assault no one cares about. The woman was wearing a surgical boot, so I doubt she presented much of a danger to anyone. But where is the blogswarm to identify the assailant? Where are the claims that the people who did this are brownshirts? Where is Chris Matthews violating Godwin’s law?
But I can already hear the counter: but you see this was on video, so there are less facts in doubt, and let’s face it, it’s better fodder for TV. Well, the funny thing is, so was the assault on Kenneth Gladney, and guess what? If you look real close on the video you can see this black man getting stomped on by a white man, too. I mean I hate to focus on his race, but seriously could you imagine if Gladney had been a member of moron.org moveon.org, and his assailant was a member of the Tea Party?
But for some mysterious reason the left didn’t care very much about that.
The fact is the left is neck deep in hypocrisy on this. Besides Gladney and the other woman attacked at the Paul-Conway debate, every time the G8 meets anywhere, there are violent protests to say the least, and just the other day the GOP HQ in Denver was vandalized. Every time unions go on strike, especially the Teamsters, you can expect violence. And do I have to remind you of the very credible allegation that Charlie Wilson beat his wife? And police recently linked together the shootings at the Pentagon and the National Museum of the Marine Corps, and there is a third shooting at the Marine recruiting station in Chantilly, Virginia (that is fairly close to the other two). I bet that is some right-wing extremist doing that, right? So let’s not pretend that one side is Bull Connor and the other side is Martin Luther King, okay?
And don’t even get me started about how the left will also selectively ask “why they hate us?” and seek to blame the victim for the crime committed against him or her. When terrorists murder Americans, the left cites that as an indictment on us for whatever we supposedly did to motivate that murder and generally claim that the violence will only stop if we adopt their progressive agenda. But when Tim McVeigh murders Americans, the left suddenly is not interested in why he did it. And mind you, they shouldn’t be interested in his motives. I mean Tim McVeigh set off that bomb because he hoped it would spark a rebellion of white “Christians” to take over the government, kill all non-whites and non-“Christians” and then nuke Isreal. And to explain why it was okay to murder many white Christian babies to accomplish his goal, he cited the precedent of blowing up the second Death Star in Return of the Jedi. In other words, McVeigh was a racist idiot, whose views should be disregarded. But you can say the same thing about al Qaeda; they are a bunch of religiously-bigoted idiots, and their motives should be equally ignored except for the limited purpose of trying to predict what they will do next.
And the claim that injustice motivates violence would work particularly well for the Tea Party, if the left was willing to be consistent about it. Massive unemployment, massive debt, government takeover and the attendant corruption that goes with it, they have a lot of just reasons to complain, and maybe even be angry. But no one would claim that violent acts like stepping on this woman was justified by the terrible policies of the last two years, as well they shouldn’t.
Both men who assaulted women at the Paul-Conway debate should be prosecuted and no excuses should be made. But the fact is that the selective condemnation and hysteria coming from the left demonstrates that this really isn’t about human compassion toward Lauren Valle. It’s about politics and nothing more. Americans can and should see through this for what it is.
Oh, and an exit question. If someone goes on The View and says that a Rand Paul supporter attacked Ms. Valle, will Whoopi Goldberg and Joy Behar walk off the set? Yeah, I didn’t think so, either.
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Sidebar: Why is moveon.org called this? Because they were originally founded to tell republicans to “move on” past the Lewinsky scandal. Moveon.org, it’s been over a decade and you are still using that name. Isn’t it time to, you know, move on?
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I have talked about the use of random violence to score political points before, here.
Updated: Dang AutoCorrect turned Corps to Corporations and I failed to notice. Thanks to AD. And a capitalization fixed.
[Posted and authored by Aaron Worthing.]