U.S. News and World Report: George Zimmerman Involved in Shooting in Florida

CNN: Police: George Zimmerman involved in Florida shooting*

NEWSWEEK: Reports: George Zimmerman Involved in Another Florida Shooting*

TIME: George Zimmerman Involved in Florida Shooting, Police Say

NBC: George Zimmerman Involved in Florida Shooting Incident

AP: George Zimmerman involved in Florida shooting; bullet lodged in car, lawyer says

Albany Times Union: Police: George Zimmerman involved in shooting with man who reported road rage incident in 2014

He was shot at. That was his “involvement.”

They are liars.

*A couple of these organizations have since changed their headline to something more responsible — but you can see the original headlines together with the hyperlinks here (which I am saving here in case it gets changed). For example, CNN’s headline now reads “George Zimmerman shot at by motorist, police say.” But their original story had the bullshit headline, and you can see a version of that here, attributed to CNN. NEWSWEEK has changed its headline too — but you can see the original spin in this tweet, and criticism of it in this Twitchy post. I believe I have all the above articles saved, so if another organization surreptitiously changes their headline, let me know and I will post the original.

The lesson, for the ten thousandth time, is that you cannot trust the media.

Ever.

New York Times: Tony Rodham’s Ties Invite Scrutiny for Hillary and Bill Clinton.

Placing to one side the absurdity of talking about scrutiny for Hillary and Bill Clinton . . .

It sure is distasteful to watch someone try to cash in by exploiting their close ties to a Clinton, huh?

Chance that the New York Times will recognize the irony when the editorialize in favor of Hillary for president: zilch.

Mother Jones quotes a Mike Huckabee sermon from 1979:

There was a time in this country when a movie like The Life of Brian which, I just read—thank God the theaters in Little Rock decided not to show, but it’s showing all over the Fort Worth–Dallas area, which is a mockery, which is a blasphemy against the very name of Jesus Christ, and I can remember a day even as young as I am when that would not have happened in this country or in the city in the South.

Any fair story that takes Mike Huckabee down a peg is fine by me, and this one quotes Huckabee in context and makes him look foolish — because he was.

Life of Brian was a work of brilliant satire. Its targets were not Jesus or even Christianity generally, but a certain sort of humorless and unthinking scold: someone like Mike Huckabee. The sort who, listening to the Sermon on the Mount, mishears Jesus as saying “blessed are the cheesemakers” — and immediately rationalizes to other audience members that Jesus must have been referring to the “makers of dairy products generally.” The Pythons mocked the concept of groups which hate each other yet, to the outside world, seem identical — like the People’s Front of Judea and their arch-rivals, the hated Judean People’s Front. I could go on and on. It’s a great movie.

The opposition to Life of Brian was absurd. Strom Thurmond’s role in shutting down the film in Columbia, South Carolina was unconstitutional and shameful. And Huckabee should have to answer for his comments, which were sillier than John Cleese’s silly walks.

All well and good.

Yet Mother Jones, which put out the story, does not seem to recognize a rather obvious parallel to the Pam Geller/Garland situation.

Because all Mike Huckabee was doing was criticizing a movie that he (ignorantly) believed was blaspheming his religion. He wasn’t committing violence against the filmmakers, or quasi-condoning others doing so.

Imagine that, rather than protests and even bannings, a couple of Christians had shot up a movie theater where the film was playing. And that Mike Huckabee, after issuing a pro forma, unenthusiastic, ritualized denunciation of the violence, had focused a sermon on how the guys from Monty Python had brought this on themselves, by being so provocative.

Now that really would have shown some crazed intolerance on Mike Huckabee’s part! And I’m sure Mother Jones would have been among the first to denounce Huckabee’s shameful remarks.

I trust that I need not connect the dots further.