It’s odd. I can’t find stories in the New York Times, or Los Angeles Times, or Washington Post, about Obama’s absurd statement yesterday about the Planned Parenthood shooting:
I mean, I say this every time we’ve got one of these mass shootings; this just doesn’t happen in other countries.
Obama said this in Paris — which was, you might recall, the site of a rather large mass shooting just last month. As well as a few other recent ones.
Had a Republican said something this stupid, it would have been good for three days of media gloating. They would throw it in the candidate’s face at every opportunity. But there’s barely a peep from our major news sources about it.
I can’t find anything at the New York Times.
I can’t find anything at the Los Angeles Times.
I can’t find anything at the Washington Post (except in a blog, about which more below).
Oh, they know about it. An AP story at the New York Times Web site is titled Obama Says He Hopes Shooting at Colorado Clinic Spurs Action:
President Barack Obama said Tuesday he hopes the shooting at a Planned Parenthood clinic in Colorado spurs conversation and action on deterring gun violence.
Obama, speaking at a global warming conference, said it will ultimately be up to Congress, states and local governments to act in ways that prevent people intent on committing violence from getting weapons.
They just left out his whopper about how these shootings don’t happen in other countries . . . like the one he was in when he said that.
Can you say “whitewash”?
I should note that this isn’t just about the president saying something dumb. The fact that it is so glaringly not true undercuts his argument for gun control, which is why Big Media is so studiously avoiding it — like they might ignore someone passing gas in a room full of people dressed in tuxedos and formal dresses.
There are stories about him running his mouth yesterday about climate change (WaPo, WaPo, Reuters at NYT)) or about terrorism (LAT). But — and please correct me if I’m wrong — I don’t find a single instance of the kind of coverage we would see of a Republican making such a boneheaded remark.
There is one glaring exception: the Washington Post does host the Volokh Conspiracy blog, which published a post titled Fact check: Obama claim that ‘I say this every time we’ve got one of these mass shootings; this just doesn’t happen in other countries.’
Is the president’s statement about “other countries” accurate? No. For example, on Nov. 20, 2015, mass shooters attacked a hotel in Mali, murdering at least 19 people.
Although President Obama has relatives in Kenya, his statement suggests a lack of awareness of events there. On April 2, 2015, criminals murdered 142 students at the University College Campus of Garissa, in northeastern Kenya. Among the other mass shootings in Kenya in recent years are those as Lamu (29 murdered, July 5-6, 2014), Mpeketoni (53 murdered, June 15-17, 2014), Majembeni and Poromoko (15 murdered, two days after Mpekoni) and the Westgate Mall in Nairobi (67 murdered, Sept. 21, 2013). Kenya, by the way, has extremely strict laws against the possession or carrying of firearms, as well as bows, as I detailed in a Quinnipiac Law Review article with Joanne Eisen and the late Paul Gallant.
On Saturday, Boko Haram attackers murdered four people in Nigeria, and four more in Niger. Last weekend, four Egyptian policemen were murdered in a drive-by shooting. As reported by CBS News the day before Thanksgiving, “Two massacres that killed 15 people in less than 12 hours rocked Honduras and left the country’s top cop in tears on Wednesday.”
And that’s not even mentioning the rather glaring examples of mass shootings that had occurred in Paris, the very town in which this buffoon made his statement.
But a blog is not the same as a multi-day multimedia pile-on. And you all know, deep in your bones, that’s what would have happened to a Republican.
This is why people don’t trust the media.