Was VA Tech's Cho a Right Winger?

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Caller: "You made your bed with the religious right. "

Smerconish: "We haven't made our bed with kooks."

Caller: "You HAVE made your bed with kooks."

So, here, this segment with Phelps, sends two messages that support the overall right wing message "package":

--a message to the war supporters-- 'look at this disgusting freak who is violating the sanctity of the deaths of war heroes and terrorism victims.'

-- a message to the fundamentalists who are now the strongest remaining element of the rightwing base, literally, through Phelps' words, supporting their anti-gay message, basically the same message Pat Robertson stated right after the 9/11 attack.

Don't be surprised when Fox News comes up with an investigation that asks questions about whether Cho was gay. This massacre has already been a bonanza for the lamestream (mainstream) media. But it has been a bigger bonanza for the right wing message machine. Right wing pundits have prostituted it to sell their pro-gun message, but that's blatant. More subtly, the images orginally broadcast by NBC, but parrotted by all the mainstream media, of a man who surely looks like a terrorist-- a psycho terrorist, which is what the right wing wants those soccer/college moms to think all terrorists are.

The constant images, the constant, round the clock showing of mourning families-- this is the future of terrorism in America-- the mindset, the prism the right wing wants and needs those soccer/college moms to view the world through. No, this was not a terrorist attack, but it has so many facets of the "prism" it absolutely reinforces the "filter." And the mainstream media have taken a seed and bloomed a thousand acres of terrorist fear flowers-- thorny flowers.

an afterthought: To Michael Smerconish's credit, he also interviewed Arlen Specter on Gonzales and was due to have on a member of the group YES, digressing from the massacre marathon. Smerconish is one of the more rational, and far less toxic right wing radio hosts. Unfortunately, here in Philly, he's followed by Glen Beck, then Rush Limbaugh, then Sean Hannity. Yuk. While MSNBC is trying out talk show hosts to replace Imus, they ought to consider a format that actually does something to make up for the errors of Imus's and hence their ways all these years-- and do what Imus talked about doing-- regularly have people of color on the show, or even hosting, or, better yet, co-hosting. They could try out something like the Hannity and Combes approach.

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Rob Kall is executive editor, publisher and site architect of OpEdNews.com, Host of the Rob Kall Bottom Up Radio Show (WNJC 1360 AM), President of Futurehealth, Inc, (more...)

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