Shameless

When the Virgina Tech shooting happened, I, like many Americans, were shocked and stunned that this is happening again. I was hoping that we could come together and grieve with the students, professors, administrators, and family members about the lost souls who were killed unnecessarily in the worst campus shooting in American history, and put aside the debate over who knew what, what should have happened, what didn't happened, etc.

I was wrong. Again.

Even in the face of an unspeakable tragedy like the VA Tech massacre, right-wingers somehow found a way to make the massacre look like it was the victim's fault; that instead of fighting back, they ran for their lives, even jumping out of classroom windows to get away from the madman who was unloading on the students. It's the kind of attack that only a self-serving, heartless and spineless coward could ever say or make.

Nathaniel Blake and John Derbyshire are the two cowards who could stoop to such a low.

The first pair of remarks were from Blake, a blogger at Human Events.com:

College classrooms have scads of young men who are at their physical peak, and none of them seems to have done anything beyond ducking, running, and holding doors shut. Meanwhile, an old man hurled his body at the shooter to save others.

Something is clearly wrong with the men in our culture. Among the first rules of manliness are fighting bad guys and protecting others: in a word, courage. And not a one of the healthy young fellows in the classrooms seems to have done that.

When Kip Kinkle opened fire in Thurston High School a few years back, he was taken down by students, led by one who was already wounded. Why didn’t that happen here?

Like Derb, I don’t know if I would live up to this myself, but I know that I should be heartily ashamed of myself if I didn’t. Am I noble, courageous and self-sacrificing? I don’t know; but I should hope to be so when necessary.

Are you out of your fucking mind, Blake? Really? You have no right, and absolutely no right whatsoever to judge what the students should have and should not have done during the mayhem that took place. What the students did was basic human nature; any one of us would have ran for their lives to avoid being shot at. This isn't some kind of Rambo/Die Hard action movie where the bad guy is stopped and the hero gets to walk away bloodied up and scarred, jackass. But since you feel you're such a tough guy, why don't you sign up to fight in Iraq, chickenhawk? Let's see if you have the stones to wake up one morning and praying that you or your men aren't the casualties of a roadside bomb or an IED.

John Derbyshire over at National Review Online, however, had the most disgraceful posting about the aftermath of the campus shooting:

As NRO's designated chickenhawk, let me be the one to ask: Where was the spirit of self-defense here? Setting aside the ludicrous campus ban on licensed conceals, why didn't anyone rush the guy? It's not like this was Rambo, hosing the place down with automatic weapons. He had two handguns for goodness' sake—one of them reportedly a .22.

At the very least, count the shots and jump him reloading or changing hands. Better yet, just jump him. Handguns aren't very accurate, even at close range. I shoot mine all the time at the range, and I still can't hit squat. I doubt this guy was any better than I am. And even if hit, a .22 needs to find something important to do real damage—your chances aren't bad.

Yes, yes, I know it's easy to say these things: but didn't the heroes of Flight 93 teach us anything? As the cliche goes—and like most cliches. It's true—none of us knows what he'd do in a dire situation like that. I hope, however, that if I thought I was going to die anyway, I'd at least take a run at the guy.

You're right about one thing, John. This isn't like Rambo. THE STUDENTS YOU MOCKED WERE ACTUALLY KILLED IN COLD BLOOD.

Of course, there were other right-wingers who are just as guilty of politicizing the VA Tech shooting. Debbie Schlussel concluded that the VA Tech shooter might be part of a terrorist attack, our good friend Ralph exploits the tragedy by blaming liberals for exploiting the VA massacre themselves, and the trolls over at News Hounds use two threads to shrill for the 2nd Amendment of the Constitution.

Earlier I said I was wrong again because this isn't the first time rank-and-file conservative talking heads have exploited a tragedy to further their own agendas.

Ann Coulter smeared the Jesery Girls - the nine wives who lost their husbands on 9/11 - to sell another one of her pointless books.

Even before the body count was full in New Orleans, Sean Hannity tried to politicize the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.

And let's not forget how this Bush Administration used the fears the American people to sell us a bullshit war based on false information and lies.

There's only one word to really describe the actions of the frauds who use tragedy to further their own agenda: Shameless.