Glamorizing Terror
Rolling Stone has set off a firestorm of controversy. The cover of its newest edition features a picture of confessed Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev. The photo presents Tsarnaev as if he were the latest teen heartthrob.
The magazine's editors are defending their work, claiming it "falls within the traditions of journalism and Rolling Stone's long-standing commitment to serious and thoughtful coverage of the most important political and cultural issues of our day." Many Americans disagree.
As of this writing, a Facebook page calling for a boycott of Rolling Stone is rapidly closing in on 65,000 "likes." Even celebrities like Kelly Osbourne are turning the iconic magazine. Ms. Osbourne tweeted, "Shame on you @RollingStone for glorifying a monster! In case you failed to realize #TheBostonBomber is a murderer not a band & has no place being on the cover of @RollingStone." Good for her!
The drug store CVS announced that it will not sell this issue of Rolling Stone. In a statement released today, CVS declared, "As a company with deep roots in New England and a strong presence in Boston, we believe this is the right decision out of respect for the victims of the attack and their loved ones." Other regional stores are following that example.
Just how out of touch are the media elites on the cultural left? Anyone with any roots at all in Middle America would recoil in disgust. But for Rolling Stone offending Middle American values comes naturally. I'd like to think that some individuals at Rolling Stone would have the courage to resign in protest. But I would be surprised if anyone even objected.
Black Juror Dumped -- Why?
A major complaint made against the Zimmerman verdict is that the jury of six women was almost entirely white. There was only one minority member, a Hispanic. Seminole County, Florida, where the trial took place, has a lower minority population than the state as a whole.
Both the prosecution and the defense questioned potential jurors, and each side had the ability to dismiss a limited number of potential jurors without offering any cause or explanation. These dismissals are known as "peremptory challenges."
Now here's a bit of irony: A potential juror, a black man, was in the pool and came up for consideration. But during a recent discussion on CNN, it was revealed that the prosecution dismissed this black man. Why? Because he was a "Fox News watcher!"
Evidently, having a black man who gets his news from the "fair and balanced" station was disqualifier. And yet many on the left are complaining about the fact that there were no blacks on the jury.
Senate Surrender
Well, they did it again. A group of squishy Republican senators led by John McCain caved in to threats from Harry Reid. It's happening with such frequency it seems to be habitual.
The Republican minority in the Senate has been holding up some Obama nominees using prolonged debate or the filibuster. As we noted Friday, Obama initially appointed some of these individuals using recess appointments that were later declared illegal by two federal courts. He has since renominated them and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is demanding that the Senate vote to confirm them.
To overcome the filibuster, Reid needs 60 votes, which he doesn't have. To overcome that hurdle, Reid threatened to change the Senate rules eliminating the filibuster on executive nominations. Normally it requires 67 votes to change the Senate rules, and Reid certainly did not have that either.
So, Reid was prepared to use a disputed procedure known as the "nuclear option" that would effectively change the Senate's rules with a bare majority of 51 votes. Republicans understandably did not want the rule changed, but Reid's price for not changing the rule was for the GOP to allow the nominations to proceed.
Yesterday, a handful of Republicans blinked, and it appears as though Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell had little say in the matter. From press reports I have read, the deal that averted the so-called "nuclear option" was brokered by Senator McCain.
Without going into all the details, the end result is that Democrats got what they wanted without having to face the public controversy of changing a long-standing Senate rule.
In reaction, Senator Ted Cruz tweeted, "Today, re: the so-called nuclear option, Senate Republicans preserved the right to surrender in the future."
I'll make a wild guess here: The next time there is a Republican president and a Republican senate, Democrats will use the filibuster to stop that president's nominees. And if the Republican Senate majority has enough "moderates" in it, they will be unwilling to suspend the filibuster even if it is being used against them. So essentially what we have is a filibuster that only Democrats are allowed to use.
Media Disconnect On Abortion
According to abortion advocates, Wendy Davis is a voice for America's silent pro-choice majority. The Texas state senator's recent filibuster of a bill to outlaw abortions after five months of pregnancy won her media plaudits and catapulted her from obscurity to political stardom.
But the frenzy over Davis's failed quest to defeat the legislation is hardly proof of a national reservoir of support for late-term abortion. Rather, it is evidence of the deep disconnect between perception and reality when it comes to U.S. citizens' attitudes about the taking of a baby's life, especially in the final weeks of pregnancy.
You can read more about this topic in my latest Politico column.