Posted on 11/15/2011 10:52:08 AM PST by Free ThinkerNY
COMMENTARY | The ABC News "20 20" special with Diane Sawyer that chronicled the struggle of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords to regain her faculties after a brain injury as the result of a shooting in January was-for the most part-heart-warming and inspirational.
The documentary, which also contained the first public interview with Giffords since the shooting, was ruined by a gratuitous attack on tea party opponents of health care reform and on Sarah Palin toward the end of the one-hour special. A short segment showed Giffords confronting an angry crowd of constituents at a town hall meeting. Palin was shown briefly, as was the infamous cross hairs map.
The segment was shown without context or detail. As Giffords is deservedly a national heroine because of how far she has recovered, the segment gave the clear impression of tea partiers as an angry mob and Sarah Palin as the cause of the shooting.
ABC News and Sawyer committed journalistic malpractice by dredging up the old accusations without also showing evidence that debunked them. Palin and her map had nothing to do with Giffords' shooting, as was implied in the segment. Jared Loughner, Giffords' assailant, was an insane man who likely never heard of Palin and certainly was unaware of the cross hairs map. Yet ABC chose not to mention this.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
I wonder if the bloviating blow hard O’Reilly asked Sawyer about this on his show last night (I believe she was to talk about this interview). I wouldn’t know since I refuse to watch BO.
Diane Sawyer ALWAYS looks like she’s sitting on a tack.
When she appears on my TV screen, I change the channel.
Ugh.
The truth is that the person who shot her would fit right in with the OWS crowd....
Every month I get proof that I was right to leave the Seattle area this year.
And every day I get proof that I was right to remove Television from my home in the mid-1990’s. I’m not right about everything. Far from it. But sometimes I hit home runs. And the TV one was a grand slam.
but the tack was put there by a teaparty member.
Facts and truth have never prevented the Lame Stream Media from lying before. Why would it now?
Was sitting here thinking about Free Republic and how it has contributed to sanity in this nation. consider the TVs that are still functional not having been shot, the walls without holes punched in them, the many small children who have not yet learned profanities. This is all due to Jim and Free Republic lending us a megaphone to shout our frustrations at the world. So get off your wallets people, put your money where your mouth is and help us pay for that megaphone. our sanity depends on this.
Respectfully
W.W.SMITH
Anybody bother to mention the DEAD [R] judge who was killed by the lib loon?
Didn’t think so.
How does getting shot in the head and managing to recover make you a national "heroine"? Does that mean she would have been less than heroic if she would have died at the scene? Not to disparage what she went through, but she wasn't exactly a soldier who took a bullet in the head defending his squad or a cop taking a bullet while protecting innocents, all she did was be unlucky enough to glance up in time to see some kook pull the trigger.
The bullet did no damage to the liberal brain.
I don’t plan to watch it but I think the important message is that what happened to Gabby Giffords is something that Americans of ALL political stripes can and should condemn in the strongest possible way. I wish her a continued recovery.
“Gabrielle Giffords Special Ruined by Gratuitous Attack on Sarah Palin....”
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Because the Commies KNOW she’ll be back.
My thoughts exactly. Who declared her a heroine?
He doesn’t count....
I despise Diane Sawyer. I always picture her with blood dripping off of her fangs.
Shame on ABC for that garbage - not that I’m surprised by it.
Hey, media lapdogs: It was a leftist who shot Giffords. Yeah. One of your own.
Sarah Palin and the Tea Party had nothing to do with it whatsoever.
“As Giffords is deservedly a national heroine because of how far she has recovered...”
No, that doesn’t make one a hero. Trying to recover is what ANYONE would do.
And Giffords is a partisan, mean hack. Yes, I was one of those evil tea party types who picketed her office to try to force her to HOLD a town hall and meet with her constituents.
When she did, it was obvious her head was too far up Pelosi’s rear to hear anything we had to say. Frankly, I’m surprised Pelosi doesn’t have a scar on her butt...
I was mentioning last week that the media’s trying to tie Palin in as being somehow complicit in the mass murder in Arizon was the most inflammatory media smear I’ve witnessed in my lifetime. The non-stop, 24/7 cable-news imagery of juxtaposing footage of Giffords, then shots of blood on the pavement, then the smiling school photo of the dead 9-year-old girl, then old tape footage of Sarah Palin walking to a podium... over and over again, for days. Inflammatory beyond words, and resulting in tens of thousands of death-threats towards Palin and her family.
The juxtaposing of that imagery, constantly repeated, is akin to what you see in old Soviet propaganda films, in which unrelated visuals are tied together to incite. The Arizona incident should truly be regarded as a watershed moment, in regards to the extent the media will go in its attempts to destroy its enemies and promote its socialist agenda.
Diane Sawyer is a slut. She could have gotten herself an acrylic trophy for this interview without prostituting herself any further as a woman who hates conservative women.
I didn’t bother watching it last night, I knew somehow they would make it about the tea party and Sarah Palin..ABC has nothing better to do, instead of just showing this woman’s progress, how far she has come after being almost killed, NO, they make it all about politics. Not a surprise, they hate Sarah Palin and they hate the tea party. I guess if tea party members were to throw rocks at cops and take craps on the street they would like them more.
The shooter was a known leftist, his friends have confirmed that, but the media turned a blind eye to it because after all, can’t condemn one of their own right, so instead they turn around and blame some map that meant NOTHING to the shooter. He was stalking Giffords since 2007, he was infatuated with her..
Oh and one more thing, if Giffords was so nervous after that map was released, how come she didnt have security at her event, not ONE security guard..you would think that if someone were nervous about the atmosphere around that time they would have bothered having one guard with a gun
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