Sorry Fox and Friends, in the race to gin up political controversy following the arrest of suspected White House shooter Oscar Ramiro Ortega-Hernandez the National Rifle Association's (NRA) Cam and Country was the clear winner. Maybe it's time to send a Fox News talent scout to check out their operation.
Wednesday evening, hours before Fox and Friends attempted to smear the Occupy movement by referring to Ortega-Hernandez as the "Occupy shooter," NRA radio host Cam Edwards was using the White House shooting to attack gun control groups. Not surprisingly neither Fox and Friends or Cam and Company had their facts straight.
Edwards spent the beginning of yesterday's show interviewing PJ Media contributor Bob Owens and asked him about a recent blog post in which Owens reported that Ortega-Hernandez “was suspected of being at Occupy DC.”
After complaining about press coverage of an anti-Obama protester that showed up to an August 2009 Obama rally with an AR-15 rifle, Cam suggested that Ortega-Hernandez shows gun control groups are ignoring “left-wing insurrectionists”.
EDWARDS: I noticed that even the gun control groups like Violence Policy [Center] and others, they love to talk about the right-wing insurrectionists, but when a guy who has been hanging out at Occupy DC is now accused of taking a shot at the White House, I don't see anything in their timeline about those crazy left-wing insurrectionists.
OWENS: Well, of course not. And being one of the crazy right wing insurrectionists that Media Matters has cited on more than one occasion, I'm not surprised at all. They have a message and a narrative that they have been working on for years and years and they aren't going to let a little thing like a fact get in the way of that narrative.
But there's simply no evidence linking Ortega-Hernandez to Occupy DC. While there were reports that the Secret Service searched the Occupy tents on Monday, the Washington Post reported Wednesday afternoon that investigators “have found no connection between him [Ortega-Hernandez] and the Occupy protesters.” Speaking on Fox and Friends, Michelle Malkin offered her thoughts on Ortega-Hernandez saying, “the guy was just completely off his rocker and had nothing to do with any coherent sense of political ideology.”
Edwards references the Insurrectionism Timeline that is maintained by the Coalition To Stop Gun Violence, not the Violence Policy Center. It's ridiculous to ask them to add Ortega-Hernandez based on Edwards own imagined connection between Ortega-Hernandez and left-wing politics.
As for Owens' inclusion in Media Matters research on violent and insurrectionist rhetoric, we'll let Owens words speak for themselves:
Bob Owens: “Go To Your Congressman's Office... If You're Willing To Do The Time For The Crime, Have A Swing At Him.” In a March 24, 2010 post on his blog, PJ Media (formerly Pajamas Media) contributor Bob Owens suggested that assaulting members of Congress was an acceptable form of protest:
No matter what you think of Obamacare and the craven ideologues that passed it, is totally unacceptable to threaten their relatives or friends and put them in danger.
Go to your Congressman's office and scream at him in the most colorful language possible. Hang him in effigy at protests. If you're willing to do the time for the crime, have a swing at him.
Better yet, throw a shoe... after all, the left values such behavior as a form of “vigorous dissent,” and will no doubt ask for any charges against you to be dropped.
Perhaps one day stronger action will be required if Progressives continue to trample on our liberties in their blind quest for power. But that time is not now. [Confederate Yankee, 4/24/2010]
Bob Owens: “I Pray For Peace. But I Prepare For War.” In a July 31, 2010, post, Owens wrote:
Our would-be ruling class has abandoned the principles that founded this nation. They are attempting to establish a state of affairs where the people serve the government and the government determines your success or failure. Corruption no longer matters. Sovereignty no longer matters. The rule of law no longer matters.
They have won in a bloodless coup.
Or so they would like you to think.
Whether they actually win or not depends upon how much you love your family and your nation and the principles that made this nation great. Our founders themselves believed in the right of revolt, and knew better than any of us that governments must be replaced from time to time. They were wise enough to provide us with a constitutional framework that will outlast any government, including this one. We can dispose of this government, and restore the Constitution that has served us and the rest of the world so well for so long.
We stand at the brink.
[...]
The question for you, my fellow Americans, is simple.
Will you fight, or will you surrender your liberties?
I pray for peace.
But I prepare for war. [Confederate Yankee, 7/31/10]
Bob Owens On Media Matters Employees: “I Hope They Do Feel Threatened.” In an August 3, 2010, blog post titled “Closer to Midnight,” Owens suggested political allies conduct a “serious review of our capacity for violence” and wrote that he hoped Media Matters employees “feel threatened”:
Propagandists for the elitists at Media Matters seem troubled by A Nation on the Edge of Revolt [an Owens blog post].
They portray it as a threat when “Conservative media figures openly discuss armed revolution.”I have not yet been swayed to the point of view that an armed conflict is inevitable, TN_NamVolunteer.
But we are close enough that one would be wise to prepare for a possible conflict, just as one would prepare for any coming storm. [Confederate Yankee, 8/3/2010]
Bob Owens: “Jackasses” Who Call Health Care A Right “Deserve To Be Drawn And Quartered.” From his' Twitter account:
