OPINION:
It’s been several days since Fox News host Laura Ingraham offered an apology to student gun control activist David Hogg for characterizing him as whiney on Twitter. And it’s been a couple of days since Hogg told Ingraham, via national television, sorry, your apology is unacceptable — and now you must denounce your employer or face the continued wrath of calls for advertiser boycott.
Well, the battle lines have been drawn anew.
And now Larry Elder, talk show host and nationally recognized conservative writer, has put out a series of tweets that outright blast back at the hypocrisy of the media, the left and the whole Hogg-driven campaign to silence speech deemed inappropriate — more often than not, the code word for conservative.
Look at this one to start, a reference to Hogg’s latest condemnation of Ingraham as a “bully” who must be stopped: “Sarah Palin is a c—t.’ Sarah Palin is a ’dumb tw—.’ Sarah Palin and Michele bachmann are ’two bimbos.’ — @billmaher. How many Time-Warner advertisers were targeted? NONE. But @IngrahamAngle’s ’a bully’?!?”
Here’s another, just as slicing and dicing.
“@IngrahamAngle ridiculed anti-gun activist @davidhogg111,” Elder tweeted. “Hogg said he was rejected by 4 schools. Ingraham joked about it. Hogg called her ’bully.’ AND SPONSORS BAILED! ARE YOU KIDDING? Do they not watch @maddow, @HardballChris, @Lawrence & the rabid GOP/Trump-haters on @MSNBC?”
Another, noting Al Sharpton’s snarky quip about Jews, along with a link to the article in which he was quoted as making the comment: “’If the Jews want to get it on, tell them to pin their yarmulkes back and come over to my house.’ — @TheRevAl, 1991, @MSNBC host, inciting the ’Crown Heights Riot.’ … Q: If @lauragingrahamangle is a ’bully,’ what is … SHARPTON?!? #DoubleStandards.”
Another, pointing to the differences of treatment given CNN’s Don Lemon and The Blaze’s Glenn Beck when they each called the president of the United States racist.
“The president [@realDonaldTrump] of the United States is racist.’ — @donlemon,” Elder tweeted. “CRICKETS … Recall the firestorm when @glennbeck called President Obama ’racist.’ colorofchange.org/campaigns/vic…’ #DoubleStandards.”
The link Elder included in his tweet opened on a bit from Color of Change that was headlined, “Forcing The Glenn Beck Show Off Fox News,” and that opened this way: “In 2009, Color of Change forced Glenn Beck off cable television, holding his advertisers and Fox News accountable for his dangerous drumbeat of racist misinformation. It’s one thing when some random person online tries to stoke racial fear and division. It’s completely different when a news commentator does it on national TV, building a following with the backing of major corporations as advertisers.”
He copied the same Don Lemon comment in another tweet to ask, “But, per @davidhogg111, @IngrahamAngle is ’a bully’ whose advertisers should be targeted?!? Did Lemon lose any advertisers for pronouncing President Trump ’RACIST’?!? #DoubleStandards.”
Elder continues.
In another tweet, he reminded of one of late night comedy’s Stephen Colbert jabs at President Donald Trump, beginning with the quote from Colbert: “’The only thing your mouth is good for is being Vladimir Putin’s c—k holster.’ — @Stephen Colbert, @StephenAtHome, referring to @realDonald Trump. How many @CBS advertisers were targeted? How many dumped his show? ZIP & ZIP! But, per @davidhogg111, @ingrahamAngle is ’a bully’?”
He has more; Elder’s Twitter feed gives other examples of the media bias, the leftist hypocrisy, the “#DoubleStandards” furthered by Hogg and his cohorts to create a poor-me perception of the Parkland-tied movement to water the Second Amendment on the wings of grieving students.
But the bigger message is this: Hypocrisy breeds anger. And usually, sooner or later, what goes around, comes around.
It’s only a matter of time before today’s targeting of conservative voices by minor-age members of the “Never Again MSD” — Marjory Stoneman Douglas — gun control group, to which Hogg belongs, turns to tomorrow’s backlash against the left.
Those on the ideological right aren’t going to stand back and sit quietly forever.
• Cheryl Chumley can be reached at cchumley@washingtontimes.com or on Twitter, @ckchumley.
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