On Wednesday I looked forward eagerly, perhaps a bit anxiously, to Lawrence O’Donnell’s show on MSNBC that night. The previous night Asa Hutchinson, former Arkansas Republican Congressman now heading an NRA task force, was his guest. When asked how he felt working with Wayne LaPierre, head NRA honcho, who said that if Obama is elected “you and I will lose more on the election battlefield than our nation has lost in any battle, any time anywhere” Hutchinson replied “I don’t trust your recitation of his statements.” O’Donnell’s response was slightly equivocal. In saying “that’s been on this program before” he was in effect allowing that his statement might be based solely on information his staff had given him.
I felt that the situation demanded a more specific response ASAP, specifically the next night, either proving, clarifying or retracting his statement. I was delighted on hearing that night that these were the precise words of a letter LaPierre had written to the NRA members during the campaign.
This exchange is a microcosm of our national debate between left and right. It may be something of an over simplification to use gun control as a gauge of one’s political persuasion. There are exceptions. But as it pertains to Fox and MSNBC it’s right on the money.
Would any of the Fox hosts give a qualified first response under these circumstances as O’Donnell did, even to something that was an outright lie? I doubt that someone challenging any of its “facts” would ever be a guest on one of its programs. Lies, however implausible, are trumpeted simply in hopes of being overheard and repeated as facts. For this reason I plead guilty to not watching that station to “hear the other side.”
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