Krauthammer's idiotic column on VT massacre

By: presidentialman
Published On: 4/20/2007 1:51:35 AM

I thought since Raising Kaine is a "supercharged political atmosphere," I'd get some "ideological mileage out of the carnage." All quotes by Krauthammer

A Moment of Silence

By Charles Krauthammer
Friday, April 20, 2007; Page A31

What can be said about the Virginia Tech massacre? Very little. What should be said? Even less. The lives of 32 innocents, chosen randomly and without purpose, are extinguished most brutally by a deeply disturbed gunman. With an event such as this, consisting of nothing but suffering and tragedy, the only important questions are those of theodicy, of divine justice. Unfortunately, in today's supercharged political atmosphere, there is the inevitable rush to get ideological mileage out of the carnage.

But wait there's more, he defends the gun lobby

It did not take long for the perennial debate about gun control to break out, preceded by the inevitable scolding and clucking abroad about America's lax gun laws.

It is true that with far stricter gun laws, Cho Seung Hui might have had a harder time getting the weapons and ammunition needed to kill so relentlessly. Nonetheless, we should have no illusions about what laws can do. There are other ways to kill in large numbers, as Timothy McVeigh demonstrated. Determined killers will obtain guns no matter how strict the laws. And stricter controls could also keep guns out of the hands of law-abiding citizens using them in self-defense. The psychotic mass murder is rare; the armed household burglary is not.

Ok, what digbat doesn't get is that he was a first generation immigrant,

was a little sick in the head

and brought a gun to a place they were prohibited.

please write doezens of letters to the post
http://www.washingto...

Comments



I hate (mkfox - 4/20/2007 4:21:20 AM)
the "well, madmen will be madmen, there's nothing we can do about it" mentality. Nothing is more dangerous than politicians, leaders who fail to act in the face of peril.

"What can be said about the Virginia Tech massacre? Very little. What should be said? Even less" is the kinda response I'd want to hear about Anna Nicole media coverage, not the worst mass shooting in U.S. history. Thankfully Gov. Kaine isn't that mindless or lazy, and he already formed an investigative committee.



The other variant is to just label this "evil" (Lowell - 4/20/2007 9:04:58 AM)
and then wash your hands of the situation.  Because if it's "evil" in the cosmological, theological sense, what can humans do to understand, let alone address, the "root causes" - mental illness, bullying, flaws in security or communication plans, etc. - that might lie behind situations like this.  It's basically what Al Gore talks about in his upcoming book, "The Assault on Reason:" "...how the politics of fear, secrecy, cronyism, and blind faith has combined with the degration of the public sphere to create an environment dangerously hostile to reason."


your title is redundant (teacherken - 4/20/2007 9:03:13 AM)
when you say "Krauthammer" and "idiotic"


Why does this moron have a column? (Lowell - 4/20/2007 9:06:23 AM)
I mean, seriously, 1 monkey at 1 typewriter could write a more compelling case than Charles Krauthammer does.  How do these people get their columns, and how do they keep them?


C. Krauthammer bragged about success of the surge... (Hugo Estrada - 4/20/2007 11:12:28 AM)
recently. It was published the same day that the Post had the headline about how a suicidal bomber blew up the Iraqi congress in the green zone.

We shouldn't forget his track record of over-the-top conservative partisanship.



A close contest (PM - 4/20/2007 11:30:13 AM)
Because here's what a group of monkeys did:

CBS News May 9, 2003

Monkey Theory Proven Wrong

by Brian Bernbaum
May 9, 2003

LONDON - Give an infinite number of monkeys an infinite number of typewriters, the theory goes, and they will eventually produce the works of Shakespeare.

Researchers at Plymouth University in England reported this week that primates left alone with a computer attacked the machine and failed to produce a single word.

A group of faculty and students in the university's media program left a computer in the monkey enclosure at Paignton Zoo in southwest England, home to six Sulawesi crested macaques. Then, they waited.

At first, said researcher Mike Phillips, "the lead male got a stone and started bashing the hell out of it.

"Another thing they were interested in was in defecating and urinating all over the keyboard," added Phillips, who runs the university's Institute of Digital Arts and Technologies.

Eventually, monkeys Elmo, Gum, Heather, Holly, Mistletoe and Rowan produced five pages of text, composed primarily of the letter S. Later, the letters A, J, L and M crept in - not quite literature. ****

I shall resist any George Allen jokes about the word macaques.



I say the monkeys win this one. (Lowell - 4/20/2007 1:40:58 PM)
No doubt about it. ;)


Krauthammer is a clown (Afton Dem - 4/20/2007 2:15:27 PM)
No argument that Krauthammer is a fool.

That being said, if I receive one more e-mail from a politician regarding their "thoughts" on the tragedy, I'm going to lose my mind.  And the wholesale cancellation of events in "honor" of the victims is unbelievable.  Whose idea was it to cancel all of the school and family events today in Fairfax County in response to this event?!?  How can the appropriate response to a deranged person looking for attention by slaughtering innocent people, and taking children away from their families, be to:  1) give him all the notariety in the world; and 2) cancel the family events where people were going to spend time with their kids?  It makes me hate politics and everything to do with it.