Which This Week analyst used the Trayvon Martin shooting in
Florida as an excuse to slam religious conservative? It wasn't liberal
host George Stephanopoulos. Instead, Matt Dowd on Sunday said this: "We
want to be a Christian nation and we want to act in a Christian manner,
but, oh, by the way, we don't believe in turn the other cheek."
The former George W. Bush pollster mocked, "And we don't believe in
love your enemy. And we believe in loading, loading citizens and
basically give them an opportunity to shoot people." [MP3 audio here.]
Dowd, who often appears on ABC's Good Morning America to
provide supposedly thoughtful analysis, complained that states which
have strong gun rights laws, such as Florida, "are also the same states
and the same legislatures and the same governors who sort of push for
prayer in the school. To me, there's such an irony here."
Terry Moran, a co-anchor of Nightline, appeared on the This Week
panel to trash Florida's Stand Your Ground law. He fumed, "It sabotaged
our justice system...The Florida law destroys that American system."
The liberal cliches continued. Regarding the shooting of the teenager,
another ABC veteran and panel member, Cokie Roberts, blamed the Second
Amendment: "And this is where the problem with guns comes...I'm saying
the gun is the problem. That's what kills you."
A partial transcript of the segment, which aired at 10:30am EDT, follows:
COKIE ROBERTS: And this is where the problem with guns comes, because if
you just- are a person who's a little off and has some false sense of
power, that's one thing if you don't have a gun in your hand.
GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS: Yet, he carried all the proper permits.
ROBERTS: Listen I'm not saying it was a legal gun. I'm saying the gun is the problem. That's what kills you.
TERRY MORAN: And the law. And the law in Florida does something else
that no other state has a law like this. Not only is stand your ground
law, in the olden days under common law, you had the duty to retreat.
Stand your ground says no, you don't have to. Florida goes one step
farther. Stand your ground is self-defense. Self-defense. Defense, at
trial, it would go to trial. In Florida, the law says if you raise a
claim of self-defense after killing someone in public, you can't even be
arrested unless the police-
STEPHANOPOULOS: That's exactly right. Section 776. Listen to this:
"Provides immunity from arrest unless the police have probable cause
that the force that was used was unlawful."
MORAN: It's why prosecutors and police hated this law. It sabotaged
our justice system. In all of the discussion we heard, what did
Zimmerman do? What did Trayvon do? Juries are supposed to figure that
out. The Florida law destroys that American system.
MATT DOWD: To
me, what's ironic to me,- such irony about this is most of the states
that have passed this, including Florida and the stand your ground laws
and the expanded, obviously, gun, ownership laws, where you can carry
concealed weapons, are also the same states and the same legislatures
and the same governors who sort of push for prayer in the school. To me,
there's such an irony here.
ROBERTS: [Laughs] We need to pray more with all those guns out there.
DOWD: We want to be a Christian nation and we want to act in a
Christian manner, but, oh, by the way, we don't believe in turn the
other cheek. And we don't believe in love your enemy. And we believe in
loading, loading citizens and basically give them an opportunity to
shoot people. This is an unbelievable, to me, tragic, tragic
case. But I think as Donna said, I think it touched something in
society. I hope what doesn't happen, I hope that the rhetoric drops a
little bit and that we don't go from what we had two weeks ago, which
was everybody was saying there was a war on women and now everybody's
saying, certain leaders are starting to say there's a war on
African-Americans or a war on blacks. That's not what this is about.
Really, that's fundamental. This is about somebody- this about, best
case you could say, he's mentally off, George Zimmerman. And that's what
I think, we got to go back to what this is really saying about society.
This is an individual who did this. This isn't a commentary.
-- Scott Whitlock is the senior news analyst for the Media Research Center. Click here to follow him on Twitter.
