Lately, liberal commentators have expended a great many syllables over an incident involving Montana representative Greg Gianforte, who body slammed an in-his-face reporter.
One of those commentators was New York Times op-ed writer Charles Blow, who connected the dots he perceives between Gianforte’s actions and the example set by President Donald Trump. “This” incident, Blow wrote, “is all an outgrowth of Trump’s degradation of common decency.”
It will be interesting to read Blow’s next column, which in the interests of fairness, will undoubtedly focus on another degradation of common decency, this one in the Texas statehouse yesterday. A central figure in the debacle was Congressman Matt Rinaldi, who posted a tweet describing what transpired:
Will this presidential election be the most important in American history?
A statement regarding today. pic.twitter.com/M0BcBXa43P
— Matt Rinaldi (@MattRinaldiTX) May 29, 2017
The Dallas Morning News included a video of the protesters, who were chanting, “Greg Abbott escucha! Estamos en la lucha!” (“Greg Abbott listens! We are in the fight!”). The mob was disrupting congressional business, which is what prompted Rinaldi to contact ICE.
“Greg Abbott escucha! Estamos en la lucha!” #txlege #sb4 pic.twitter.com/2PTMXrJiSb
— James Barragán (@James_Barragan) May 29, 2017
These are fractious times: Of that there can be no doubt. But for the so-called mainstream media to place the blame for the incivility entirely on the shoulders of the Right is just another indication of how tone-deaf and full of themselves they are.
