It wasn't just that ABC's Brian Ross was wrong in suggesting that the "Jim Holmes" he found on a Tea Party website was the same man who committed the heinous crime in Aurora, Colorado.  It's that it was indicative of stupidity and corruption.

If Ross had thought for a moment and possessed a grasp of reality, he would've realized that "Jim Holmes" is a common name belonging to hundreds of men throughout the nation. If he had some integrity and a desire to be even-handed, he would have vetted the information more before airing it -- just as he would have if at issue had been an alleged left-wing association.

Just imagine if someone appeared on TV shortly after the Aurora tragedy and stated, not just to provide biographical info but with an ominous implication, "We now know that Holmes attended UC Riverside...." Now, I'll be the first to say that modern academia does teach insanity; nonetheless, since this school isn't known to orchestrate terrorist acts, it wouldn't leap to mind to implicate it in Holmes's atrocity.  The fact is that any given person will have had a number of associations in his life, and few, if any, will bear relevance to a crime he may commit.

So there can be only two reasons why ABC would mention a possible Holmes/Tea Party (TP) association: either its people want to demonize conservatives every chance they get, or they think traditionalist thought constitutes a pathology. It turns out that Effluent Stream Media leftists are deeply involved in doing the former and generally believe the latter.  

Now, you see, my last line contains what is called a correct profile. Because it happens to be true. On the other hand, if leftists were intellectually honest, they'd accept that the TP has been remarkably civilized. Unlike Only Whining Socialists (OWS), its events aren't marked by sexual abuse, the occasional rape, violence, vandalism and slovenly, anti-social behavior. Rather, TP attendees protest peacefully, abide by the law, listen to speeches and then go home, leaving the site behind them clean and tidy.  It's the difference between sane citizens and those who mistake police cars for toilet bowls.

In fact, ABC hewed so closely to the leftist profile it's uncanny. Liberals have been trying for ages to get the goods on the TP, but the most their sleuthing has uncovered is an allegation that a black politician was targeted by one or two TP attendees with a racial epithet that, curiously, wasn't caught on audio or video despite today's ubiquity of electronic devices. And it must be frustrating. That darn reality just refuses to conform to leftist prejudices.

And sometimes prejudices persecute those who promote them. Ross might have learned this through his corrupted act, if liberals were receptive to reality and could learn anything contrary to their deified feelings.  Note that "corrupted" isn't quite the same as "corrupt," even though many leftists are both. When we say a computer file is corrupted, all that's being recognized is that it's degraded and cannot function properly. And to whatever extent liberals are willfully corrupt, they are certainly corrupted.  They cannot, and do not, function properly.

This is, by the way, why ex-newsman Dan Rather's career was scuttled (far too late) through an act that was somewhat reminiscent of Ross's.  When Rather peddled documents purporting to show that George W. Bush shirked his military duties, he didn't know they were forged. They did, however, align with his prejudices. "Why, that's exactly how these conservatives are! This has to be true; it makes sense." But only when you're senseless. Just as with Ross, if a leftist person or entity stood to be impugned through the reportage, Rather would have moved mountains to discover if the documents were authentic; that is, if he would have considered doing the story at all.  Instead, after a career running with the bulls, he finally suffered a trampling of his own design.

So I'll be blunt. As is often the case, when leftists accuse conservatives of failings, it is projection. Traditionalist thought is not a pathology.

Liberal unthought is a pathology.

And a severe one that destroys everything it touches.

As Peter Schweizer reported in his piece "Don't listen to the liberals-Right-wingers really are nicer people, latest research shows," studies have borne out what I've always known: Liberals are cheap, ungenerous, uncharitable, unloving, self-centered, envious, greedy and covetous. They're less likely than conservatives to devote time to ailing or needy loved ones, and they even hug their children less. And this reflects one reason why they support big government: they assuage their consciences by outsourcing their charity. I'll add to this that they're lustful, prideful, wrathful, often slothful and, if Michael Moore is any indication, gluttonous as well. In a word, they are the Seven Deadly Sins incarnate.

As for ABC, since news obviously isn't its bag, I have a programming suggestion. It could replace a certain long-running but recently cancelled soap opera it's famous for with something that can be called "All the Bolsheviks' Children." This could break new ground and help rebuild ABC's reputation for honesty, as it would be the most self-revelatory reality show in history.

Contact Selwyn Duke