Tannishblog

The news cycle for the Virginia Tech tragedy is about to wind down. What has been said is all that can be said - if in indeed, it was of value at all. To mark the end of the cycle, Charles Krauthammer, as syndicated in the Chicago Tribune bemoans the politicizing of the event.

It is inevitable, I suppose, that advocates of one social policy or another will try to use the Virginia Tech massacre for their advantage. But it is simply dismaying that a serious presidential candidate should use it as the ideo- logical frame for his set-piece issues.

He then goes on to attack Barack Obama’s reaction while campaigning in Milwaukee. Barack reportedly spoke about violence in our society, expressing a need "to reflect a little bit more broadly on the degree to which we do accept violence in various forms." The other forms included references of Don Imus’ slander, among other things.

Then Charles sums up his complaint:

This whole exercise in defining violence down to include shock-jock taunts and outsourcing would normally be mere intellectual slovenliness. Doing so in the shadow of the murder of 32 innocents still unburied is tasteless, bordering on the sacrilegious.

Perhaps in the spirit of Obama’s much-heralded post-ideological politics we can agree to observe a decent interval of respectful silence before turning ineffable evil and unfathomable grief into political fodder.

Political fodder. It seems acceptable for him and his ilk to lambaste tragedy 24/7 for a whole week to sell news copy. That’s just fine, somehow. Let’s make money dissing the political fodder, while ignoring the week-long news hound feeding frenzy on the same subject.

I wonder how much money was made selling stories about the Crimes of Mr. Cho. How much money did you make selling this story, Chuck?