Talk about sickeningly misplaced sympathies . . . Waking up to the news that two police officers had been shot during a protest in Ferguson, MO last night, and turning on Morning Joe, I expected the first interviews to be with family members of the wounded policemen, or perhaps with the head of a police organization, condemning the outrage.
Instead, there were Al Sharpton, and Marc Morial [of the National Urban League.] And rather than focusing on the wounded policemen, Scarborough's first line to Sharpton painted him as a victim: "this has got to be terribly frustrating for you." Poor Al. Even more outrageous was Morial's statement that even after the resignation of several officials in Ferguson, the shootings show "that people want further change." Incredibly, Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski, instead of bringing the focus back onto the victims, seconded Morial's notion.
Readers, permit me a personal note. Here at NewsBusters, our mission day in and day out is to chronicle liberal media bias. Sometimes the subjects can be relatively minor, even humorous. But the spectacle of today's Morning Joe has left me truly outraged.
Notes:
Sharpton says no one in his crowd would "condone" shooting policemen. That's awfully weak sauce. How about condemning it?
Sharpton and Morial were quick to suggest that there's no evidence that the shooters were among the "protesters." But unless this was the very unlikely case of a random shooting, weren't the shooters, by definition, "protesters?"
Mika calls shootings a "setback." So again, her focus is on the cause of the protesters rather than outrage at the shootings themselves.
JOE SCARBOROUGH: Let's bring in right now Al Sharpton and Marc Morial. Al, let me begin with you. This has got to be terribly frustrating for you and a lot of people that protested there peacefully for this long, especially on a night that should have been a night of celebration.
AL SHARPTON: No doubt about it. You know, just hours before the attorney for the family of Michael Brown, Benjamin Crump, was on Politics Nation with me in Chicago. And we were saying how the protests helped to lead to a climate where the Justice Department would come in in the first place. There wouldn't have been an investigation. And we were commending a lot of those that had continued those protests, nonviolently. And then this happens. Now, we don't know whether -- we will find out later. Let's be real clear. We're not saying the protesters have anything with the shooting or not. We don't know. But absolutely, unequivocally, no one that I know involved in the protests or the Brown family would condone shooting at police, shooting police, and hopefully these two policemen--or any other violence!
SCARBOROUGH: And in fact, Marc, you heard a lot of protesters who were quoted talking about how disappointed they were. And, in fact, the protesters themselves were endangered by these shots because it wasn't just the police officers that hit the ground. It was all of the protesters around them that also fearing for their lives.
MARC MORIAL: So, there's a couple of things. There's a report that I saw that stated that the shots did not come from the protesters. And only an investigation or an inquiry is going to tell the truth about what happened. Secondly, and the police department and it's noteworthy that it was a St. Louis county police department at this scene, seemed to have exercised restraint because sometimes when officers hear shots, there's a tendency to over react. It doesn't seem to be any overreaction.
Having said that, it demonstrates that there's still tremendous need, demand, for change in Ferguson. That people want further change. And that the resignation of the chief and the city manager are just steps towards the type of change that needs to take place.
SCARBOROUGH: Yeah. Three officials have resigned this week. And obviously many people believe that's a great first step, but [inaudible] more.
MIKA BRZEZINSKI: Some people believe it took a little bit too long, but at least here's movement now. And definitely the spotlight is on Ferguson in terms of not just what's happening in the community, in African-American community, but in the police department, what it looks like, what it feels like. It will change in Ferguson. But this is definitely a setback.
