By: Cliff Kincaid

Accuracy in Media

A question from ABC’s Jake Tapper asking the President, “Where have you been” on guns and security, is getting some attention in the media. But we have the answer to that. The Obama Administration was sending guns to Mexico and failing to protect our diplomats in such places as Benghazi, Libya. The administration’s record on violence and security is a bad one. There is no doubt that Obama’s policy has made people more vulnerable to violent death.

Tapper, however, seems to be the only reporter wondering why Obama was AWOL on the issue for the last four years. Again, the reason is fairly obvious: Obama didn’t want to take on the NRA, a mass movement of millions of gun owners which exists to defend the constitutional right to keep and bear arms. Although as a candidate in 2008 he had spoken disparagingly of people who “cling” to their guns, he didn’t want to make any new enemies before his re-election victory. Now, because of the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, Obama believes he has the opportunity to go on the offensive and crush his political enemies.

The evidence, though, indicates that his new “gun control” plan will make the public even less secure than they already are.

Again, if there are any doubts on this, look at the Fast & Furious gun-running scandal and the cover-up of what really happened at Benghazi. This administration simply can’t be trusted to protect the American people.

It seems strange that Tapper and the rest of the media don’t understand Obama’s agenda. Perhaps they don’t want to accept the obvious.

Speaking at the Sandy Hook Interfaith Prayer Vigil, Obama made it clear that he intends to chip away at the Second Amendment right of self-defense even further. He asked, “Are we prepared to say that such violence visited on our children year after year after year is somehow the price of our freedom?” Yet, these children were left defenseless in the face of an onslaught by an evil and deranged person. The freedom that was lost in this exchange was the freedom of self-defense—the right to arm their protectors and guardians and save the lives of these precious little ones.

Obama is counting on the media to do his dirty work—to demonize constitutional conservatives and intimidate them into silence. This seemed to work for a while, as the NRA acted like it was in hiding in the aftermath of the killings. It was as if the NRA was somehow implicated in the killings, a point that MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell was trying to make on the air, without any evidence whatsoever. His rants, however, do not compare to those of Piers Morgan on CNN. He has come across as somebody in need of the sort of psychological help now being talked about for potential crazies.

Larry Pratt of Gun Owners of America (GOA) deserves credit for going on the CNN Piers Morgan program on December 18 and calmly and rationally taking the arrogant British host completely apart. The exchange is a classic in terms of Pratt debunking every tired liberal claim about “gun control” and noting that the real solution is more security and putting weapons in the right hands for their deterrent and safety value. Morgan came across as a bully who was confronted and exposed as a stupid coward.

At the school, Pratt noted, the adults and children were “reduced to waiting to be murdered.” It appears that the killer did away with himself only when he realized the police were coming after him. By then, 26 people were dead.

Losing the argument, the British import finally resorted to name calling and insults. But Pratt had the last laugh, ripping Morgan’s “role model,” the Hitler-appeaser and “Peace in Our Time” British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain. His point was that you meet force with force, a lesson that Britain, America and the allies realized during World War II.

CNN is getting higher ratings by exploiting the Sandy Hook tragedy and that may be all that Morgan, Soledad O’Brien and the others at CNN are interested in. I usually don’t watch such obvious exploitation for ulterior motives, which apparently include keeping Morgan and O’Brien in their well-paying jobs posing as people who truly care for the children. But the stakes are now so high that a normally little-watched channel like CNN has to be exposed and challenged.

You cannot watch CNN for long, for example, without seeing a reference to “gun violence,” as if the guns shoot themselves. The term, “semiautomatic assault rifle,” is another favorite on the channel. They never define the term “assault rifle,” which apparently refers to rifles that look different than traditional rifles. On the morning show on CNN, “Starting Point with Soledad O’Brien,” the show’s faux conservative and Fox News castoff, Margaret Hoover, sings along with the liberal chorus. This is not news but propaganda and Hoover, supposedly a Republican, should be ashamed for participating in it. She is apparently paid well for making conservatives look bad.

Still, it was immensely worthwhile for a figure like Pratt to go on CNN and demolish their “gun control” arguments. The exchange demonstrates that the facts are not on CNN’s side and that their hosts, when challenged, become rather snotty and suffer a form of nervous breakdown. Pratt was not intimidated in the least.

“You’re an unbelievably stupid man, aren’t you?” Morgan said to Pratt. But Pratt calmly responded, “It seems to me you are morally obtuse. You seem to prefer being a victim to being able to prevail over the criminal element. I don’t know why you want to be the criminal’s friend.”

The CNN transcript of the show is interesting, however. Here is what it shows as the exchange was coming to an end:

MORGAN: …It’s down to idiots like you. Mr. Pratt, thank you for joining me. When we come back –

PRATT: Thank you for your high-level argument, Mr. Morgan. It’s really good.

MORGAN: You know what, you wouldn’t understand the meaning of the phrase high-level argument. You are a dangerous man espousing dangerous nonsense. You shame your country.

PRATT: Disarmament is dangerous. (INAUDIBLE) into role model.

The alleged “inaudible” part of the exchange was when Pratt said, “Disarmament is dangerous. Ask Neville Chamberlain, your role model.” It can be heard as the interview was winding down. But CNN, for some reason, didn’t want that final zinger to be on the official transcript. Or perhaps the transcriber didn’t know who Neville Chamberlain was.

Cliff Kincaid is the Director of the AIM Center for Investigative Journalism and can be contacted at cliff.kincaid@aim.org.