Please!

Over at Powerline, Hindrocket has this post: (emp add)

A Sad Day

---

I can understand how people can view the Terri Schiavo case differently. To me, the right result seems clear, even though the facts are complicated and the legal history is tangled. But I can understand how others can see the case differently, and I can foresee that in other cases, involving people on ventilators and other life-support systems, whose medical condition is not in doubt, I may part company with some who agree with my view of the Schiavo case. What I don't understand is why this tragic case should be an occasion for the partisan hatred which currently bedevils our public life:



I don't know how to account for it, unless one concludes that for some liberals, politics is about hate, period.

Hindrocket "proves" his case by including a photo (above) of somebody angry at Jeb Bush.

For some liberals, politics is about hate, eh?

Two points:

• A picture of that event was, in one instance, part of this ABC News story: (emp add)

  Poll: Evangelicals Oppose Gov't on Schiavo
  Poll Finds Evangelicals, Conservatives Oppose Federal Government's Intervention in Schiavo Case
  Mar 24, 2005 -- More than two-thirds of people who describe themselves as evangelicals and conservatives disapprove of the intervention by Congress and President Bush in the case of the Terri Schiavo, the brain-damaged woman at the center of a national debate.

  So who is protesting here? Looks like it might be conservatives. In any event, given the placement of the picture with a story about protesting evangelicals, Hindrocket cannot be certain that the fellow holding the signs is a liberal. Hindrocket, sure in his own mind that liberals hate, goes out to find a picture of an angry protester - doesn't matter actually who he is - and labels him "liberal" and a hater.
  
  (Also, we strongly suspect that the crucifix is the same one seen in other reports about conservative Christians. It's unlikely that this protester is a liberal among crucifix-carrying Evangelicals - he'd be pummeled.)
  
  
• Just for argument's sake, maybe it is a liberal in the picture. But Hindrocket doesn't show you the full protest message. Here it is from the same ABC news story + caption:

  
  Dave Giannino, of St. Petersburg, Fla., protest against the possibility of Gov. Jeb Bush, R-Fla., brother of President Bush, stepping in to save Terri Schiavo on Wednesday, March 23, 2005 in Pinellas Park, Fla. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)

  Note that the "Powerline liberal hater" is asking Jeb Bush to "please resign". Yup, that's hate language, all right. (And contrast "please" with death threats against Michael Schiavo and a judge.)

Either way, Hindrocket has some 'splainin' to do.

UPDATE: For those who might defend Hindrocket by noting that the two images are not exactly alike, we respond by pointing out that the first "cropped" image was part of a Yahoo story that gave absolutely no context as to who those people were. Our own sleuthing found a story associated with the same event, which established context (i.e. conservatives protesting). The fact that the full protest message (lower sign with "please") was also revealed was icing on the cake.

UPDATE2: What makes us claim that Hindrocket took the image from a Yahoo story, the one with no context?

• The URL of the image in the Yahoo story is:
  http://us.news1.yimg.com/us.yimg.com/p/rids/20050324/i/r424469638.jpg
• The URL of the image over at Powerline is:
  http://powerlineblog.com/archives/r424469638.jpg

That's why.

posted by Quiddity at 3/26/2005 01:23:00 PM