Why Are Conservatives Such Whiny Crybabies?

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http://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/why-are-conservatives-such-whiny-crybabies

Over the years, Salon columnist Heather “Digby” Parton has written repeatedly about GOP/conservative hissy fits, most notably in her 2007 classic, ‘The Art of the Hissy Fit,’ where she noted that, “the right’s successful use of phony sanctimony and faux outrage…often succeeded in changing the dialogue and titillating the media into a frenzy of breathless tabloid coverage.” It first caught her attention in the late ’90s, when top GOP adulterers Newt Gingrich and Bob Livingston ”pretended to be offended at the president’s extramarital affair” as well as being outraged that Democrats raised campaign money just like they did.

It worked so well, she observed, “that they now rely on it as their first choice to control the political dialogue when it becomes uncomfortable and put the Democrats on the defensive whenever they are winning the day.” Which is why “hissy fit” is by far the best way to describe the ginned-up outrage recently mounted against New York Mayor Bill de Blasio, President Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder for their nonexistent roles in the execution killings of Brooklyn NYPD officers Rafael Ramos and Wenjian Liu—outrage the conservative media sustains by hiding what de Blasio and Obama have actually said, while burying them in false accusations.

The political dialogue over police wantonly killing unarmed and toy-armed black men has become much more than merely uncomfortable for conservatives recently—the longevity of the Black Lives Matter protests is showing signs of constituting a genuine rebirth of the civil rights movement. So how better to change the subject completely than to blame these officers’ deaths on protesters and sympathetic politicians? But the faux nature of the outrage was plainly visible. As Media Matters noted, Fox News led the right-wing media in casting blame on Democratic officeholders, in marked contrast to how it had downplayed, ignored and depoliticized a whole host of past incidents of right-wing cop killings in recent years. And now all that outrage appears to have fallen flat, with New Yorkers overwhelmingly opposed to police turning their backs on de Blasio, NYPD police union president Pat Lynch backing down on his calls for a de Blasio apology, and news reports that Lynch faces an internal revolt, and might not survive an upcoming election. Still, the storm of outrage was frighteningly intense, and could well erupt again, given the profound conflict of forces involved. We’d do well to understand what was going on.

[DetlefK]

1. Because the onslaught of irrelevant information is too big to stay informed.

All topics are covered from every possible angle and every possible opinion is presented at equal volume, because the media contributors seek to outdo each other at providing something "new", at creating more and more content.