Lizz Winstead, the ‘co-creator’ of the Daily Show, that features comedian Jon Stewart, tweeted “This tornado is in Oklahoma so clearly it has been ordered to only target conservatives.”
She got unlikely support from Glenn Beck who tweeted “How many of us has made a joke we wished we could take back. She has to feel awful.” From the perspective of genuine tolerance, a recurring theme on these pages, Beck is quite right, of course.
However, it must nevertheless be noted that if the roles had been reversed and a conservative had gloated the same way over a natural disaster in a Democrat area, like say Hurricane Sandy, it would have been a career ender.
Incidents like this are useful to file away for the day when leftists lecture conservatives on incivility. At those times, we must throw comments like this back at them to show everybody that their civility talk is just partisan hogwash, and that they are the true political gangsters.
For this reason, I make a practice to note left-wing barbarism in this blog as it occurs.
Jon Stewart cracks me up but cons make me laugh even harder. Even when they win they are miserable. : )
Have a wonderful day.
Posted by: David Stewart | May 22, 2013 at 08:35 PM
Buddy, the tweet was in *response* to conservatives claiming the tornado was brought on by not praying, by allowing liberals to run the country, etc.
Definitely in bad taste, especially when read on its own, but clearly meant to ridicule the claims of that lunatic fringe.
Posted by: Ted B | May 23, 2013 at 08:31 AM
Dear Ted B:
In an effort to find out what you are talking about, I googled "conservatives blame liberals for tornado". Aside from references to Lizz's infamous tweet, I got headlines like "Den Senator Blames Tornado on Republicans", Barbara Boxer Blames Global Warming on Oklahoma Tornado" and "Democrat Blames Climate Change and Republicans for Oklahoma Tornado" before the search results veered off into the irrelevant.
As well, a screencap of the offending tweet shows that Lizz's tweet was not linked to any other material. In other words, she started that conversation.
Nice try Ted.
Posted by: Cincinnatus | May 23, 2013 at 10:03 AM
Then you didn't do a good job on your googling. It was all over the papers and - very much more to the point - a lead item on the Daily Show about, for the most obvious example, Pat Robertson going off on how the tornado was a result of insufficient prayer: http://www.reddit.com/r/atheism/comments/1ern4w/robertson_prayer_could_have_stopped_the_tornadoes/
Not trying to pick a fight or blame conservatives for this lunatic fringe, and it doesn't make her "joke" any less insensitive, but actual context takes a bit of an edge off of it.
Posted by: Ted B | May 23, 2013 at 10:16 AM
Hi Ted B:
I watched the video. It was a theological discussion on acts of God and the question of why suffering occurs in the world when God is good.
Do I believe prayer can stop natural disasters? No, of course not. But many people earnestly do, and evangelical Christians are among the most law-abiding and hard working segment of our society.
There was nothing political in what Robertson said. If Lizz Winstead tweeted what she did as a response to Robertson's comments - and you are the only person I have heard suggest this - then it is she who first introduced partisan score-settling into the discussion.
Perhaps if Winstead were more tolerant of diversity, she wouldn't disseminate so much hate and she wouldn't treat people who are not like her with such insensitivity.
Posted by: Cincinnatus | May 23, 2013 at 12:49 PM