Opinion:

Let's score cheap points instead of policing our own

I was going to write a post about the recent incident that resulted in a photo of a little girl sitting on her father's shoulders, crying because of the "meanie Kerry supporters" surrounding her who tore up a Bush-Cheney sign. John of Argghhh! had a post on this incident today, and I could not restrain myself from commenting. I'm not trying to pick on John in particular here, but unfortunately, his post is when the straw hit the back of my camel. Here is the comment I left:

John, I have big issues with a father taking his little girl to an event where he will deliberately provoke a reaction. BOTH sides are guilty of behaving badly. Recall my post on how protesters who made it into the Republican convention were kicked by someone while being held down by security with a link to the video? The post is here:

http://www.randomfate.net/RF-new/archives/001065.html

(note: original link from The Moderate Voice)

Note that the person being kicked is a woman, and the kicker can be assumed to be a Republican and a Bush supporter. In my mind, even if the protester was "asking for it", kicking is out of line and far worse than what is described as "mugging a little girl" who's father placed her in a position where he should have known that at the least there would be shouting. I don't know of many little girls that wouldn't cry when shouting is directed towards their father.

So... looks to me that the "family values" party has men who don't value their families enough to keep their little girls out of bad and potentially violent situations, and the right-wingers who are calling for civility here never complained about the woman being kicked during the Republican convention.

Yes, this has pissed me off, because BOTH sides are behaving badly, and NEITHER side is policing themselves, instead they are trying to score cheap points every time something stupid like this happens.

I'm tired of the self-righteous attitude I see on BOTH sides ever time something like this happens. "They are evil because some of them behaved badly!!! We would NEVER, EVER act like that!" when BOTH sides HAVE acted JUST LIKE THAT. Instead of scoring points when your opponents behave badly, why don't you devote even 10% of your outrage towards your OWN who behave badly?

UPDATE: John pointed out that what I wrote above could be interpreted by those who choose to do so that I am defending the bad behavior of the Kerry supporters using the "well they deserved it" defense. I am NOT defending the behavior at all, I find it absolutely despicable. However, despicable behavior is being shown by BOTH sides, but NEITHER side devotes even 10% of their outrage at bad behavior towards those who are on "their side". I challenge those listed in John's post to take their own to task for behaving badly, starting with describing how a Bush supporter kicking a protester who is being held down is unacceptable behavior no matter which candidate that protester supports or which candidate the person performing the assault supports.

Dean's World

Wes Roth

Allah (John's link didn't go to that photo, I'll have to search for it)

Marcland

Travelling Shoes (sic)

Wizbang

Captain's Quarters

Milblog

Little Green Footballs

Power Line

Instapundit

dislogue

UPDATE 2: There are others out there who are condemning ALL bad behavior, or who are wondering what the father in this case was trying to accomplish by exposing his child to a potentially bad situation:

esoterically.net

Jeremy's Jeremiad!

UPDATE 3: Was this incident staged? There is at least one assertion that it was. It will be interesting to see if the fact-check brigade will dog-pile on this as much as on the CBS forged memos story.

UPDATE 4: I haven't seen any evidence that the incident was deliberately staged to the extent asserted by the Rising Hegemon. This assertion was that Phil Parlock, the father in the photo, had one of his sons tear up the sign for the purposes of the photo. Given that there has been bad behavior from BOTH Democrats and Republicans, this is likely yet another example of idiots behaving like spoiled children and choosing to not suppress their impulses. This behavior is completely unacceptable no matter who engages in it.

I don't cut Parlock any slack in this either, however. This man has a track record of inciting incidents at Democrat-sponsored events (see the Rising Hegemon post for links). I am not saying at all that his daughter deserved to be frightened, but Parlock is in contention for "worst father of the year" because I believe he knew that something would happen. He is being extremely disingenuous when he says, "I am completely overwhelmed. I had no idea. We don’t go for the press. We go for the message." With his history, he did indeed have an "idea," and if he didn't, he's too stupid to deserve to have children.