Pro-Life Big Doubles Down On Quasi-Celebration Of Abortion Doc’s Murder
Wow, this one should really help the pro-life movement. Randall Terry, the founder of Operation Rescue who appeared to subtly celebrate the murder of George Tiller, a performer of late-term abortions, is now doubling down with a press conference at which he’ll urge his fellow pro-life travelers to keep calling Tiller a “mass murderer.”
From the release…
Randall Terry, Founder of Operation Rescue, will hold a press conference to discuss how the pro-life movement should deal with Dr. Tiller’s death…
Mr. Terry states: “We must not fear, we must not flinch, we must not retreat a single inch. George Tiller was a mass murderer, and we must continue to say so in his death just as we did in his life.”
Other pro-life groups have roundly condemned Tiller’s killing, and seem worried that Terry’s rhetoric will blow back on them. As I noted below, this sort of thing has the potential to have an impact beyond this one issue.
For instance, it could smooth the confirmation of Sonia Sotomayor by muting the big pro-life organizations, temporarily taking the choice issue off the table. More broadly, it could make Republican Senators and party leaders more reluctant to embrace full-blown culture-war-style, rile-the-base rhetoric against Obama’s SCOTUS pick and on other issues.
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Like I said, i think you are giving these groups way too much credit. They might, and I emphasize might stay quite for a few days, but after that they will be right back at it. And as Lee Atwater said many years ago the GOP simply can’t afford to lose the RTL crowd. Lets see what Rush has to say in a little while.
Groovy.
Right now, I’m still just too damn mad to talk about this
Exhibit A, Tucker Carlson calling Dr Tiller a “monster” they day after he was murdered and agreeing with characterizations of him as being “objectively true” including “doing Nazi stuff”
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http://mediamatters.org/blog/200906010013
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You can expect more of this “I am sorry he was murdered, but…” kind of commentary from the RTL crowd.
Well, SG, I don’t mean to say that Rush will be chastened — of course not — just that it becomes that much harder for the more “responsible” GOP officials to feed the base. But maybe you’re right…we’ll see…
Greg
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I agree with you that the more “responsible” elected GOP officials will want to pull back from this. My contention is that they can’t or else they will lose a substantial part of their base. Or at least they believe they will. So while they might not want to push it I think they will feel they HAVE to if enough of these groups speak out about it and I have every reason to think they will. I believe they are actually going to be more aggressive than usual, the RTL groups I mean, because they don’t want to allow people to start labeling them as the hate speech merchants that many of them are.
SG — maybe the point is that this intensifies the dilemma of the more mainstream GOP leaders.
This, meanwhile, is interesting: Pro-life groups concede the killing is disastrous for the movement:
http://www.usnews.com/blogs/god-and-country/2009/6/1/george-tiller-murder-knocks-a-burgeoning-antiabortion-movement-back-on-its-heels.html
Actually as I posted in another thread, I haven’t noticed much coverage about Dr Tiller”s assassination today. Other than a short segment on MSNBC today, and other than 1 line on Moring Schmoe, no one even mentioned it, unless CNN did more, and I missed it. I’m actually hearing more about this from the blogosphere (whichisn’t suprising). I know the big news is the GM bankruptcy, but it seems like they are scared to even touch this story beyond “update” mini-segments! Am I crazy, or has anyone else noticed.
Sadly, it would take another such assassination for the media to give a damn I guess.
Can we stop calling them “pro-life” now? How about anti-abortion terrorists?
James – how about *Christian* terrorists?
And let’s hope the cable news folks take all the threats seriously, even those coming from clowns like michelle bachmann. They all incite and the people who utter them should be criticized instead treating them as legitimate talking points.
CDW,
Sullivan advocates “Christianist” jihadists. He distinguishes Christianists from Christians, which is fair enough. We don’t want to paint all Christians with this kind of extremist rightwing terrorism.
I don’t know what the big deal is all about. I mean this guy “assassinated” full term healthy babies every day. This just means it’ll just be a little harder for all of you so-called “pro-choicers” out there to get your absolutely sickening 3rd term abortions. Good riddance to Tiller the Baby Killer.
So, all the women who died of pregnancy complication were killed by you personally Gene Desalme. **** off.
This assasination was the inevitable by-product of the radical hate mongering right wingnut christian movement. I hope Dr. Tiller’s family sues the pants off these groups and include Bill O’Reilley, Sean Hannity, Glenn Beck, et al. on lesser included charges.
not surprised that left wing know it alls would blame every right wing,and centrist group on the planet. the fact is murderer was part of no group or organization. i was no fan of the man, i still think he was in the murder for hire business,along with sebilius,and did not shed a tear, but to blame me would be wrong too,since i was over a thousand miles away. go ahead however,and blame the hundreds of abortions late term that were not a medical emergency, as i cant imagine the pain those babys felt.
Why stop at birth? There are tribes in Africa that throw children off cliffs if their bottom teeth come in ahead of their top teeth. It’s called Menge. That’s much more progressive. Why burden young couples with unwanted children. Most don’t realize how hard bringing up a toddler is.
No difference there than your pro-abortion stance.
Leave religion out of it. You all just support killing babies. Plain and simple.
Why don’t the abortion terrorists go after the women who hire the “killers” to kill their babies, Phil Bill? You ready to start seeing women gunned down in the street, or in church?
Bill, you are plain and simple.