Politicizing Child Torture?

Unbelievably, Atrios tries to make the story of the couple arrested for torturing and starving their children into a Red State-Blue State thing, commenting on the story only with the title “Bobo’s World.” Ranting ensues in the comments section.

Do we really want to go down this road?

Certainly, exploiting crimes against children for political gain is nothing new. A decade ago, Newt Gingrich infamously used Susan Smith’s murder of her children to argue that we needed to get Democrats out of office. It’s certainly a vile and disengenous tactic, though.

Error in original corrected.

FILED UNDER: Blogosphere, US Politics, , , , ,
James Joyner
About James Joyner
James Joyner is Professor and Department Head of Security Studies at Marine Corps University's Command and Staff College. He's a former Army officer and Desert Storm veteran. Views expressed here are his own. Follow James on Twitter @DrJJoyner.

Comments

  1. Mark says:

    Actually, they lived in Beverly Hills, Florida.

  2. James Joyner says:

    Ah. That makes a lot more sense–I didn’t read it carefully enough.

  3. Paul Long says:

    I think this kind of explains it (from http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1336342/posts ):

    “…a home that was formerly Mountain View Christian Academy was owned and run by the Dollars.”

    and

    “…the Dollars seemed to be very religious and she never suspected they would hurt a child. ‘Not the way they talked about God and church and their faith.'”

  4. Paul says:

    But if Bush stole Florida, doesn’t that make it a true blue state?

    Just askin’…

  5. Beth says:

    What short memories those moonbats have. I remember a similiar story (or two?) that came from Chicago–not exactly a bastion of conservativism.

    How pathetic.

  6. Disgusted, I tell ya, disgusted! says:

    This blog takes a photo of a presumably Iraqi woman who displays her purple finger as evidence of voting and underneath it reads red state conservative and this blogger wonders whether we’ve gone to far politicizing stuff?

    Red state voters? Bush and its thugs only conceded to this election after being threatened with a mass uprising among the Shiites. And red state voters I assume vigorously endorse and approve of the torture chambers operated by “coalition” forces?

    Connections…

    Conservative commentary typically makes peculiar associations…nah…we’ve been down this road for twenty years as one conservative after another has linked all manner of evil to liberalism. Good grief, is there really anything else to conservative commentary other than slander, sleaze, propaganda and religious porn? Indeed, while freepers and fellow travelers are outraged that children had their toenails pulled off and starved, I suspect their also thinking to themselves, well now, there’s an interrogation device that deserves some attention!

    These florida yahoos represent the cream of bible thumpers. Its a miracle they were even detected let alone caught.

  7. Bithead says:

    Did you really think there was a way they weren’t going to blame it all on George W Bush and the VRWC?