Announcer: The David Pakman Show at www.DavidPakman.com.
David Pakman: Welcome to the show. I'm David Pakman. Louis Motamedi sitting across from
me. We'll talk about the Sarah Palin Blood Libel-gate in a second. Saying hello, of course,
to everybody on our www.Ustream.tv channel and chatroom. We're actually going to do something.
You guys will get the chance today to choose the first-- one of the stories we're going
to do later on in the show. I'll give you three options. We'll keep an eye on the chat,
the one that is, I don't know, that people seem the most interested in, will actually,
we'll talk about it. Here's the three options: Number one, our old friend Pastor Steven Anderson,
remember him, from Arizona?
Louis Motamedi: Mmhmm.
David: He now says, "I am angry that the SPLC is calling me a hate group, but we hate gay
people, and if that makes us a hate group, we're a hate group." That's one option. Number
two, there's a new story about corn syrup having mercury in it, the high-fructose corn
syrup that's in so many products. We can talk about that, or we can talk about Illinois
may be getting rid of the death penalty. So let us know on the Ustream chatroom which
you would prefer, and we'll talk about that a little bit later in the show. I don't know
what your vote is, Louis, but don't tell us because we don't want to taint the voting
pool, right? We can't disenfranchise people.
Louis: True that.
David: I did an interview with... to get to Gabrielle Giffords a little bit, I did an
interview a couple of days ago on the Alan Nathan show, and he is a self-described moderate
or centrist, and during the interview, the premise of the interview was is media rhetoric
actually at all responsible for what happened in Arizona? It's a fair question. And during
the discussion, he brought up, well, number one, he brought up, and this interview is
on our YouTube channel, brought up the idea that there's actually just as much or more
violent rhetoric from the left, something I dismissed at face value, but I think very
telling in thinking about where we have to look to find examples. And we can find examples
of violent rhetoric from both sides. He mentioned, well, what about Jeremiah Wright?
And if you're saying, "Who's Jeremiah Wright?" I don't blame you for forgetting already.
He's the pastor that Barack Obama, not necessarily denounced or renounced, but said he didn't
really buy into Jeremiah's complete worldview, and he had said things like, "God damn America,"
and so on and so forth. And the fact that many conservatives are going back to that
as an example that is somehow representative of left-wing rhetoric, I mean, that guy was,
number one, a complete political outsider. I don't remember anybody really, Louis, even
at the time, putting much stock in what he said, other than conservatives who, much like
the "Obama is Muslim" stuff, were grasping at straws, were they not?
Louis: Yeah, just trying to put him with Barack Obama, make him look bad.
David: That's right. And if we actually look at who now is denying that they're involved
in this violent rhetoric, Glenn Beck recently said, in light of the Gabrielle Giffords incident
in Arizona, where we had multiple casualties and even more injuries, he doesn't use violent
rhetoric on or off the show. And it's so absurd, I'm not even going to insult the audience,
Louis, by putting together a bunch of clips of Glenn Beck because if you watch this show,
you probably already know that that's-- it's complete BS, obviously. Nobody believes Glenn
Beck doesn't use violent rhetoric. And to be honest, if you're part of the audience
that doesn't believe that, me putting together a few clips isn't going to influence you in
any way.
Louis: I think we could probably put together multiple shows...
David: Just on... Right.
Louis: Of just clips of what we're talking about.
David: And people anyway would say they're taken out of context or they're not representative,
so we'll skip it. But there is one thing I want to show you, and this is hilarious. Glenn
Beck has on his website one of these, I don't know if it's a random image generator or just
one of these where there's four image options and they will kind of play as a slideshow,
but let's put the picture up on the screen for our TV audience. There was one that came
up, and it's just so funny, because it's... assuming that this was done somewhat randomly,
there is, in the sidebar of the website, kind of as part of the background, there's Glenn
Beck kind of looking around a corner, very James Bond-like, with a handgun, OK? And then
right next to that, there's a very friendly-looking picture of Glenn Beck saying, "We must stand
together against all violence." So even on Glenn Beck's own site, apparently, the contradictions
and the hypocrisy, they're within inches of each other on Glenn Beck's own site. You don't
even need to look at other sites to figure out Glenn Beck is completely unbelievable
when he says that.
Now, some people are saying well, you know what? We don't really know the exact motivations
for what took place in Arizona, Jared Lee Loughner's motivations in this. And you know
what, you're right, we can't know all of the motivations, and we can't know exactly what
percentage any particular aspect played.
Louis: Right.
David: But...
Louis: I think it's fair that we could make an extreme example and say what if this kid
had never been exposed to any media, any television, any radio, for his adult life, for the duration
of his adult life?
David: We don't know. Listen, we just don't know, but my point is, if we're going to say
that because we can't be absolutely sure that one particular aspect influenced him, we can't
address it... So in other words, we can't prove that violent conservative rhetoric influenced
Jared Lee Loughner. We also can't prove that getting kicked out of college didn't push
him over the edge. And we will never know. I mean, inherently, even if we were to be
told by someone like Loughner what his motivations were, if he is insane like many people claim,
why would we take him at his word anyway, right? But to use that as an excuse to not
address rhetoric, what we're hearing from many conservatives saying we're not really
sure that violent media rhetoric was a factor here, therefore we shouldn't even consider
that it might be a problem and we shouldn't even talk about how to dial it down, that's
bogus. We will never get anywhere. That is, it's an anti-progress statement. Where could
we possibly get, Louis, by saying if we don't have undeniable proof that something was a
factor, like violent rhetoric, we shouldn't even address it? We'll get nowhere, will we?
Louis: No, I don't think so. But what's interesting is the right is not denying that the violent
rhetoric exists, right?
David: No. They're saying it was not a factor.
Louis: They're just saying it's not a factor, right.
David: Individual media outlets...
Louis: And other people are saying that there's violent rhetoric on both sides.
David: Individual media outlets like Glenn Beck are denying they're involved. Now, speaking
of violence as a result of these things, sales of semi-automatic Glocks have actually gone
up significantly since this shooting. According to Bloomberg, one-day sales of pistols in
Arizona went up 60% on January 10, the Monday after the shooting, compared to the previous
week. Now, some are saying that I was incorrect to say the assault weapons ban expiring had
anything to do with this Jared Lee Loughner, who could've gone on this rampage even with
only 10 bullets in his gun instead of 30. And you would be right, he could've, but still,
how can we just not discuss that?
And obviously, I must've been wrong because 30 bullets, you don't need 30, 10 would be
enough, normally, but wait a second, hunters need Glocks. That's the argument we hear,
the hunters. It's a sport. The hunters need these weapons, because if you get attacked
by 15 deer in the woods, obviously you take out a Glock, a handgun with 30 bullets in
it. That's how you defend yourself. And if you can only have 10 bullets, you'll be at
risk, will you not?
Louis: I've met a lot of hunters; I've never heard that.
David: And I think really, it's time to retire the because of this, we need more guns. If
everybody had guns, then this wouldn't have happened.
Louis: We have a good email to read later about this.
David: And the reality is this was a legal gun Jared Lee Loughner had. I mean, this is
a laughable idea.
Louis: Yeah.
David: He had a legal gun. And by the way, the more people with legal guns, if a percentage
of people are going to be lone, nutty gunmen, as we claim, as many people claim, the more
legal guns that are out there, the more people with legal guns that are going to go nuts.
Louis: Right. And some people say that if everyone owned a gun, people would perhaps
be more respectful, there would be less shootings because you'd be afraid of getting shot yourself.
I think if everyone owned a gun, this whole country would be like a John Woo movie.
David: Yeah, you're not wrong. And the last thing on this just conflicting evidence, we'll
get to Sarah Palin now, a lot of Fox News... what do you even call them? People. I can't
even say journalists, I can't even say analysts, I can't say news anchors because it's certainly
not news, are demanding that Sheriff Dupnik, the guy from Arizona who said actually, the
Arizona political climate is a factor here, they are now saying he needs to produce specific,
undeniable evidence of that. Since when has evidence ever mattered on Fox News? I mean,
honestly, since when has undeniable evidence of anything that said-- been even remotely
important to what's reported there? That's the question I would ask.
We had a couple of speeches as a result of the Gabrielle Giffords shooting. We had John
Boehner who spoke, he actually cried. You know what?
Louis: Again? Oh, my God.
David: His crying actually made sense in this context. For once, it actually made sense
for Boehner to cry. So that's that. I don't... we don't even need to address what he said.
Louis: Do we have it?
David: We... well, I didn't even get it. I don't want to even go into that.
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