The left "brownshirts" attack

[dude1394]

Like their own liberal politics the left tries to "shove" the truth.

Killing the questioner

By Colin McNickle
TRIBUNE-REVIEW
Sunday, August 1, 2004

A week ago tonight, I asked Teresa Heinz Kerry a simple question here: "What did you mean?" And a wicked firestorm was sparked. Incredibly, most of it was directed against me.

Moments earlier, Mrs. Heinz Kerry had talked of "un-Pennsylvanian and sometimes un-American traits" that supposedly have crept into our political discourse. Her talk before the Pennsylvania delegation was, in part, a plea for a return to civility.

She was not specific. As any journalist would, or should, I sought an example. Instead, I got a finger in the face and was told to "shove it." I have been told worse things by more important people.

By week's end, I and/or the exchange had been immortalized in some hilarious editorial page cartoons and become a part of David Letterman's "Top 10." But liberals also did their best to demonize not only me but the Trib. "Right-wing rag" became the pejorative du jour, vomited repeatedly by liberal media elitists.

Heinz Kerry said I attempted to "trap" her. To defend her intemperance, she publicly impugned my personal and professional integrity. On national television the woman who herself raised the specter of McCarthyism with her unexplained remarks insinuated I was engaging in the same tactic.

Democrat presidential nominee John Kerry called his wife's actions appropriate.

Entertainer Patti Labelle told the Boston Herald that Heinz Kerry "should've pimp-slapped" me. Molly Ivins either repeated or created the myth that I had grabbed the possible future first lady. I didn't touch her.

Bombastic, fact-challenged liberal filmmaker Michael Moore supposedly called me "rude." A friend told me that Katrina vanden Heuvel, editor of The Nation, a leftist journal, said the exchange was the result of a long-running personal feud between Heinz Kerry and myself. That's absurd, patently; I don't run in those circles.

Longtime liberal national political columnist Jack Germond -- now retired and a convention "guest" who was shilling for his new book -- told CNN's Judy Woodruff that I was "not a legitimate newspaperman."

Ms. Woodruff allowed the slander to pass without challenge. Mr. Germond's wife, Alice, is secretary for the Democratic National Committee, noted a profile published before the incident in Editor & Publisher, a trade magazine.

I report, you decide.

Shove it, (expletive)!" one fellow told me as I walked down a Boston street. "You're the (expletive) who called Mrs. Kerry 'un-American,' " a girl told me in Boston Common.

And once the DNC's liberal attack machine was fully cranked, the e-mails and telephone calls started.

"I hope you burn in hell," read one e-mail. "You're a (expletive) Nazi," went another. "Teresa should have told you to go (expletive) yourself," another friendly e-mailer offered. And these were among the milder communiques; those that included death threats will be forwarded to the senders' respective hometown police departments.

One of my daughters back in Pittsburgh was brought to tears by a caller to our house. The clever woman identified herself as a Washington reporter seeking to interview me but then embarked on a filthy tirade. It seems a member of the Heinz Kerry Civility Enforcement Patrol posted our home address and telephone number on the response part of my convention blog.

As I struggled to close this column with something profound, an e-mail popped up from my oldest brother in faraway Ohio.

"From what I'm hearing on late-night radio, the liberal definition of a 'strong woman' is one who abuses anyone who asks a question she doesn't want to answer," he wrote. "A strong conservative woman would have come up with an example of how the questioner's paper had misrepresented the truth about her candidate or position."

Of course, Teresa Heinz Kerry didn't do that because she couldn't.

That said, and as I shove off from Boston, I'm still waiting for the answer to my question of Sunday night last.

[mavsman55]

That said, and as I shove off from Boston, I'm still waiting for the answer to my question of Sunday night last.

And he probably never will receive that answer.

[MavKikiNYC]

Perhaps the next reporter will ask her for her opinion(s) on:

1) Roe v. Wade

2) Equal rights for same sex partners

3) Affirmative action

4) Immigration reform....

I'd love to hear her opinions on these and other issues. Speak out and speak up, Terry. The nation is listening.

She cracks me up, trying to pass herself off as a "Latina". She's about as Latina as I am.

You can say "Hootchie-kootchie", but that don't make you Charo.