Krauthammer Schools Entire 'Inside Washington' Panel on 'The Cowardice of the Democrats'

NewsBusters.org ^ | July 28, 2012 | Noel Sheppard

[Kaslin]

Syndicated columnist Charles Krauthammer perfectly demonstrated Friday why three liberal media members are no match for one conservative armed with the facts.

During a discussion about gun control on PBS's Inside Washington, Krauthammer gave fellow panelists Colby King, Mark Shields, and Nina Totenberg a much-needed education on "the cowardice of the Democrats" regarding this issue (video follows with transcript and commentary, file photo):

Krauthammer Schools Entire 'Inside Washington' Panel on the 'Cowardice of the Democrats'

MARK SHIELDS, PBS: Why is it that after Katrina, we say, “We have to do something about the levees?” After 9/11, we agreed we have to do something about security and terrorism. But something like Columbine, something like Aurora, something like Virginia Tech, “No, no, we are helpless, we’re helpless, pitiable giants. We can’t do anything because the NRA is all-powerful.”

GORDON PETERSON, HOST: Charles.

CHARLES KRAUTHAMMER: The reason that we can’t do it is not because of a lobby but because of the cowardice of the Democrats. We don't have a debate on gun control in the country. We have it on talk shows, but there’s none in Congress. If you have a debate, you have one party on one side and the other on the other. The Democrats will not speak up. A Democrat would not even give his name in Nina’s quotation here.

The fact is that if you want to blame it on a lobby, you are barking up the wrong tree. A lobby, for instance in the sugar quotas it’s a minority that the majority would oppose if they cared or knew about it. Hear, it is not NRA representing a minority. The reason it speaks and everybody listens is because obviously Democrats and Republicans have the idea the majority of Americans agree with them. So it’s not a lobby, it’s a reflection of public opinion, and that is why there is no debate on.

COLBY KING, WASHINGTON POST: That is not the case. They intimidate politicians on both sides, both parties.

KRAUTHAMMER: If the people were on your side on the issue there would be no intimidation.

NINA TOTENBERG, NPR: No, you know, even as far back as, you know, when it was lopsided, at like 70 percent, they had enormous power, great skills, and they managed to intimidate a lot of members of Congress.

KRAUTHAMMER: Try once to blame the Democrats instead of some outside ogre.

TOTENBERG: I blame everybody.

SHIELDS: And the Republicans are?

KRAUTHAMMER: I’m saying on this issue the Republicans have a position, the Democrats will not oppose it because of public opinion.

TOTENBERG: [Laughs]

SHIELDS: Republicans act out of courage and conviction rather than cowardice.

KING: Do you like that position? Do you agree with their position?

KRAUTHAMMER: I have spoken on this show for 20 years, I am not an opponent of gun control.

KING: Okay.

KRAUTHAMMER: I don’t agree.

KING: So Republicans are wrong?

KRAUTHAMMER: I don’t agree with Republicans on this issue.

KING: So Republicans are wrong, sir?

KRAUTHAMMER: But I am trying to point out that the reason this is not happening is not because of a lobby, but because of a consensus among a majority of Americans.

As usual, Krauthammer was 100 percent correct and his liberal colleagues were barking up the wrong tree.

The reality is that gun control for the most part is a liberal issue in this country, and for decades it has been the Left trying to enact tighter restrictions.

During this same period, public opinion concerning the matter radically changed. As Gallup reported last October:

A record-low 26% of Americans favor a legal ban on the possession of handguns in the United States other than by police and other authorized people. When Gallup first asked Americans this question in 1959, 60% favored banning handguns. But since 1975, the majority of Americans have opposed such a measure, with opposition around 70% in recent years. [...]

For the first time, Gallup finds greater opposition to than support for a ban on semiautomatic guns or assault rifles, 53% to 43%. In the initial asking of this question in 1996, the numbers were nearly reversed, with 57% for and 42% against an assault rifle ban. Congress passed such a ban in 1994, but the law expired when Congress did not act to renew it in 2004. Around the time the law expired, Americans were about evenly divided in their views. [...]

Additionally, support for the broader concept of making gun laws "more strict" is at its lowest by one percentage point (43%). Forty-four percent prefer that gun laws be kept as they are now, while 11% favor less strict laws.

The above chart perfectly demonstrates Krauthammer's point.

President Obama and his Party clearly want tighter gun control laws, but because the population doesn't agree with them, they are scared to death to bring the matter up.

If they weren't, they most certainly would have proposed a new assault weapon ban when they took control of the entire government with huge a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate in 2009.

They didn't because they knew this would be a loser for them at the polls.

As such, game, set, match Krauthammer.

[ziravan]

History is relevant here. After their shellacking in 1994, Democrats determined that 25 of the House seats they lost were directly related to the assault weapons ban. They aren’t going to make that mistake again.

At least, not on gun control.

[Fightin Whitey]

That was a great response.

Thanks for showing how it’s done.

[pepsionice]

One can remove automatic rifles entirely from American society. But if you use that filter and examine all shootings over the past thirty years....it comes down to one percent of the killings/shootings (my estimation, not absolute facts), so you ask yourself...what little gun control that might be somewhat agreeable...really has very little to no effect on all those shootings.

So then you are back to point number one. Now, if I removed all druggies, nuts and crazies from society, and used the same base of data....I might actually triple the number of people killed, and I might save a fair number of people. But you just aren’t going to let me put those guys in a state-run facility...are you?

[Chickensoup]

He did say he is for gun control. He also pointed out the obvious, that his is a minority opinion.

[Ronin]

Not precisely. He said he didn’t oppose it. He’s being weaselly. He can still claim he is neutral on the issue.

I’d actually have more respect for him if he said he was in favor of it, but he’s trying to have it both ways.

It’s weaselly crap like that that makes me dislike him.

[kabar]

KRAUTHAMMER: I have spoken on this show for 20 years, I am not an opponent of gun control.

And he is the conservative?

[kabumpo]

Love your comment.

Communism /socialism are responsible directly and indirectly for the deaths of more people than any other political ideology in history. Why don’t we ban them?

[A Strict Constructionist]

“so you are for NO gun control laws what so ever? Anyone can get a gun of any kind in any situation?”

This is the argument of the left and the we know better right. Gun laws and the war on drugs only seem to effect the law abiding by making it harder to own guns and to buy decongestants. Who has to sign for their drugs or guns, not the criminals. We tried prohibition it didn’t work and had to be repealed but everyone wants to do it again and again and again. These type of laws don’t work and never will, it is human nature. You have to teach and lead people to do the right thing. If laws could do everything we could eliminate churches and declare everyone a Christian and then everyone would live right, be sin free and go to heaven. Just think how bad life would be for televangelists, megachurch preachers and the Pope.

[publius911]

The Bill of Rights is part of the foundations of our Republic. I have always been of the opinion that rather than beat a dead horse further, present a proposal to repeal the Second Ammendment. Then stop the useless attempts to "interpret it" out of existence!
We have a dozen serious issues that matter and are ignored.

This is similar to the immigration issue. IT has been "interpreted" out of existence. The worst possible way to do it.

Apply our laws or repeal them. Don't let moron activists like Reid and Pelosi play their silly games.

[lentulusgracchus]

KRAUTHAMMER: I have spoken on this show for 20 years, I am not an opponent of gun control.

I am not a fan of Krauthammer

He's an Atlantic Seaboard elitist. People like him have been the curse of the nation since Plymouth Rock. Why expect different?

Our magnum opus is getting rid of the strings these elitists use to make themselves oligarchs. Find the strings, cut them, burn them. And toast the fingers on the other end -- or send them into perpetual exile.

[lentulusgracchus]

Gun laws and the war on drugs only seem to effect the law abiding by making it harder to own guns and to buy decongestants.

Oh, another voice for drug legalization. Let 20,000,000 kids burn themselves out, nodding out on street corners and in public parks. Sure.

[MileHi]

Indeed. To the extent that Krauthammer is “conservative” he is the quintessential country club RINO.

[MileHi]

LOL!

You post this:

Our magnum opus is getting rid of the strings these elitists use to make themselves oligarchs.

Then you post this to A Strict Constructionist:

Let 20,000,000 kids burn themselves out, nodding out on street corners and in public parks.

Why do some FReepers relish pummeling straw men?

[Talisker]

so you are for NO gun control laws what so ever? Anyone can get a gun of any kind in any situation?

By definition, NO gun control works against criminals.

By definition, criminals can get a gun of any kind in any situation.

By definition, gun control ONLY disarms law-abiding victims.

BY DEFINITION.

[theBuckwheat]

If there is any debate, it must be on why nobody in the theater could shoot back.

[Alberta's Child]

He's an Atlantic Seaboard elitist.

That's a great description. I prefer to think of them as urban elitists, because what really distinguishes them from real Americans is that their urban existence has insulated them from how the outside world really works.

I'm no fan of Krauthammer on many, many issues but he's a very smart guy who often lays out a very cogent and conservative viewpoint on issues of substance. Even when I disagree with him vehemently I find it hard to dislike him.

[Tanniker Smith]

Didn't quite say he was for it. He just said he wasn't against.

Likewise, he wouldn't say the Republicans were wrong, even if they didn't agree with him. Weaselly, yes.

[Free in Texas]

Thank you for bringing up the issue that REALLY matters!

[SuziQ]

Krauthammer didn't 'school' anybody - the three liberals' intellects were playing hooky. They weren't listening.

They came to that battle of wits unarmed.

[lentulusgracchus]

That's a great description. I prefer to think of them as urban elitists, because what really distinguishes them from real Americans is that their urban existence has insulated them from how the outside world really works.

That's a really good point, and one that contemporary writers would find compelling, I think, if so many of them weren't preoccupied with trying to manipulate masses of voters pro bono the Prog Cabal, which many of them -- like Doris Kearns Goodwin, whom I am beginning to think about nominating for a bronze statue as the all-time hallmark Liberal Drooling Idiot, still apparently think of as an urban goodies-delivery cooperative, rather than as a slavery cartel.

I found an example of an excellent urban-elitist rant in Commentary, here:

http://www.commentarymagazine.com/viewarticle.cfm/why-jews-hate-palin-15323

Before I read the article and chased links to many, many comments on Jewish-themed websites, I had no idea the depth of the aversion to everything we call "American". Former Bush writer David Frum commented (big super-RiNO), as did a website called Jewschool.com, whose comments were largely ethical and not overly prejudiced. The views expressed limn a fair outline of the "Red/Blue" schism in society, and explain the sharp demarc in U.S. voting patterns.

The animus displayed in the Commentary article and scholiae and commentaries appended thereto, reflect one POV that is Jewish, but I think is more widely attributable to "urban East Coast" elites and their control of media and academe.