Are Conservatives Really This Stupid or Did They Take
Lessons?
Democrats and
Republicans are both political animals, otherwise they would not be
Democrats or Republicans. But for
Republicans everything is political and everything is anti-Obama if they can
just make it so. Here
is Iowa Congressman Steve King on Fox News with Chris Wallace.
WALLACE: Congressman King, let me start with you. Should George
Zimmerman ever have been prosecuted?
KING: From what i have seen of the evidence, I
would say no. My sympathy goes out also to the Martin family and the Zimmerman
family for this ordeal that they’ve been through. The evidence didn’t support prosecution and
the Justice Department engaged in this, the President engaged in this and
turned it into a political issue that should have been handled exclusively with
law and order. I
regret that this all happened. I’m sorry that it was turned into a race issue
by the media. Otherwise, it would have been tried or not tried depending on the
laws that were there. This is unfortunate.
Now let’s see. Mr.
Zimmerman got out of his car, shot and killed Mr. Martin. The state of Florida
investigated the
possible crime and the state of Florida and
only the state of Florida
prosecuted Mr. Zimmerman. The state of Florida is controlled by
conservative Republicans. Mr. Obama has
no influence in the state of Florida . The Justice Department had no role here. Unless federal charges are brought that Mr.
Zimmerman violated Mr. Martin’s civil rights (yes, killing someone can be a
violation of their civil rights) the case will be over and the feds will have
had no involvement.
In fact under our
system of government, of which Mr. King is a part of, murder of an ordinary
citizen is largely a state and local issue.
Maybe Mr. King needs to go back to Civics 101 class, but to say he has
to ‘go back’ assumes he attended that class at some time in the past. Nothing he has said would support that
assumption. It may be that Mr. King really doesn't understand how the system of justice and prosecution of possible criminal activity works in this country.
Finally,
notice the direction of the sympathy here. Poor Mr. Zimmerman. Of course there are probably not a whole lot
of African American voters (and certainly no murder victims who vote, being as they are dead) where Mr. King is from, so in his mind why should
they get any consideration.
Mr. King does not care that a judge can grant a defense motion to acquit if the prosecution's case cannot support a guilty verdict. The presiding judge denied two defense motions to acquit. Does Mr. King think the judge was stupid or partisan?
ReplyDeleteMr. King does not care that the jury deliberated for 16 hours before returning a not guilty verdict. Does Mr. King think the jurors were too stupid to see right away that the case had no merit?
When Florida initially declined to prosecute, you aptly observed that Zimmerman should be tried, not necessarily convicted, but tried. As I wrote before, the case might not have been winnable for the prosecution because the evidence was ambiguous at best. It was certainly not winnable for the inept and possibly unethical prosecutors who tried the case. But the idea that Zimmerman should have simply walked free without a trial is repulsive, and Mr. King's statements are shameful. He is actually making Americans less knowledgeable about how the justice system works.