The War Room

THE POPE DID NOT SAY "JEWS KILLED CHRIST"

One of the reasons I became conservative in university, was that I could see where the left was going in terms of parsing language and facts to distort truth.

Today on the Blogging Tories, Backseat Blogger tried to gin up his/her readership with a blatantly distorted 'rabble' style article that said "Pope says Joos killed Jesus".

The blogger provides a link to this article , where the Patriarch of the Coptian Christian Church makes the horrible charge. Nowhere is the Pope mentioned in the context that the blogger states. Many readers, including myself, were lured into this article and headline so we called him/her out on the blatant misrepresentation.

The blogger then tried to 'rationalize' by giving two wikipedia links where the head of the Coptian Christian Church is referred to as pope. Yet virtually nowhere else is the head referred to as pope. Instead the proper modern term is Patriarch. Indeed, in their rebuttal, the ADL does not refer to him as pope and neither does the article.

I make an issue of this, not because Backseat Blogger has any influence (he/she does not), but because if we are to call people like Michael Moore and the CBC to the mat when they parse language and facts to create a new 'truth' or perception, then the same must also be done to conservatives, Republicans or Blogging Tories.

The blogger in question, clearly wanted to have a salacious headline to get readers and in fact mislead many to think Pope Benedict had said something he did not.

I do not know what Backseat Blogger's own personal motives are, but when the right begins to distort truth as much as the left, we have to question it. Even if it is on a small little blog. The headline was featured prominantly on the Blogging Tories headline roll and many will see it and be misled. That is unfortunante.

Like many readers, I would call on Backseat Blogger to apologize for such a gross misinterpretation and not try to parse out on a technicality.

Coloquial language counts. Understanding context counts. Larger perception and truth counts.

Nobody reading that headline thought..."Oh, the Patriarch of the Coptian Christian Church"...they thought Pope Benedict; and the blogger was full aware of that.

What with Arnold having a love-in with Dalton, John Tory patronizing a 'queer youth festival', and the Republicans rudderless, I have to wonder if conservatism is about to enter into the same schism as it did 15 years ago, when conservatives broke away from the left-wing of their flanks.

That led to Bill Clinton for two terms and the Conservatives in the wilderness in Canada for over a decade.

Sorry to see some Blogging Tories members starting to go down that road.

posted by Nicol DuMoulin @ 11:40 AM