 |
         
|
In a more measured moment, being interviewed by CBS anchor Katie Couric, Sheriff Clarence Dupnik made a more precise observation about the relationship between this act of political violence and the overall political atmosphere. Here he did not address the national scene but the state of Arizona, calling it a "Mecca for prejudice and bigotry." Presumably referring to his colleague in Maricopa County, Dupnik complained: "If you are in law enforcement and you are not a right-winger, you get all kinds of heat from the right-wing nuts." He called Arizona's concealed weapons laws "the height of insanity. I do not know what else they can do. Maybe they can pass a law that would require that every child have an Uzi in their crib."
I have never visited Arizona myself. I am sure that it is not as extreme as it is portrayed. Yet if one looks at the network newscast playlist of stories with a Phoenix or an Arizona dateline over the past four years, one cannot avoid the impression of a state whose civic discourse is imbued with callousness, extremism, violence and vigilantism. Just last week, NBC' Miguel Almaguer quoted a Border Patrol representative who took it for granted that cops have the right to kill teenagers who throw stones at them. ABC's Mike von Fremd and CBS' Ben Tracy told us of a pair of transplant patients left to die because the state's Medicaid would not pay for their surgery.
CBS' Dean Reynolds surveyed Arizona's firearms regulations in the wake of the Tucson shootings. He found them "among the most permissive gun laws in the nation." In Arizona, he commented "firearms and politics go together," showing the advertisement run by a Tea Party opponent in the November elections: Meet Pamela Gorman, conservative Christian and a pretty fair shot. A fundraiser for Rep Gabrielle Giffords' opponent involved target practice with an M-16. He visited the University of Arizona to inquire about the prospect of allowing concealed weapons: "There is a lot of drinking going on campus and it just would not be safe," a frightened student laughed hollowly.
Last year saw coverage of John McCain repudiating a raft of bipartisan policy positions in order to fend off a primary challenge. It saw incumbent governor Jan Brewer fabricate stories of decapitated corpses dumped in the desert. It saw coverage--by ABC's Bill Weir and NBC's Lee Cowan and CBS' Kelly Cobiella--of the prospect of ethnic cleansing of the state's urban Mexican neighborhoods for fear of police racial profiling under the state's immigration laws. Arizona is an epicenter of the real estate foreclosure crisis. Right across its border is incessant narcotrafficking violence of unspeakable magnitude: CBS' Armen Keteyian and ABC's Brian Ross have covered its spread into Phoenix itself.
Even if Sheriff Dupnik exaggerated when he characterized the national political tone, the political violence the networks flocked to Tucson to cover in such detail certainly comports with the image they have consistently portrayed of Arizona.
You must be logged in to this website to leave a comment. Please click here to log in so you can participate in the discussion.
