Add to favorites Examiner Bio

Tiller and Long: A Tale of Two Murders

 

Sunday, May 31^st, hours after the shooting death of notorious partial birth abortionist, George Tiller, 67, Barack Obama issued a statement: “I am shocked and outraged by the murder of Dr. George Tiller as he attended church services this morning.  However profound our differences as Americans over difficult issues such as abortion, they cannot be resolved by heinous acts of violence.”

 

Monday, June 1^st, 24 hours later, a radicalized Muslim convert with "political and religious motives," opened fire at a military recruiting center in Little Rock, Arkansas. The jihadi perpetrator, Abdulhakim Mujahid Muhammad, took aim at and killed Private William A. Long, 23, and injured Private Quinton Ezeagwula, 18. Now, as day number three since the shooting passes, Commander-in-Chief Barack Obama has yet to offer condolences or even an acknowledgement of the tragic death, at the hands of a homegrown terrorist, of Pvt. Long or the injury of Pvt. Quinton Ezeagwula.

 

The similarities between the cases are difficult to ignore. Both George Tiller and William Long were murdered by fanatics. Both were killed for political and religious reasons. And both men’s murderers were/are filled with hatred, each deserving of a harsh punishment. While the cases are comparable, the response to and coverage of the incidents is not.

 

Without going into the devastatingly malevolent work in which George Tiller engaged or the virtue of the American soldier, the disparate treatment both the administration and media have given these two events has been a crime unto itself. In response to Tiller’s death, not only did the administration hastily issue a statement of sympathy, Attorney General Eric Holder ordered increased security by protective details at a number of abortion clinics throughout the country. Monday’s demonstration of evil, on the other hand, elicited no similar response, or even reaction.

 

The media has been complicit in the incongruent handling of these two stories. Mainstream outrage and coverage of the Tiller murder has vastly overshadowed the stories of Pvt. Long and Pvt. Ezeagwula. The New York Times for example featured the Tiller death on the front page…. The murder and injury of the two Little Rock army privates were concealed on the interior depths of the paper. Further, without bothering to delve into the influences of radicalized Abdulhakim Mujahid Muhammad, the mainstream media has instead busied itself with blaming well-known pro-lifers, like Bill O’Reilly, as partial accomplices to Tiller's assassin. Fox News solicited the opinion of Brent Bozell, from the Media Research Center, on the differences in coverage. He chalked it up to political differences. "’Politics dictated that they be outspoken on the murder of Dr. 'Killer' Tiller, but be silent on the murder [of Long].’ [He] explain[ed] that a long-held double standard by the media renders the latter unremarkable.”

 

This juxtaposition of the disparate institutional treatment of these two tragedies is a sad commentary on the current state of mainstream social values.

Insert photo caption or credit here