James Taranto late Tuesday night wrote via Twitter, “I hope the girls whose boyfriends died to save them were worthy of the sacrifice.” Taranto, an editorial writer for Rupert Murdoch’s Wall Street Journal, was, of course, referring to the three heroes who were gunned down last week in Aurora, Colorado, taking bullets to save their girlfriends, as this excerpt from the Daily News explains:
Three survivors of the Colorado movie-theater massacre escaped with minor wounds, but were left with broken hearts because their heroic boyfriends died saving them.
In final acts of valor, Jon Blunk, Matt McQuinn and Alex Teves used their bodies to shield their girlfriends as accused madman James Holmes turned the Aurora cineplex into a shooting gallery.
…Jansen Young, 21, said Blunk took her to see Friday’s midnight premiere of “The Dark Knight Rises†to celebrate her graduation from veterinarian school. As the black-clad killer burst into the theater and unleashed tear gas and a torrent of indiscriminate gunfire, Blunk selflessly protected his girlfriend.
He pushed Jansen on the ground and under her seat, then threw his body on top of her, the mother said. “He was 6-feet-2, in incredible shape, which is why he was able to push her down under the seats of the theater,†the mother said. “He pushed her down on the floor and laid down on top of her and he died there.â€
Taranto, unknown to most Americans and something of an acquired taste among uber-conservative politicos, writes the Journal’s “Best of the Web Today” column, but perhaps is best known for his flippant, offensively lampooning tweets that often begin with “HAHAHAHAHAHAHA…”
Eric Randall in The Atlantic earlier this month labeled Taranto “maniacally effective (if painful),” adding Taranto’s tweets feel “a bit like Robert DeNiro’s Max Cady in Cape Fear.”
But back to Tuesday night.
Minutes later, after a flurry of responses, Taranto defended his transgression as merely “a challenging tweet.”
Taranto’s musing, “I hope the girls whose boyfriends died to save them were worthy of the sacrifice,” is emblematic of how the right view life. Pour billions into attacking a woman’s right to choose, do everything humanly possible to prevent a woman from exercising her civil rights, in short, terminate abortion at all costs; but then question the “worthiness” of a life — or, three women’s lives — once they’re on the other side of the birth canal.
Imagine, if you will, for a moment, you are one of those three women whose loved one made the ultimate sacrifice so you could continue living. How would you feel if you read, “I hope the girls whose boyfriends died to save them were worthy of the sacrifice”?
Taranto, who very often treats his position at the WSJ as if he is above it — and journalism — would do well to remember that human life is precious, and human feelings are too. Journalists have responsibilities to serve. Re-victimizing the targets of a terror attack is more inhumane and un-American than I can imagine.
And sadly, it’s right out of Max Cady‘s playbook.