Reporters covering the local fallout of the Newtown tragedy should dig into statements percolating through the media, and exemplified by comments like state Sen. Greg Brophy’s below, that Democrats are using the tragedy simply to bring down Republicans.

“And there’s a lot of–and this is going to sound terrible, but it’s the truth–there’s a lot of politicians and leftist activists who see this as an opportunity to permanently injure the Republican Party and make it more likely that Democrats will win elections,” Brophy told KFTM radio’s John Waters this morning. “And I think there’s a lot of people pushing it, especially their media allies that are pushing this notion from that perspective.”

It’s not the kind of comment that should be thrown in the pile of political-discourse-as-usual. What would Brophy have Democrats do? Be mute? Blame the media, as he does? Talk about mental health issues, as if guns had no role? Why does mentioning the word “guns” equal an attack on the GOP?

Brophy thinks the focus should be on the mentally ill, with no discussion of guns:

“And I’ve got to tell you, if the leftist activists and their allies in the media concentrate only on beating up Republicans over our principled stand on the Second Amendment, then we may not have the discussion that we need to have over all of these other issues [like treatment for mental illnesses],” he told Waters.

Brophy’s unsubstantiated accusation of Democratic politicking contrasts with another strand of thinking by local politicians, like Colorado Senate Minority Leader Bill Cadman quoted below, who argue that politicians can do nothing at all.

“The real bottom line here, is there is 300 million people in this country. Someone, somewhere is planning to do harm to somebody at any given day, and all the laws in the world aren’t going to stop it,” Cadman said at a Denver-Press-Club forum, as reported by Rocky Mountain Community Radio’s Bente Berkeland. “Criminals will still do criminal acts.”

So, if he really thinks nothing can be done, does Cadman also think the Dems are all about politics too, like Brophy does?

See the entire Brophy interview here.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, December 18th, 2012 at 3:37 pm and is filed under Colorado State Legislature, Talk Radio. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.