A Google News search for “Karl Pierson socialist” (without the quotation marks) retrieves a paltry 10 hits, 40% of which is conservative commentary. From the LA Times piece that is one of the hits:
CENTENNIAL, Colo. – Carrying a shotgun, a machete, a bandolier of ammunition and a backpack with three incendiary devices, Karl Halverson Pierson entered Arapahoe High School and launched 80 seconds of terror as he hunted his debate coach, who was also the school librarian….
Exactly why Pierson was angry at the debate coach remained unclear. But friends noted Pierson’s altered behavior after the two had a falling-out. Pierson was angrier and cruder, making frequent racist jokes and acting with what Larson Ross, a debate team captain, described as “accusatory arrogance.”
Why is this significant? From the same LAT piece:
Joe Redmond, an 18-year-old senior who was good friends with Pierson and was also on the debate team, praised his former teammate’s debating prowess, saying Pierson was the best on the team.
“He and I talked politics and economics a lot. He was very good when he was on the team, and he knew what he was talking about,” Redmond said.
Pierson, he said, was a self-proclaimed socialist. “But he also wore a Communist Party T-shirt to confuse people,” Redmond said. Pierson also sometimes wore an Air Force Academy hoodie and apparently wanted to attend the school, Redmond said. His political leanings, friends say, were more antiauthoritarian than communist.
Let’s see how long it takes the MSM to start investigating the debate coach for possible Tea Party leanings, not to paint the coach as a victim, but as a potential ’cause’ of Pierson’s rampage.
Overall, there’s a conspicuous MSM disinterest in Pierson having been a Leftist.
And now Breitbart reports this about the The Denver Post:
The story written for the Post by Zahira Torres and Yesenia Robles initially buried the fact that the young man was identified as a socialist in the 13th paragraph.
In the first paragraph the paper noted that Pierson was “outspoken about politics,” and in the third quoted a friend who said that the shooter “had very strong beliefs about gun laws and stuff.”
But readers had to wait until the 13th paragraph to read what direction those outspoken political views took.
That paragraph originally read: “Thomas Conrad, who had an economics class with Pierson, described him as very opinionated Socialist.”
But by Saturday morning, the Post had quietly sent the word “socialist” down the Internet memory hole. The revised paragraph simply reported that Pierson was very opinionated.
The new paragraph read: “Thomas Conrad, who had an economics class with Pierson, described him as very opinionated.”
One key word was lopped off and the story has no notification that an edit had occurred.
What journalistic professionalism.
From the Denver Post piece itself:
In one Facebook post, Pierson attacks the philosophies of economist Adam Smith, who through his invisible-hand theory pushed the notion that the free market was self-regulating. In another post, he describes himself as “Keynesian.”
“I was wondering to all the neoclassicals and neoliberals, why isn’t the market correcting itself?” he wrote. “If the invisible hand is so strong, shouldn’t it be able to overpower regulations?”
Pierson also appears to mock Republicans on another Facebook post, writing “you republicans are so cute” and posting an image that reads: “The Republican Party: Health Care: Let ’em Die, Climate Change: Let ’em Die, Gun Violence: Let ’em Die, Women’s Rights: Let ’em Die, More War: Let ’em Die. Is this really the side you want to be on?”
What do you imagine the MSM reaction would be if the 3 paragraphs above were politically inverted?
