Unbelieveable. Tuesday morning, Mika Brzezinski, Joe Scarborough's liberal co-host and foil on MSNBC's
Morning Joe,
repeated a piece of conservative propaganda as if it were the gospel. She read from a
Wall Street Journal article that called out President Obama for supposedly reversing himself
last Friday when he criticized "stand your ground" laws in his
speech about race and the acquittal of George Zimmerman, given what the
WSJ described as his support for such a law in Illinois a decade ago. Mika then added that the information was "pretty important, given the grand scheme of the conversation." Joe chimed in as well, asking “why [Obama] supported the Stand Your Ground laws in 2004.”
Problem is, the entire claim amounts to a load of hooey.
The WSJ article, and others, like this one from the right-wing Washington Times, draw extensively on a post at the Illinois Review, which identifies itself as "conservative":
This past week President Obama publicly urged the reexamination of state self-defense laws (see remarks below). However, nine years ago then-State Sen. Barack Obama actually co-sponsored a bill that strengthened Illinois’ 1961 “stand your ground” law.
The Obama-sponsored bill (SB 2386) enlarged the state’s 1961 law by shielding the person who was attacked from being sued in civil court by perpetrators or their estates when a “stand your ground” defense is used in protecting his or her person, dwelling or other property.
At Mediaite, Tommy Christopher
described the
Illinois Review post as "an almost-fair reading of the situation, which then got oversold, and eventually distorted into a smear." Christopher continues:
I say “almost fair” because even Illinois Review’s take relies on a pair of false premises, the first of which is that the bill that Obama supported specifically dealt with “Stand Your Ground” claims. It did not. The bill revised the law for all self-defense claims. Illinois Review’s assertion is like saying that because the President likes baseball, he’s a Cubs fan.
Christopher also quotes from Shaun Zinck, over at the
Chicago Law Bulletin, whose
article makes clear that Illinois' law bears little resemblance to Florida's "stand your ground" law or those of the other 30 states that the NRA recognizes as having a real version of that law, which they call the "Castle Doctrine." Zinck cites Matthew P. Jones, associate director for administration at the State's Attorneys Appellate Prosecutor's Office, who says that, in Illinois, "You can't bring a gun to a fist fight. You can't use deadly force when there is no deadly force being used against you."
Slate's David Weigel noted that the claim made in the Illinois Review made no sense on its face, thus "alarm bells should be ringing" in one's ears after reading it.
But, of course, conservative ideologues like those at the Washington Times and the Wall Street Journal have no alarm bells, at least none that ring when they have to shred the truth to smear a president they hope to defeat.