Frank Conniff is a dick.

Or "You Should Never Retweet Your Hero."   Or "Tork Blog becomes what it hoped never to be."

Get it, meet?  Retweet? 


Anyway, I wouldn't do this except that this kind of thing is completely out of line.

Firstly, Frank is trying to make a connection between gun control today and an assassination that happened almost fifty years ago. 

Second, he's trying to make it look like the Republicans are having this debate JUST TO SPITE MLK Jr, civil rights, and so forth!  Yeah, how dare Republicans support Republican ideas. 


So, if we had the type of gun control that Democrats want back in the sixties, would the assassination ever happen?  It'd be nice if Frank had the guts to say so.  Are Republicans supporting gun rights just because they're a bunch of racists who want to shoot up blacks?  Again, it'd be nice if Frank had the guts to say so.  That way he could use evidence to support his positions and we could have an actual debate.  Heck, show us proof that this debate was scheduled on purpose just to rally the, shall we say, Ron Paul voters.

Frank is using innuendo and sophistry to paint Republicans as evil gun-crazy racists.  Democrats had their Blue Dogs in 2006 & 2008 just because they were getting their butts kick on the gun issue.  Charlton Heston marched for Civil Rights and despite that Michael Moore accused him of racism just because he was famously a NRA spokesman.  Franky (har har), I think Frank's a coward.



This is the reason why I hate when partisan politics mix with comedians.  I know people rag on Leno for generic "how about them Congress!" jokes, but at least with that there's a sense of the grown up taking time out for a little humor.  A generic CONGRESS! joke isn't meant to mislead*;  It actually brings the crowd together, even if they have different reasons to be upset at congress.  (Not LEFT enough!  Not RIGHT enough!  Too this, too that!  Too useless, too effective! Ignoring my group, ignoring my issue...)  It may be a safe joke, but partisan comedians tell safe jokes too.  They just have a different, more niche audience.  They get off to offending people outside the audience, but they rarely challenge their audience no matter what they claim. 



If comedians want to participate in politics, fine, but they shouldn't be allowed to get away with the Jon Stewart defense:  It's OK for me to be disingenuous, because I'm just a comedian!  Misleading, lying, using ad hominems and straw men arguments... no, that's something that THE OTHER does.  I'm just a humble but concerned comedian!

Why make exceptions for comedians**?  Oh, so they can launch cowardly attacks while their victims can't fight back.  We used to call that bullying on the playground. 



I know a lot of former MST3k staff members generally share Frank's political views but so far only Frank seems to be a TRUE BELIEVER  I can't tell if he honestly believes in The Cause or if he's cynically misleading like-minded people for his benefit. 



* -  Well, a comedian can intentionally mislead if he's against a certain type of Congress led by a particular party.  Still, congress is made up of 500+ people and it's much harder to propagandize than an individual.

** -  I feel that you can judge people by the exceptions they make.  It's easy to posture.