WORKING THE REFS

National Review's Kevin Williamson:

A Note about Gabby Giffords

While Ms. Giffords certainly has my sympathy for the violence she suffered, it should be noted that being shot in the head by a lunatic does not give one any special grace to pronounce upon public-policy questions, nor does it give one moral license to call people "cowards" for holding public-policy views at variance with one's own. Her childish display in the New York Times is an embarrassment.

"Her childish display in the New York Times is an embarrassment." Let's see: We have that. We have Glenn Reynolds telling Giffords on Twitter, "Try more respect and reason, less emotional bullying next time." More generally, we have (via Whiskey Fire) Reynolds favorably quoting a couple of posts by Reason's Jacob Sullum:

Of course they have a right to speak their minds. But no, their emotions are not relevant when it comes to empirical questions such as the impact of background checks, "assault weapon" bans, and limits on magazines. Their pain tells us nothing about the effectiveness or constitutionality of such measures. To the contrary, it obscures those issues with an impenetrable emotional fog.

and

Passion may have a place, but it is not a substitute for rational argument.

And we have Limbaugh, from his Web site:

When President Obama used Air Force One to ferry around parents of children killed at Sandy Hook Elementary, he understood the politics of emotion. Democrat operatives understood, when they arranged for the parents to lobby 25 senators for a new assault weapons ban.

... playing on emotion is their only hope. Logic, reason, truth, and the Constitution, are not on their side.

All this is working the refs. If righties say this repeatedly and forcefully, maybe Gabby Giffords and the Sandy Hook families won't be able to come back and influence the 2014 elections, or the 2016 elections, because the right will have gotten the press to conclude that the truth lies between the Democratic and Republican points of view, and most likely closer to the Republican point of view -- as always.

So if the righties are successful, the press will ask, "Gabby Giffords: Too Emotional to Be a Good Gun Control Spokesperson?" and "Are We Being Manipulated When Relatives of Shooting Violence Speak Out?" Because heaven knows the "respectable" right can't possibly be beyond the pale.