It’s not often that a candidate, or anyone else for that matter, is asked the question that Tammy Duckworth was asked yesterday. Good for the Daily Herald. [emphasis added]
Sixth Congressional District Democrat Tammy Duckworth tried to capitalize on the recent spate of school shootings by citing them as she criticized her opponent’s record on gun control Tuesday.
But when pressed to name what gun laws could have prevented the attacks in Pennsylvania, Colorado and elsewhere, Duckworth couldn’t name any.
“Yes, there are going to be aberrations, but frankly we need overall better gun laws in this country,†said Duckworth at a news conference at a Lombard park.
The Hoffman Estates Iraq war veteran brought up the school shootings as she criticized President Bush for excluding gun control groups from his Tuesday summit on school violence.
Too often, candidates are allowed to demagogue with a “there oughtta be a law” statement without any sort of journalistic follow-up. Also, too often after major tragedies, people propose solutions that never would have prevented the events in question, yet somehow they are allowed to skate free. Duckworth didn’t get a free pass this time.
*** UPDATE *** Today’s Tribune story of the same press event is a good example of how gun control candidates get off too easy.
*** UPDATE 2 *** Dan Curry, a blogger who also works for the Topinka campaign, noted the above remarks and applied them to today’s AP coverage of Gov. Blagojevich.
Today, AP should have shown similar toughness when giving Rod Blagojevich a free ride on one of his talking points during this campaign — his position in favor of a ban on assault weapons. His attack on Judy Baar Topinka on this issue hardly is news compared to revelations at the Tribune editorial board that a sitting governor refuses to reveal whether he is using the services of a criminal defense attorney. Yet AP played assault weapons higher in the story.
It’s not particularly newsworthy because the Democrats control every lever of power in Illinois. If AP is going to do Rod’s bidding on this issue, it ought to have the journalistic toughness to ask Rod why, with a Democratic Governor and Democratic General Assembly, he couldn’t successfully pass an assault weapon ban in Springfield the last three years?