The Other McCain

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The Sorelian Myth of Matthew Shepard: Petty Criminals and Liberal Media Bias

Posted on | September 25, 2013 | 43 Comments

Matthew Shepard’s killers Russell Henderson (left) and Aaron McKinney (right).

When I was a freshman in college, Truman Capote’s In Cold Blood was an assigned reading and one of the lessons of the book — perhaps not a lesson the author intended, but one I’ve since seen replicated over and over — is how notorious crimes are usually the work of petty criminals.

Dick Hickock and Perry Smith were just a couple small-time crooks who met in prison, and Hickock’s dream of a “big score” — plus his insistence that no witnesses should be left alive — resulted in the horrendous massacre of the Clutter family. While Capote’s book is generally cited for its literary qualities as a “non-fiction novel,” its insights into the criminal mind are quite useful. From the standpoint of policy, the story of how a couple of small-timers like Hickock and Smith escalated to mass murders is important to understanding how the frequency of recidivism makes the criminal population a constant menace to public safety. It’s like how, in New York City, a crackdown on fare-beating and other nuisance crimes in the subway system turned up a large number of suspects who were wanted on warrants for robbery, assault, rape and murder. Serious criminals also commit petty crimes and, conversely, by the time a criminal commits the kind of atrocity that makes nationwide headlines, he usually has an extensive record of lesser offenses.

So it was with Russell Henderson and Aaron McKinney, the two local hoodlums who killed University of Wyoming student Matthew Shepard in 1998, a crime that became a cause célèbre for the gay-rights movement, used as a sort of rhetorical Swiss army knife.

Matthew Shepard’s death was used to argue for the inclusion of sexual orientation as a protected status in federal civil-rights law, to legalize same-sex marriage, and even to advocate for “comprehensive” sex education in schools (because tolerance).

There were nationally televised candlelight vigils featuring celebrities, and the op-ed pages of newspapers filled up with lectures about the evils of intolerance, prejudice and “homophobia.” (This word, suggesting the clinical diagnosis of an irrational fear, a mental illness, is one of the great humbugs of our age.) Of course, most of those emoting on TV and in newspaper columns were liberals, and the finger of blame was pointed at conservatives, so that you might be forgiven if you thought Matthew Shepard’s killers were a couple of fundamentalist evangelicals who attended Young Republican meetings every week.

But no, they were a just a couple of local hoodlums — trailer trash high-school dropouts — each with a record of petty crime (burglary, possession of marijuana) who were on the fifth day of a $2,000 methamphetamine binge when they encountered Matthew Shepard at the Fireside Bar in Laramie on the night of Oct. 6, 1998.

The Book of Matt, a new book by a gay writer, Stephen Jimenez, re-examines this story and concludes that there is no good reason to think of Shepard’s death as a “hate crime.”  Jimenez’s book recently received favorable notice in the gay magazine The Advocate, and yet there has been no effort by major media to correct the record about the case, as Noel Sheppard reports at Newsbusters:

At press time, there has been not one mention of Jimenez’s book or the new revelations on ABC, CBS, CNN, MSNBC, or NBC.
Not one word.

In fact, the truth about the Matthew Shepard case — that it was a drug-fueled robbery, rather than a homophobic “hate crime” — was reported by JoAnn Wypijewski in the liberal Harper’s magazine in September 1999 without making a real dent in the hate-crime myth. It was from Wypijewski’s account that I first learned that McKinney and Henderson both had records for petty crime, which made me think of the In Cold Blood story about Hickock and Smith.

The myth of Matthew Shepard as a victim of homophobia, for which gay rights activists blamed Christian conservatives and Republicans, is one of those media narratives that Andrew Breitbart was always railing against. The Big Picture story of What It Means, crafted by a process of selective editing that omits any fact that contradicts the narrative, is the daily business of the media, and their choices are influenced by a one-sided political bias, so that stories which appear to confirm liberal beliefs are hammered home day after day, even if these stories must be carefully controlled so that contradictory facts don’t cloud the political message.

This is not news, but propaganda, and it has become so pervasive that fundamentally false narratives (e.g., Trayvon Martin as a helpless victim of white racism) take on a reality in the public mind.

This is what Ed Driscoll is talking about in discussing the “Sorelian myth” of Cold War liberalism, wherein the atomic spies Julius and Ethel Rosenberg and the traitor Alger Hiss are portrayed as innocent victims of anti-Communist witch-hunt hysteria.

By making people believe in politically crafted falsehoods, media propagandists seek to inspire action — “to make a difference” — and so the record of the media’s past failures (Stephen Glass, Jayson Blair, Dan Rather, et al.) is carefully suppressed.

The one thing the news media will never do is to confess their own lack of credibility, to expose their own errors and biases. So when it turns out that what the media promoted as an anti-gay “hate crime” was, in fact, the act of two petty criminals in the throes of a five-day meth binge, this is a truth that the media will ignore, because it is a truth that exposes the media itself as untrustworthy.

 

Category: Crime, Gays, Media Bias

Comments

43 Responses to “The Sorelian Myth of Matthew Shepard: Petty Criminals and Liberal Media Bias”

  1. Lockestep1776
    September 25th, 2013 @ 2:42 pm

    The Sorelian Myth of Matthew Shepard: Petty Criminals and Liberal Media Bias: Matthew Shepard’s killers Russel… http://t.co/o7apDDnBFp

  2. CHideout
    September 25th, 2013 @ 2:42 pm

    The Sorelian Myth of Matthew Shepard: Petty Criminals and Liberal Media Bias: Matthew Shepard’s killers Russel… http://t.co/NJjrbs0Ekb

  3. jwbrown1969
    September 25th, 2013 @ 2:42 pm

    The Sorelian Myth of Matthew Shepard: Petty Criminals and Liberal Media Bias: Matthew Shepard’s killers Russel… http://t.co/jWJonl0eM4

  4. rsmccain
    September 25th, 2013 @ 2:43 pm

    The Sorelian Myth of Matthew Shepard: Petty Criminals and Liberal Media Bias http://t.co/lVFkIKq3cB Hat-tips @NoelSheppard @EdDriscoll #tcot

  5. CFLancop
    September 25th, 2013 @ 2:44 pm

    RT @rsmccain: The Sorelian Myth of Matthew Shepard: Petty Criminals and Liberal Media Bias http://t.co/lVFkIKq3cB Hat-tips @NoelSheppard @E…

  6. sargeherren
    September 25th, 2013 @ 2:50 pm

    The Sorelian Myth of Matthew Shepard: Petty Criminals and Liberal Media Bias http://t.co/IITWbPfcXa

  7. eggs_over_easy
    September 25th, 2013 @ 2:55 pm

    RT @rsmccain: The Sorelian Myth of Matthew Shepard: Petty Criminals and Liberal Media Bias http://t.co/lVFkIKq3cB Hat-tips @NoelSheppard @E…

  8. RS
    September 25th, 2013 @ 2:58 pm

    What people fear most about evil is not that it most definitely exists, but that it can be quite random. That is, we seek to find an explanation for an evil act which we then use to assure ourselves that we will not be in the same situation. Failing that, we then try to attach cosmic meaning to the results in order to assure ourselves that there is some purpose to all horrible things which happen every day to millions of people. Stated differently, we forget that, thanks to Original Sin, the rain falls on the just and the unjust.

    Those with an agenda –gay rights, gun control, you name it– consciously prey upon those fears to advance their agendas. Beulah Land is merely one step away, if we’ll just take that step. Yet evil will continue to exist as long as there are humans. There will still be the dead being mourned by those left behind.

  9. screwtape1a12
    September 25th, 2013 @ 2:59 pm

    RT @rsmccain: The Sorelian Myth of Matthew Shepard: Petty Criminals and Liberal Media Bias http://t.co/lVFkIKq3cB Hat-tips @NoelSheppard @E…

  10. Unix-Jedi
    September 25th, 2013 @ 3:03 pm

    The one thing the news media will never do is to confess their own lack of credibility, to expose their own errors and biases.

    Which reminds me, how many rapes and murders were there in the Superdome in 2005?

    I don’t recall any great deal of retractions about the breathless claims made…

  11. Evi L. Bloggerlady
    September 25th, 2013 @ 3:06 pm

    The Passion of Matthew Shepard, as reported by the media, is a fabrication and a lie.

    What it was was Brokeback Mountain, but with the twist of Ennis wacking Jack over a meth deal gone bad.

  12. LadyLiberty1885
    September 25th, 2013 @ 3:06 pm

    The Sorelian Myth of Matthew Shepard: Petty Criminals and Liberal Media Bias : The Other McCain http://t.co/196lnhibil

  13. G Joubert
    September 25th, 2013 @ 3:08 pm

    Scratch a liberal and you’ll find a tyrant under a thin veneer of supposed tolerance and compassion. And they themselves are more and more dispensing with the veneer.

  14. thatMrGguy
    September 25th, 2013 @ 3:16 pm

    The Sorelian Myth of Matthew Shepard: Petty Criminals and Liberal Media Bias http://t.co/v1NL3iMIOt

  15. Ted Cruz Pulls All-Nighter, but the Important Thing is Peter King | Regular Right Guy
    September 25th, 2013 @ 3:35 pm

    […] The Sorelian Myth of Matthew Shepard: Petty Criminals and Liberal Media Bias […]

  16. NoelSheppard
    September 25th, 2013 @ 3:46 pm

    RT @rsmccain: The Sorelian Myth of Matthew Shepard: Petty Criminals and Liberal Media Bias http://t.co/fTorrFn3lu Hat-tips @NoelSheppard…

  17. ChrisDavis2011
    September 25th, 2013 @ 3:49 pm

    All that is necessary for Evil to exist is Darkness and willing co-conspirators….

    Billy Ray Simpson – 2011

  18. Zigmanfreud
    September 25th, 2013 @ 3:49 pm

    RT @NoelSheppard: RT @rsmccain: The Sorelian Myth of Matthew Shepard: Petty Criminals and Liberal Media Bias http://t.co/fTorrFn3lu Hat-tip…

  19. Adjoran
    September 25th, 2013 @ 5:14 pm

    Funny thing about corrections. I worked at newspapers large and small, and back in the day corrections were taken very seriously. They rarely merited a front page, but did sometimes if the error were really that big, but there was a strong emphasis on timeliness, getting the correction in the very next edition(s) as soon as the error was discovered.

    It was all about credibility. The pact with the reader was that for his quarter or so, we promised him accurate reporting of the news. Several studies over the years demonstrated that newspaper advertising carried more weight because of the newspapers’ credibility. That fact was used in marketing at papers of all sizes.

    Notice how much newspaper advertising has declined now? Of course credibility isn’t the only factor, but it is a factor. People trust news media far less now than they did 40 years ago, and for good reasons.

  20. Adjoran
    September 25th, 2013 @ 5:16 pm

    And the lack of notice for this book is exactly about The Narrative. It just wouldn’t do for St. Matthew to be found to be a meth-dealing and addicted twink. Really messes with the whole story.

  21. Douglas_T
    September 25th, 2013 @ 5:17 pm

    The Sorelian Myth of Matthew Shepard: Petty Criminals and Media Bias http://t.co/uhWquWs1dz

  22. Evi L. Bloggerlady
    September 25th, 2013 @ 5:50 pm

    Maybe St. Shepard can hang with St. Pancake? Where ever they are.

  23. M. Thompson
    September 25th, 2013 @ 5:53 pm

    The truth is never as clear cut as the legend supposedly is.

  24. Evi L. Bloggerlady
    September 25th, 2013 @ 5:57 pm

    I felt it years ago seeing a Black Sabath Blue Oyster Cult gig.

  25. Evi L. Bloggerlady
    September 25th, 2013 @ 5:59 pm

    Billy Ray Cyrus spawned some evil…Miley!

  26. BonzerWolf
    September 25th, 2013 @ 6:46 pm

    The Sorelian Myth of Matthew Shepard: Petty Criminals and Liberal Media Bias http://t.co/sfZZWlDpSx #p2 #liberalfascism

  27. txrepublican
    September 25th, 2013 @ 7:03 pm

    The Sorelian Myth of Matthew Shepard: Petty Criminals and Liberal Media Bias http://t.co/lAdlUIYZuH #TeaParty #tcot #Liberty

  28. OwainPenllyn
    September 25th, 2013 @ 7:10 pm

    Myth of Matthew Shepard:Petty Criminals & Liberal Media Bias http://t.co/U7GDMcAvwX via @rsmccain #tgdn #tcot #uniteblue

  29. DaveO
    September 25th, 2013 @ 7:35 pm

    The truth was clear. And the truth was murdered more violently by the Prognazis than Shepard was by these two punks.

  30. Eastwood Ravine
    September 25th, 2013 @ 7:53 pm

    The media doesn’t to touch this for 2 reasons.

    1) That they agree with the narrative the that original story furthered, and
    2) That, in pointing out the truth, the enforcers of the gay agenda will call them bigots. In other words, fear.

    The truth of the death of Matthew Shepard’s death will be called a Hatefact to those who bring it up and try to correct the record.

    In the immortal words of Dan Rather, “fake, but accurate.”

  31. Finrod Felagund
    September 25th, 2013 @ 7:55 pm

    Truth to liberals is whatever helps their cause.

  32. RS
    September 25th, 2013 @ 7:59 pm

    It probably started in the post-Watergate era where newspapers ceased to provide pure reportage in favor of various crusades thinly sprinkled with supporting “facts.” It reminds me of the novel Fatherland, where the main character always started the paper by reading the sports section, because Goebbels’s propaganda ministry couldn’t figure out a way to lie about the soccer scores.

  33. Fareedi al Laayla al Qakhaul
    September 25th, 2013 @ 8:04 pm

    St Pancake? Rachel “Flat Brat” Corey?

  34. Fareedi al Laayla al Qakhaul
    September 25th, 2013 @ 8:22 pm

    The stories of other homosexual “martyrs” like Lawrence King and Tyler Clementi were also spun heavily to fit the narrative…

  35. asideofbacon
    September 25th, 2013 @ 8:37 pm

    Great article! “The Sorelian Myth of Matthew Shepard… ” — via @rsmcain

    Because… narrative.

    http://t.co/DqTv1YzNU0

  36. warriors_mom
    September 25th, 2013 @ 9:58 pm

    The Sorelian Myth of Matthew Shepard: Petty Criminals and Liberal Media Bias http://t.co/JYlJk22ruA

  37. Evi L. Bloggerlady
    September 25th, 2013 @ 10:07 pm

    Yes, the one and the same.

  38. Evi L. Bloggerlady
    September 25th, 2013 @ 10:11 pm

    St. Shepard does not like chicks, but who doesn’t like pancakes?

    Didn’t the gay mafiosi guy in the Sopranos hook up with a guy who made “johnny cakes”? Gay guys like pancakes.

    Win win.

    http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/d/d5/Ep73_01.jpg

  39. PaulHair1
    September 25th, 2013 @ 10:57 pm

    Kudos to @rsmccain for noting that the truth about Matthew Shepard was uncovered well over a decade ago: http://t.co/NAFARZryl8

  40. El_Lashbo
    September 25th, 2013 @ 11:03 pm

    Great read Patriots! >> The Sorelian Myth of Matthew Shepard: Petty Criminals and Liberal Media Bias http://t.co/9kfo5RwH4a

  41. sheppmrtx
    September 26th, 2013 @ 7:35 am

    The Sorelian Myth of Matthew Shepard: Petty Criminals and Liberal Media Bias http://t.co/Jn0wbUzpz9

  42. Vaughan Starr
    September 26th, 2013 @ 10:11 am

    An enlightening read, but with one critique. “a new book by a gay writer, Stephen Jimenez” Stephen Jimenez was born an innocent individual. What happened to him to make him seek sexual sexual contact with other men (something most men find vomitous) we will likely never know. But what we do know is that he is still a child of God. And as such replete with his own virtues, his own failings, his own dreams and passions. He is an individual. Labeling him first most as Gay, like labeling someone first most Black, serves to rob them of that individuality and enshrine the collectivist identity the Left salivates over. Yes, in the context of the story I can see how Mr. Jimenez’s sexual orientation is relevant, but it should not be given top billing.

    As for the rest…well, you are dealing with people who as a group champion a belief in what is politically correct over what is factually correct. So trying to engage in a cogent discussion of reality with such people is has about as much chance of success as the same with a paranoid schizophrenic off their meds.

  43. Evi L. Bloggerlady
    September 26th, 2013 @ 11:11 am

    I have a pretty good idea where there are, several levels below President Nixon.