Epic fail: Media apathy on attempted Kavanaugh murder shameful

It was one of the biggest and most disturbing stories of the year: An alleged assassination attempt of a Supreme Court justice was thwarted after a man was arrested outside the home of Brett Kavanaugh. If the alleged assailant had been successful, the country would have been further divided over the prospect of President Biden nominating another liberal justice to replace Kavanaugh. It also would have possibly triggered a copycat murder of another conservative justice to tip the balance of the high court to the left for years to come. 

Last week, Nicholas John Roske, 26, was charged with attempted murder of a Supreme Court justice. At the time of his arrest, Roske was carrying a black tactical chest rig, tactical knife, a Glock pistol, two magazines of ammunition, zip ties and pepper spray.  

And despite this major story, some lawmakers and journalists simply shrugged their collective shoulders at the plot. On the Sunday morning political shows, the assassination attempt wasn’t mentioned even once.

So, ask yourself this: If there were a murder attempt against Justice Sonia Sotomayor or Justice Elena Kagan or soon-to-be Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, would it be a top story? No doubt.

And then there’s social media, where Twitter somehow is allowing this tweet from the radical abortion rights organization Ruth Sent Us to remain on its platform:

“If you’re in the DC metro area, join us. Our protests at [Justice Amy Coney] Barrett’s home moved the needle to this coverage. Falls Church is a People of Praise stronghold. She sends her seven kids to a People of Praise school that she sat on the Board of Directors for. She attends church DAILY.”

Twitter has no issue with the implied threat. The tweet is still up. The account is still active. As mentioned, Barrett has seven children, and the powers that be at Twitter think it’s okay to tell the world where they attend school and where Barrett attends church? In a country where mass shootings occur almost daily (there were 12 in the U.S. last weekend alone) and where mental illness is a serious problem, how can these protests outside private homes be permitted to continue, especially after this near-attempt on Kavanaugh?

Note: Title 18, Section 1507 of the United States Code says these protests are illegal. Yet not one person outside Roske has been arrested. Why is that?

President Biden has done exactly one TV interview in 125 days, if one can call sitting down with progressive late-night comedy host Jimmy Kimmel an actual interview. And despite having 24 minutes of airtime to do so, not once did Biden use the time to talk about what happened to Kavanaugh, which had been reported earlier that day; nor did Kimmel broach it. 

The New York Times relegated its coverage to page A20. Not mentioned in that buried story was Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer’s (D-N.Y.) declaration at a 2020 rally outside the Supreme Court that Justices Kavanaugh and Neil Gorsuch “will pay the price” for their position on abortion.

“I want to tell you, Justice Kavanaugh and Justice Gorsuch, you have unleashed a whirlwind, and you will pay the price,” Schumer exclaimed in March of that year. “You won’t know what hit you if you go forward with these awful decisions.”

Schumer was likely speaking rhetorically here, but it’s the type of rhetoric that could provoke a mentally ill person to engage in violence. That kind of rhetoric has no place from anyone on either side of the aisle, but Schumer got away with it. 

After what happened to Rep. Steve Scalise (R-La.) and other Republican lawmakers on a baseball field in Virginia a few years ago, when several were shot by a gunman and Scalise nearly died, what exactly will it take for the media to do their jobs in these situations? 

Bias in broad daylight is one thing. But the more insidious bias is that of omission. And if teaching a class in the latter, look no further than the lack of coverage of the attempted murder of a Supreme Court justice. 

Joe Concha is a media and politics columnist and a Fox News contributor.