The book doesn't fulfill the pretended goal of providing news. I did, however, achieve other goals. Propaganda distribution, book sales, and appearances on Fox News. The claims made by the book deserve some critical scrutiny. I understand, however, that a more fact-checking sort of publication would not have served the author's interests as well. Only conservatives felt a need to buy such a book; liberals understood the trial as a political stunt. Moderates didn't feel vested enough in the issue to put money in the author's pocket. If you are only writing to a conservative base, then you want to appear on Fox News to push your book. To do that, you'll have to say what Fox News wants to hear.
Recently, a professor had this to say about Fox News
"The tagline “Fox News” makes me cringe. Please do not subject me to this biased news station. I would almost rather you print off an article from the Onion." ~~ Stephanie Wolfe
You may like Fox News, but you are not really getting news when the reporting is so biased. What you are getting is what you are essentially paying for: Republican propaganda. In order to appear on Fox News, all Katie had to do was provide the type of propaganda that would appeal to them. It's kind of like going to a strip club for a lap dance. (The chick isn't paying attention to you; she's exploiting you.)
But what about liberal media? Ah, well, you'd have a point there. Just as soon as you exercise some critical thinking and discernment about your Fox News, we'll move on to an intelligent and critical discussion of these liberal media pundits. Bias can appear on either side of the issues. In my experience, the liberal media tends to focus less on anger, fear, and riling people up. The tend to present evidence and employ reasoning. You may not agree with their reasoning or like their evidence.
I believe I am a political moderate. However, when I talk to conservatives they tell me I am liberal. I suspect that's a nice way to pigeonhole and dismiss anything I might say. What I am saying to you now is that I will fact-check even liberals. However, my time spend on such fact-checking websites like fact-check.org and politifact.com tends to support my assessment of Fox News. It is easier to listen to liberal media and check the facts than to do so for conservative media. Especially, this particular book where every fact would need verification. (And some of the footnotes refute the text where they are placed -- as already harped on.)
Now, in this chapter, Katie talks about attending a fund-raiser for Border patrol Agent Brian Terry's family. We also hear of Jay Dobyns attending, in particular a reference to drinking half a large bottle of Jack Daniels. This does make it seem as if Jay were really feeling the family's pain. Maybe. For all I know he drinks hard all the time. I'm not so sure Jay attends fund-raisers for all the border patrol Agents who die. Certainly, Katie Pavlich doesn't. I'm afraid, the description of attending the Fundraiser sounds like an insincere stunt. My suspicion is they attended to further their own political and private agendas. I suppose I'm suspicious that way.
She has something to say here, a perspective to paint. This isn't really connecting the dots yet, it is more of the same thing we've seen previously. For example, she mentions Tom Atteberry. She's careful to immediately portray him as an outsider. She describes the "rest of us" in jeans and cowboy boots. She describes him as 'dressed to the nines' with a suit, tie, and ATF lapel pin. If you haven't seen pictures of Katie Pavlich, you might want to consider doing a quick google search. As you should expect, she is a young lady that 'dresses to the nines' in her own way frequently.
She doesn't tell you who Tom Atteberry is. If you don't already know or can't quite remember, what she's done is suggestive without directly being false. (Inaccurate, not false, to make an allusion to an earlier exchange between Issa and Holder.) Reminding us of Jay, describing whistleblowers at the bar in cowboy boots, and mentioning the lapel pin might remind you of the division between the old guard and new execs and wiz-kids that Jay lambasted in his introduction to the book.
Now, if you are going to a benefit for a border patrol agent's family, you should probably be expected to dress respectfully. A suit, a tie, and a lapel pin in support of the ATF seem appropriate. However, there is a difference between being dressed professionally and being done up to the nines. I just can't give Katie Pavlich enough credit for responsible reporting to accept her assessment.
Her description makes him seem like one of the new execs working at the ATF. Perhaps some of the people responsible for Operation Fast and Furious. This isn't stated, of course, merely something people might believe based on their reading of the book up to this point. I hadn't remembered him yet. The appendix in the back lists his first appearnace in the book as page 141. Ah, this page! Shouldn't you tell me something about who he is?
What she's doing is painting a scene where the reader is predisposed to think of Tom Atteberry in a negative light. She describes him as chatting with a woman who had flown from Anchorage, Alaska for the fundraiser. The woman conveniently asks Tom a question about Andrew Traver. Katie Pavlich is quick to insert a negative image of Traver immediately. She says he was a wall-known opponent of gun ownership rights. Given Katie's feelings towards Fox News and the NRA, any person who is in favor of reasonable or sane gun control laws could possibly be described by her this way. She's not a "just the facts, ma'am" kind of author. She uses Atteberry's response of "he's a stand-up guy" in order to paint him in a negative light. For all we know, Traver is a stand up guy who happens to have political views Katie Pavlich doesn't like.
Katie continues to describe the woman inquiring of Atteberry about the "long gun reporting measures being implemented through the Justice Department without the consent of Congress." The Justice Department has certain powers they can exercise without going through Congress. This has something to do with the checks and balances of the three departments and is a rather central concept in the functioning of our form of government. Saying things in this way, after already taking care to pain a negative picture, further enables Katie Pavlich to lead the reader by the nose into what she wants him (or her) to believe. This is persuasive writing, not informational writing. This is how propaganda works.
This is how reading this entire book worked. Katie Pavlich knows her audience and uses buzz words, catch phrases, and other red flags to catch the attention of her reader. The book reads like a version of porn for gun lovers and Teapublicans.
The issues at the border do involve gun sales and both waiting periods, background checks, and additional scrutiny of people making multiple purchases within a short time period are steps that can be taken. Are they the best steps? Will they work? I don't know. I do know that doing nothing will not work and "nothing" is exactly what the NRA wants done. The NRA and those authors like Katie Pavlich who churn out propaganda mill material for them are not a part of the solution to this problem. All they will tell you is that nothing can be done.
Some gun shop owners were doing their job. These were gun shop owners who probably knew the ATF was watching them and knew better than to hide gun sales. Some gun shop owners will be less ethical. In their search for the dollar, they will see what they want to see. Just like we've seen Katie Pavlich do repeatedly in the book. They will look at evidence but only perceive it in a way that allows them to make a sale. Straw purchasers (meth addicts) can be sent to every gun shop until they find one that is less scrupulous. They will then go there for all their gun purchases. Find the weak point and exploit it, in other words. The gun shop owner will be making lots of money, will be happy, and will really not want their gravy train to stop. Not every gun shop owner would do this, but the cartels have the advantage of working the numbers and fishing for the shop that serves them best. Meth addicts are, after all, a dime-bag a dozen. (Pardon the pun, and I know dime-bags are pot not meth.)
NRA members, just like Katie Pavlich and the gun shop owner I portrayed above, also do this selective-vision trick whereby the evidence says what the need it to say. Any evidence or thoughts at odds with what they want to believe is quickly pigeonholed as liberal and dismissed out of hand. Oh, yes, Fox News is one of the most biased media outlets and they always seem to be blaming the rest of the media for a leftward bias. Oh, the pot is calling the kettle black again!
Any time the NRA sees an effort at gun control or gun violence prevention, they treat it as if it is some holy crusade against gun ownership. Reagan might have said you don't need an assault weapon to defend your home or hunt, but they will quietly ignore their Saint's saying on this matter when convenient. Any efforts and any attempts, no matter how small, to control the straw purchaser problem in places like Arizona is portrayed as an attack on gun rights.
After the end of some NRA propaganda, Tom Atteberry told the woman from Alaska that he thought the long gun reporting measures made, "perfect sense." From his perspective, which is pretty much the perspective of anyone who isn't a paranoid gun-loving NRA Teapublican, I'm sure the measures made perfect sense compared to any other measure on the table at the moment. I've tried to tell my gun-loving friends that I would seriously consider any legislation or measure presented by a conservative source and measure it against the liberal's ideas. I would certainly give you time to say your piece.
But they don't have anything.... an that's the problem. Agent Brian Terry was shot, in part, because of the NRA's opposition to sane gun control. They say that criminals will not obey the rules and will find guns no matter what.... blah, blah, blah. Ok, that's rhetoric and propaganda. Here's fact: Mexico has more restrictive gun laws and drug cartel members there have to smuggle guns out of places like Arizona. With more restrictive gun laws, American guns would not be acquired by Straw Purchasers and smuggled over the border. People there would not be facing heavily armed drug cartels and those heavily armed drug cartels would not be crawling across the border and wandering around armed to the teeth on American soil, either. Without that backdrop, Operation Fast and Furious would never even have happened.
Physician, heal thyself.
NRA, I get that you love your guns and I would love to allow law abiding Americans to possess weapons for sport, for hunting, and for self-defense. I think every psychologically cleared soldier to come home from serving in war should be given an assault weapon as a thank you and sign of respect for their service. However, your very restrictive views have created a problem. The problem with gun violence in America can be traced back to your attitudes and your policies. So, your members want to protect themselves from gun violence and buy guns but the lax mechanisms in place due to your obstruction has actually created the situation that gives them cause to fear. Especially along the Mexican border.
That's not opinion, that's not perspective, that is truth. You can take steps to reduce gun violence in American and still protect the rights of Americans to have the weaponry they enjoy. I encourage you to start working with the rest of America instead of against them. Guns are tools. Guns don't kill people; people kill people. People with guns kill people easily and quickly. Let's be reasonable and take reasonable steps.
Show some loyalty to the rest of America. Loyalty to America isn't found in asking for what you want. It is found in sacrificing some of what you want to see to the needs of other Americans. Everyone will ask for what they want; just as Jesus said sinners will love those who love them. The meaningful virtue of loyalty to your country does not come from asking what your country can do for you; but rather from looking for what you can do to make your country better. This is what we need; not more of the same from you.
By the way, Tom Atteberry is just used as a cardboard cutout for a supposed Alaska woman to ask questions. The last mention in the book still doesn't tell you anything about him. He may be this guy[1][2][3]. If he's an ATF member, as insinuated, I've seen no indication of it. He seems to be a financial person, a banker, an economist. Yeah, just the guy you'd expect to be dressed in a suit and tie. Or, he could have been any person named Tom Atteberry in the country or even someone hired by Katie Pavlich to pretend to be Tom and give out his name when asked. I really don't have much faith in the author. An expert on financial matters that predicted the crash isn't exactly an expert on guns. He certainly isn't an ATF exec.
Fast and Furious, despite page 147 assertion, wasn't Barack Obama's Iran-Contra Affair. During the Iran-Contra Affair, the administration actually did something and the investigations pretty much sounded like Issa's crusade. Except, of course, that the Reagan Administration was found to have, actually, done something wrong.
Eric Holder was exonerated. The Justice Department didn't find any evidence that the ATF knowingly allowed guns to walk. This is what Operation Fast and Furious was, according to the eye of history. And, with the likelihood of failure in their attempted witch-hunt, the NRA cronies don't just whine about whistleblowers being afraid of coming forward despite protections for Whistleblowers found in the Whistleblower Protection Act of 2012 originally sponsored by Sen. Daniel Akaka, D-Hawaii. Forces from their side of the issue go on a paranoid rant that Operation Fast and Furious was planned to fail in order to provide support for additional gun control measures. Yup, they planned for a big investigation during an election cycle year just because... well, I don't have any idea why that makes sense.
There is no solid reporting in this book. There is no connecting the dots. Maybe Eric Holder and all those ATF officials did something criminal. If so, they should be held accountable. However, reporting such as found in this book is not ever going to be a path to discovery. In order to discover the truth you have to start with a question; gather evidence; formulate a theory; and test your theory. You have to allow for the possible option that the thought that initial leaps out of your head may not be a divinely inspired truth delivered by God directly to you.
To be right about anything, you have to consider the option that you might be wrong. That's why Katie Pavlich fails as a reporter. That's why Fox News fails as.. a source of news. And that's why the NRA cannot be a part of the solution to gun violence in this country or gun smuggling from here into another country. All of these people get an idea in their head and will twist, turn, distort, or torture the truth until it gives them what they want.
But they don't "stand for the truth" to draw a comparison to the dedication line at the front of Katie's book. Those who have the courage to stand for the truth must also have the courage to stand back from their own beliefs if they are not supported by evidence. They just can't bring themselves to do that.
Finis!
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