(Updated)
Infuriated that the Center for Medical Progress' deceptively edited, strategically released Planned Parenthood videos aren't gaining traction outside of "Hannity," desperate conservatives are trying another tactic to compel Americans to care about their little publicity stunt -- comparing a legal medical procedure to the illegal hunting, stalking, and killing of Cecil the lion.
As the co-founder of the Federalist, Sean Davis, put it:
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His analogy was greeted with enthusiasm:
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The specious connection between these isolated and distinct stories had been established. So when ThinkProgress editor Jedd Legum noted the following:
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He was told:
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The Guardian's Jill Filipovic pointed out that the comparison was invalid, and that conservatives were simply using Cecil's death as a means of forwarding their anti-choice agenda:
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Her critics stuck to the newly established script:
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Unfortunately, it seems likely that we're going to be seeing many comments like this one, from the Federalist's Senior Editor Mollie Hemingway, in the next few weeks:
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The accepted logic on the right is that you aren't allowed to feel outrage at a dentist who spent 40 hours torturing a wounded lion without also believing that Planned Parenthood clinics are part of an abortion industrial complex more vast than anything imagined by the architects of Auschwitz.
Update: As predicted, these talking points are climbing their way up the conservative hierarchy:
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