Media Matters

* Media meister Jim Messina, a former key aide to presidential candidate Barack Obama, is now working for Hillary Clinton. He’s running her super PAC. He explained his role recently on MSNBC: “It’s her turn and her time,” he noted, in what sounded like a 2016 mantra. If so, he might want to think again, as tempting as that alliterative pairing is.

A candidate’s “turn,” even in reference to one so famously familiar as Hillary Clinton, sounds like “entitlement.” Which sounds like a bad idea, one that Republicans have periodically implemented with the nominations of Bob Dole and Mitt Romney.

* Here’s a rule of thumb: If you know who the surgeon general is, it’s likely not a good sign. It probably means there’s a public health issue afoot. In this case, it’s the measles-vaccination controversy. For the record, John Armstrong is this state’s surgeon general. I couldn’t have told you that two weeks ago.

* An official report and victim remembrance on the Sandy Hook massacre has run into an issue of inclusion. Should Nancy Lanza, mother of mass murderer Adam Lanza, be included with the 26 people killed at Sandy Hook Elementary School. She also was gunned down.

Say what? Recall that Nancy Lanza surrounded her troubled son with guns at home, where he also whiled away hours playing violent video games. She also took him–often–to shooting ranges. It’s too late to prevent the Sandy Hook massacre that, arguably, wouldn’t have happened without Nancy Lanza’s enabling. But it’s not too late to prevent a desecration whereby her name is listed among the names of innocent victims.

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