I wrote a long post a few days ago because my sixth sense warned me of an impending coverup. "News blackout" is a better expression, but whatever the expression, it appears my sixth was corrrect: there's been no MSM follow-up of the Atlanta courthouse murder hostage ordeal. Not in my local paper at least -- although it's tough to stop smaller outfits from releasing editorials like this one:

Did Cynthia Hall, whose gun was wrestled away by Brian Nichols, meet a gender hiring goal for Fulton County? Women, especially short women, can do a lot of law enforcement jobs, but they can't do all of them as well as men. Four people are dead because someone didn't take that into account.

Close but not quite.

The Atlanta Journal and Constitution is covering the story, of course, but they're going out of their way to avoid reporting a key fact.

The most telling detail -- whether or not Deputy Cynthia Hall had a gun (or locked it up as she was supposed to) -- has been suppressed. I think it's obvious from the video that she followed the rules and had it locked up, and I think the people suppressing this story know that full well. But they're not reporting it.

I'm not cynical enough, because I never imagined that the media would engage in what George Lakoff calls frame thinking:

Lakoff’s argument boils down to this: Facts do not matter. “People think in frames,” he writes. “If the facts do not fit a frame, the frame stays and the facts bounce off.”

By frames, he means ideological blinders or emotional categories or familial roles. Or something. Whatever they are, Lakoff believes that Democrats need to change their language to appeal by exploiting “frames,” not dealing with facts. Much of his analysis stems from his belief that pretty much all conservatives act in bad faith. Conservatives, for example, “are not really pro-life.” No, conservatives see things through the “strict father” frame. Hence, “Pregnant teenagers have violated the commandments of the strict father. Career women challenge the power and authority of the strict father,” and therefore, he writes, “Both should be punished by bearing the child.”

Liberals can succeed not by changing their views, but by changing their words. This should be obvious, since reality doesn’t really matter anyway. All Democrats have to do is successfully change the name for trial lawyers to “public-protection attorneys” and re-label “environmental protection,” as an effort to maintain “poison-free communities.”

In this case, Lakoff's "frame" happens to be mindnumbing feminist theory that holds women are just as big and just as strong as men. This is utter fraud, and everyone knows it, so when a story like this comes along it has to be simply but deliberately ignored.

The absence of the gun is a real threat to the feminist frame, because it serves as a reminder that a 5'1" woman cannot successfully subdue a violent 6'1" former linebacker/martial artist. (True, many men couldn't either, but guarding prisoners isn't for everyone.)

As I said earlier, it's like expecting a Chihuahua to subdue a Rottweiller. No theory, no frame, can alter simple reality. La Shawn Barber put it quite well:

I hope this case stirs up a blog swarm over the idiocy of allowing women, big or small, even if they have guns, to watch over big, strong, dangerous, raping and murdering thugs. Is it irony or stupidity?

This wretched political correctness poses a danger to us all.

We can't have people thinking outside the frame, can we?

Hmmm . . .

La Shawn also links to this picture, showing a properly "reframed" story, the subdued suspect being escorted by a smaller woman.

But note the large, flak-jacketed man just behind..... Does he really need to be there?

I thought I should frame things properly.

Hope Lakoff approves!

MORE: Speaking of George Lakoff, here's Steven Malcolm Anderson:

To begin with, it has often been remarked, as, e.g., by P. J. O'Rourke, that liberals want government to be their Mommy, i.e., give them cookies and tuck them into bed, while conservatives want government to be their Daddy, i.e., give them a good paddling when they're naughty. A liberal, George Lakoff, wrote a book based on that concept, Moral Politics. In it, he argues that each camp views the country, and even the world, in terms of the kind of family in which they grew up, and/or their ideal family. For liberals, this ideal is the Nurturing Parent (either mother or father as the sexes are believed to be equal*) who teaches empathy (the primary virtue) through loving example. For conservatives, this ideal is the Strict Father (the man is usually perceived as by nature dominant*) who teaches self-discipline and self-reliance (the primary virtues) through rewards and stringent punishments. Conservatives view the world as a jungle, full of dangers and temptations, and one must be morally strong in order to deal with these. Libertarians, who don't want the government to be their parent, are a variant on the conservative world-view, emphasizing the value of self-reliance.