The first amendment was never intended as a blunt instrument to punish contrary points of view.

Let's see. The First Amendment exists to prevent government from restricting or abridging free speech, and to prevent official establishment of religion while protecting the free exercise thereof.

It's there to prevent contrary points of view from being punished by the government. Of course it's not intended to be used as a "blunt instrument" to punish contrary points of view!

Why would Brokaw need to remark the obvious? It wasn't accidental, else why would he repeat the same remark at Northwestern University?

What sort of blunt instrument might Tom be talking about? I'm intrigued by these remarks by Michele Catalano, and I can't help wondering whether Brokaw read them, and perhaps took them personally:

What the hell crawled up Tom Brokaw's ass last night? He was snippy, feisty and reminded me of an argumentive drunk who challenges the whole bar to a fist fight. Except Kerry and crew evaded his punches.

Does anyone actually answer a question in a debate, or do they just try to suck up their alloted time by cheerleading for themselves and throwing insults at their opponents?

I think it would go a lot better - and produce a clearer picture of the candidates - if they were all tied to metal chairs with bright lights shining in their eyes and a devious looking man with a blunt instrument standing by. And the chairs were placed on electric currents which gave them a shock every time they avoided asnwering a question.

So why would this same feisty, snippy man, who acted like an argumentative drunk, be complaining about the First Amendment's misuse as a blunt instrument?

Later in the same "blunt instrument" speech, Brokaw hinted not so bluntly that he wanted his young audience to be understanding of people who clearly hate the First Amendment:

We have to work harder at understanding an enemy who is eager to sacrifice their bodies to do great harm to what we hold dear, hundreds of millions of young Muslims who love our culture and hate our government, who envy our successes, disdain our pluralism and, most of all, who are enraged by our sense of entitlement.

But "love our culture?" How can envying our successes and disdaining our pluralism constitute "love"? As to being "enraged by our sense of entitlement," if I didn't know any better, I would say that Brokaw is being argumentative, and -- how did Michele put it? -- feisty, snippy, and argumentative in the style of a maudlin drunk given to fits of moralization. These are the sort of words I associate with religious-based scolding, and above all, shame. Why resort to shaming young people at a graduation by scolding them -- as Americans -- for an alleged "sense of entitlement" without supplying a single example of what he means?

If words are blunt instruments, I'd say Tom was wielding them there.

And now (via InstaPundit) I read he got booed at a football game. Doubtless he'd consider that a blunt instrument.

I try to have compassion, as I have been booed myself, under conditions in which my physical safety was also threatened.

But I'd never take it out on the First Amendment.

MORE: Is Rush Limbaugh a blunt instrument? Mental Health experts claim he's upsetting their patients:

“Rush Limbaugh has a way of back-handedly slamming people,” said Sheila Cooperman, a licensed clinician with the American Health Association (AHA) who listened Friday as Limbaugh offered to personally treat her patients. “He’s trying to ridicule the emotional state this presidential election produced in many of us here in Palm Beach County. Who is he to offer therapy?”

The Boca Raton News reported last week that more than 30 distraught Kerry supporters in South Florida contacted the non-profit AHA following their candidate’s Nov. 3 concession to President Bush. AHA officials have diagnosed the disorder as Post Election Selection Trauma (PEST) and have scheduled the first of several free group therapy sessions for just after Thanksgiving.
Cooperman, whose professional practice is based in Delray Beach, said the election-related symptoms she sees in the Kerry supporters more than quality PEST as “a legitimate syndrome or disorder within the trauma spectrum,” according to the American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders.

“Rush Limbaugh has no clinical qualifications to counsel anyone,” Cooperman said. “He’s not only minimizing PEST, but he’s bastardizing the entire psychological field and our clinical expertise.”

Still, there's no denying that people are grieving (although I disagree with the PEST people over causation.)