No, Obama did not use an onion to cry fake tears over shooting victims, cut the bullshit already

I missed Obama's press conference on gun control yesterday, so I don't know the details of his executive orders. Still, my news ticker lit up with stories about how Obama had cried angry tears over the Newtown shooting during his speech, saying "it gets me so mad."

This shouldn't be a newsworthy statement, let alone a controversial one. I doubt Obama's strong feelings about this issue stem from his personal hatred of guns, although that's what the NRA hardliners and hysterics raving about "tyrannical government" will believe. Did you ever wonder if it has something to do with the fact that he's a dad? A lot of politicians don't like guns, but they don't get worked up enough to shed tears over school shootings. My guess is that Obama has pictured himself in the shoes of a Newtown parent. The thought of getting that awful phone call telling him there's been a shooting at his childrens' school--or worse, finding out that they're among the victims--is probably what gets him "so mad." 

That's not a radical response, it's normal. If the image of terrified first graders being mowed down with AK-47s doesn’t make you want to cry, what does? Anger and grief are normal responses to the grisly murder of small children. John Walsh titled his book about his murdered 7-year-old son "Tears of Rage" for a reason. 

But that was before American culture took a nosedive toward the futuristic America in Mike Judge's "Idiocracy." (If anyone out there has still not seen it: Great movie. One of my favorites.) So as soon as I saw the headlines, I thought, "Fox News is going to accuse him of faking it." And I knew it wouldn't stop there. Internet hacks and bush-league conservative blogs were bound to go full crackpot, making it a race to the bottom to see who could throw up the stupidest headlines. 

“He was secretly squeezing an eye dropper the whole time!”

“How do we know it wasn’t an Obama body double with Oscar-worthy acting skills?”

I’m not trying to be funny. They would say that. The audience for any conservative media outlet includes a sizeable percentage of birthers, who believe Obama was low-down enough to fake his birth certificate. So why not fake tears? The right-wing media has great trouble admitting that Obama is sincere about anything. Doing that would piss off the audience. I know, because I've worked for them. During the 2008 election cycle, I worked for a big-time conservative news site, and we had to set an official policy of hanging up on birthers. My editor tried to explain that the rumors about Obama's birth certificate had been investigated and debunked; these buffoons would just start screeching. Two days later, they'd call back to harass us again. We refused to give any support to their stupid theories, but we also had to tiptoe around birthers, since our audience had so many of them. 

This is a built-in problem for news sites and cable stations that explicitly market themselves as "conservative" or "liberal." They all face some pressure to preach to the choir; their very existence relies on backing up the audience's beliefs. 

Sometimes, this results in serious journalists engaging in outlandish buffoonery to attack "the enemy." Anyone with half a brain could read this headline and judge it to be a total crock. End of story. Really, there's no other discussion to be had: it's just a huge crock of shit.

First, onions do not make people cry. Chopping onions releases eye irritants that makes them water, similar to an allergic reaction. I’m sorry, did I miss the part about how Obama stealthily diced some red onions under the podium as he spoke? Better question: how do conservative commentators keep a straight face as they spin outlandish tall tales?  Even I tend to laugh a little when I know whatever’s coming out of my mouth is obvious bullshit.

Anyway, "fake crying" is virtually impossible. It's is an involuntary response from your parasympathetic nervous system. It’s the same system that causes you to sweat when you're anxious and blush when you’re embarrassed. Have you ever been so nervous your heart started pounding, or you felt sick to your stomach? That’s your sympathetic-parasympathetic nervous system talking—the same system that causes people to cry.

Apparently, it's caused by a rapid shift from sympathetic to parasympathetic brain activity. Crying is a sign that, emotionally, the person has given up hope or thrown in the towel--they've lost the big game, walked away from a bad relationship, or accepted that their loved one is dying. Humans have various strategies to suppress this reaction, but we're not very good at it. Crying is a primitive act, and not one controlled by the parts of the brain responsible for reason and emotional regulation.

In other words, accusing someone of generating "fake tears" is like accusing someone of producing "fake sweat." Even actors don't fake crying. The good ones are able to imagine themselves as the characters, creating emotional distress real enough to cry. The mediocre ones don’t shed any tears, they just mimic the sounds and gestures. In any case, real tears flow from real emotions.

This isn't just about Obama. Accusing someone of faking it is the hallmark of insincere (or as my mom calls them, "phony baloney") people feigning moral outrage to distract from their rancid motivations and lack of arguments. Everyone's favorite word these days is "crazy": it's evidently some men's go-to put-down to dismiss women who complain about sexism and being treated like shit. Is someone out there questioning the status quo or talking about injustice? They're crazy--and also, they're just faking it to get sympathy and attention by acting like big babies. 

The media has been at it for a while now, but this onion thing is really brazen. What happened to the Fox News we all used to know and love? 

I’ve been on Fox News as a commentator twice. I  started watching in the early 2000s, not necessarily because I was conservative, but because I was an aspiring journalist with a strong aversion to bullshit. (Or as some people call it, "spin" and "media bias." Same thing.) Fox News really did tell stories that no other network was covering. If you watched CNN between 2000 and 2004, you were basically having left-wing propaganda piped into your home, 1984-style. You had to go to Fox News to get the full story, because they really did strive to be "fair and balanced." (Now they’re just “the balance," indicating their coverage is openly biased toward the right.)

Liberal hate object Bill O’Reilly was actually my favorite host. Not only did he have a finely tuned bullshit detector common to the cranky Irishmen I grew up around, but he also tried to be fair to his guests. He cut Rosie O’Donnell a break for saying all gun owners should go to jail after the Columbine shooting. Why? Rosie explained that she erupted in outrage after seeing all those kids with “bloody, broken bodies.” Bill saw no reason to doubt her sincerity. There's no question that Rosie O'Donnell loves kids and wants to protect them. Just because you don't like the feelings someone expresses doesn't mean they’re not genuine.

Unfortunately, the fair and balanced network keeps slipping, from exposing bullshit to promoting it. This silly talk about onions suggests Fox News really is turning into the satirical Fox News from the movie "Idiocracy."