For over a week we have heard the pundits on the left try to pin the blame for the horrible Tucson shootings on the Tea Parties, Sarah Palin, and/or Right Wing Radio hosts. However there was no evidence that anything coming out of these sources had anything to do with Jarred Loughner’s disgusting attack. Yet some progressives continue to attack Conservatives for the inciting Loughner’s hate.
On Sunday, Washington Post columnist Dana Milbank defended an earlier column of his in which he wrote that Sarah Palin and Glenn Beck should still be held accountable for inspiring gunman Loughner and others to violence.
Appearing on CNN’s “Reliable Sources,” Milbank said: “Both are finally being held to account for recklessly playing with violent images in a way that is bound to incite the unstable.”
Milbank’s remarks on CNN stem from his Washington Post column from Jan. 11, in which he wrote: “While the accusations sometimes go too far — there’s no evidence that either Palin or Beck inspired the Tucson suspect — the heat is well deserved. Both are finally being held to account for recklessly playing with violent images in a way that is bound to incite the unstable.”
Citing no evidence on the CNN program, Milbank said Palin and Beck deserve to be in the hot seat.
Some are even saying that those in the Right Wing (as opposed to Loughner) are just plain crazy.
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Until yesterday, I believed that there was no politics behind the horrible shooting. Jarred Loughner was just “a fruitcake with extra nuts.” But that has all changed.
In the Sunday New York Times there was an article called “Looking Behind the Mug-Shot Grin” which featured interviews with some of Loughner’s acquaintances. One of them, Ashley Figueroa, who dated the shooter in high school, said:
He became intrigued by antigovernment conspiracy theories, including that the Sept. 11 attacks were perpetrated by the government and that the country’s central banking system was enslaving its citizens. His anger would well up at the sight of President George W. Bush, or in discussing what he considered to be the nefarious designs of government. [my emphasis]
There’s the connection. Jarrad Loughner had an irrational hatred of former President George Bush. What the Times didn’t explore is where could have Loughner gotten that hatred. Who could have fanned the flames of the shooter’s hatred against the previous president?
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That’s right, for the last two years the progressive Democratic Party has been stoking the flames of anger against Former President Bush. Now it all comes together. The Progressives have been attacking the right just to deflect the attention away from themselves. Loughner didn’t have any ties to Sarah Palin or the Tea Party, nor did he listen to talk radio or Fox but he did have that anger against Bush that they must have created.
What a perfect explanation, and it’s just a valid as the attacks that the progressives have been making.
But you know what will happen next? Based on this article, progressives are going to go crazy. Media Matters is going to get all tied up in their underwear rushing to call me names. They will write things like, “it is totally stupid to associate Jarred Loechner’s shooting spree with anything other than the fact that the guy is a nut job.”
To them I say, “Exactly!”
Too bad they didn’t say that a week and a half ago instead they chose to create a tie where no tie existed and began to wage a campaign of fear mongering against the right.
Note To Media Matters: Based on the fact that you didn’t realize that a recent Big Journalism post of mine was a satire I feel compelled to explain this one to you. No It is not really my intent to actually blame President Obama and the left for inciting the Tucson violence, that would make me as crazy as…well Keith Olbermann or Congressman Clyburn. Using a literary tool this article exploited a small item in the NY Times and blew it out of proportion to show how ridiculous the claims that Sarah Palin, the Tea Party and/or Right Wing Radio had anything to do with the incident.
Hopefully you will understand this time.
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