We'll get to see Jared Loughner this morning as he is arraigned.
Numerous examples of left wing hate speech are all over the web today. You can find some here, here, here, here, if you really want want to trod the sewer line.
It's always good to hesitate before you speak about events such as this. There's so much emotion involved as you watch the case evolve in front of your eyes. Such is this era of technology.
Hold your tweets.
Yesterday's incident was unspeakably horrifying and disturbing. Seeing the pictures of the people who were victims yesterday, particularly the 9/11 child with the sweet face, is about as awful as it gets in the news.
Yet we watch, hour after hour, as the news unfolds and new bits of information are disclosed. Admittedly, this will have to stop soon for most of us because we can only take so much, although the networks won't stop even if we turn them off.
This morning there are lots of excellent commentaries around the web about what happened yesterday and what is happening today.
When things like this happen, unfortunately politics, as it should not, enters in the discourse, so much so that the incidents themselves are simply the mechanism that achieves the goal of the partisans.
The left is quick, within minutes, to blame any act of violence on the right and the tea parties.
Conversely the right searches desperately for evidence that the shooter is left wing, not so much to blame (I don't believe), but to deflect the inevitable accusations that the philosophy of the shooter was right wing.
Callousness is displayed on both sides; Free Republic has a few loose screws rattling over there that have no sympathy whatsoever for the death of such an individual as Rep. Giffords, but is far surpassed by the Democratic Underground and the Daily Kos.
A look at the blogosphere reveals much about the heart and character of those who post on both right and left wing blogs.
In fact, we received the following comment at this blog:
You're such an idiot. Of course the TP will be blamed. They are to blame for the ugliness and violence in American politics. This killing, by one of their followers, is the beginning of the end for this redneck, white trash movement.Why did we receive this ad hominem attack?
Because we made the comment that the tea party will be blamed, no matter the facts.
And, indeed, the comment above speaks, if not eloquently, to the ugliness that is the left wing today.
So, speaking as a "redneck, white trash" blogger, let's analyze some of the rhetoric around the web.
Let's start with Professor Jacobsen over at Legal Insurrection, who says there are two sicknesses on display this weekend, particularly with regard to Sarah Palin, the most visible face of the tea party movement.
Because of her dynamism and influence, she is being "targeted" by the left as responsible for this shooter's attack on the blue dog democrat Gabrielle Giffords.
At the center of the attack is an electoral map.
Yet not a single person pushing the blame-Palin line has offered a shred of evidence that Loughner ever saw Palin's electoral map, was motivated by it, was right-wing (anectodally it appears Loughner was quite left-wing as of a few years ago), was motivated by right-wing radio, or did any of the things being assumed by the left-blogosphere, the mainstream media and some Democratic politicians.
Not a shred of evidence connecting Loughner to Palin, the Tea Parties, or the right wing, yet the left-blogpshere, mainstream media and Democratic politicians have erupted into a frenzy of name-calling directed at Palin and those who oppose Obama's agenda.Yes, there was a map with targets on a political website, targeting opponents.
You guessed it. This map with targets is was on the democrat congressional campaign committee website for the last year.
Rep. Van Hollen used MSNBC to claim Palin’s map was dangerous. In fact, the website of the organization he runs has a nearly identical map. Rep. Van Hollen should be asked to explain the differences between the two maps. Specifically, what makes Palin’s map “dangerous” and his map not so much?
Paul Krugman used the megaphone of the NY Times to state that Palin’s Facebook map went “far beyond politics as usual.” He further claimed, “you will search in vain for anything comparably menacing…from members of Congress.” Notice he didn’t say it was hard to find or rare. He said, in effect, that it didn’t exist. But since my search was not in vain, the Times should issue a correction noting that Krugman got it wrong.
The media and left are consistently complaining about inflammatory right wing rhetoric but the truth is that the most inflammatory, vicious rhetoric emanates from the left.
The reason that right wingers are accused of being violent is that any time anyone disagrees with the left, the disagreer is 1) racist 2) violent 3) ignorant 4) white trash so obviously they must be right wing!
Apparently there are no other options. You disagree, however quietly, you're an "idiot."
Yet when we look at rhetoric, which is now being assessed as the cause of this horrible event yesterday (not the whackadoo videos, not the violent language, not the obvious disconnect from reality, not the violent history as depicted by his run-ins with the law and his college), whose rhetoric is the most violent?
Let's start with this from Politico:
“If they bring a knife to the fight, we bring a gun,” Obama said in Philadelphia last night.Or how about all these, available over at Newsbusters, with lots more:
- It was Obama-loving Amy Bishop who took a gun to work and murdered co-workers
- Joseph Stack flew his plane into the IRS building after writing an anti-conservative manifesto
- It was liberals who destroyed AM radio towers outside of Seattle.
- It's liberals who burn down Hummer dealerships.
- It was progressive SEIU union thugs who beat a black conservative man who spoke his mind
- It's doubtful that a conservative fired shots into a GOP campaign headquarters.
Yet nowhere do we see that in the left wing media.
In fact, the minute such information emerges, you can guarantee that the inflammatory journalistic rhetoric that is going on now will be pulled back to a "hey, he's just a whacko--not left or right wing."
That's what they always say when it turns out to be a left winger, which it usually does (ala Bishop, Kaszinski, et al and those calling for violence such as Van Jones, Bill Ayers and Francis Piven).
Instapundit has a roundup of the "contemptible" left wing attempts to take advantage of this ugly event, making it a result of right wing ideology rather than reality.
Byron York at The Washington Examiner has commentary on the difference between the media's treatment of the Fort Hood shootings as opposed to their dexterity in leaping to conclusions about this shooting.
The media, not the least of which is the vicious Paul Krugman of the New York Times, has also ignored violent left wing rhetoric against Giffords herself for her stands against Pelosi.
From York at The Washington Examiner:
Fast forward a little more than a year, to January 8, 2011. In Tucson, Arizona, a 22 year-old man named Jared Lee Loughner opened fire at a political event, gravely wounding Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, killing a federal judge and five others, and wounding 18. In the hours after the attack, little was known about Loughner beyond some bizarre and largely incomprehensible YouTube postings that, if anything, suggested he was mentally ill. Yet the network that had shown such caution in discussing the Ft. Hood shootings openly discussed the possibility that Loughner was inspired to violence by…Sarah Palin. Although there is no evidence that Loughner was in any way influenced by Palin, CNN was filled with speculation about the former Alaska governor.It appears the only left wing voice of reason in this mess is Howard Kurtz.
By its very nature, true conservatism does not encourage rushing into things willy nilly. By its very nature, true conservatism, as defined in this country, at least, approaches issues thoughtfully, considering consequences before acting.
The reality is that the media, this weekend, and the left wing are discrediting themselves once again, with dire consequences ultimately. The acts that were perpetrated on Giffords, Roll, and the others were the acts of a lunatic.
The public will begin to see more and more the inaccuracy and bias of the civic journalism that is being perpetrated on this country.
Does anyone doubt, however, if a true right winger had done this that it would be all over the news with details about reading Glenn Beck's book or listening to Rush Limbaugh? Have we heard about the fascination with the Communist Manifesto?
Does anyone doubt that few people in the media would be as interested and eager in placing blame on someone who had nothing to do with this situation such as Sarah Palin if the perpetrator of a similar crime against a Republican turned out to be a Muslim?
Would the press race to place blame on President Obama for saying "“If they bring a knife to the fight, we bring a gun," if a Republican were shot in a similar circumstance?
And certainly that would be possible, because there are nuts on all sides of the political spectrum.
But is it incidental that most recent public acts of violence happen to have been on the left side of the spectrum?
Only in the sense that that side of the political spectrum is in denial and often refuses to take responsibility for their own bad behavior.
Speaking as an idiot, a redneck and white trash, I reject blaming all the left wing for the behavior of a nut like Loughner, just as I reject blaming the right wing if he were such an individual.
One would hope reason, at some point soon, would take hold of the MSM.
Not so much hope for the left wing.
But we're prayin' for you.
In times like these, we need it.
Reminder:
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