Posted on 01/09/2011 7:08:16 PM PST by freespirited
On the day of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords’ shooting, liberals went on the offensive, suggesting that overheated conservative rhetoric contributed to the Arizona attack.
On Sunday, conservatives pushed back – arguing that attempts to politicize the event were unfair, crass and therefore likely to backfire.
“It should not be, but the media, under the guise of ‘a full exposition’ of the evil in Arizona, is back to subtly and not so subtly pinning the blame for the attempted assassination of the congresswoman and the related shootings on the tea party movement, Sarah Palin, Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, me, you, and everyone right of center,” wrote Erick Erickson, managing editor of RedState.com.
“Let’s be crystal clear: this is the supposedly objective news media doing this, not the openly, partisan left, though it is fueling the media witch hunt. And from what we now know, it is not just media malpractice, but a lie.”
Other conservatives said the criticism reeks of hypocrisy. “Keith Olbermann rants regularly about ‘fascists’ taking over the country, and each day for years has named one or more conservatives ‘the worst person in the world.’ Other liberal talk hosts are scarcely more restrained,” said law professor Brad Smith, a former FEC chairman, in POLITICO’s Arena.
“The comments sections of the Daily Kos, Democratic Underground, and other lefty sites are full of the most vile comments and death wishes for Republicans on a regular basis,” Smith added.
New Jersey Assemblyman Michael Patrick Carroll (R) also voiced anger at Olbermann’s Saturday night comments, which laid at least some blame for the Arizona carnage on Palin, Beck and other prominent conservatives.
“Olbermann does more to coarsen the political rhetoric than virtually anyone else,” Carroll said. “For him, of all people, to urge a toning down of political rhetoric represents the very definition of chutzpah.”
Within hours of the Tucson shooting, prominent liberals had begun tying the event to the violent rhetoric bandied about by conservative media figures like Beck and Limbaugh. And in part because Pima County Sheriff Clarence Dupnik, a Democrat, made similar criticisms about the “vitriol” on radio and TV in his discussion of the attack, the mainstream media also was filled with questions about the role that the tone of the day’s political discourse played in possibly motivating the alleged killer.
The anti-government language of the YouTube clips that the suspected shooter, Jared Loughner, had uploaded had drawn early connections to the tea party, but no evidence surfaced suggesting that Loughner was a fan or supporter of the tea party, Palin, Beck or any of the other media figures named in some liberal critiques.
The lack of any known connection between Loughner and Palin or the tea party prompted The Washington Examiner’s Byron York to accuse CNN and other media organizations of jumping to conclusions after congressional reporter Jessica Yellin told Wolf Blitzer that “clearly this is a moment to talk about our political rhetoric.”
Yellin pointed out that Palin had released a statement of condolence for Giffords and the other victims of the shooting and their families, but York objected to the notion that a discussion about political vitriol was fair game at that time, when the mainstream media went to great lengths to avoid jumping to conclusions about the reasons behind the Ft. Hood shooting in November 2009.
“Indeed, there is no ‘overt’ or any other sort of connection between Loughner and Palin,” York wrote. “If such evidence came to light, it would certainly be news. But without that evidence, and after a brief caveat, the CNN group went back to discussing the theory that Loughner acted out of rage inspired by Palin and other Republicans. Conclusions were jumped to all around.”
The National Review’s Jonah Goldberg criticized “those who immediately shoe-horned these awful crimes into their ideological prism,” and added: “There have been some truly disgusting displays of opportunism out there.”
Olbermann, New York Times’ columnist Paul Krugman and Joe Klein all pointed to Glenn Beck as a purveyor of the kind of violent rhetoric and conspiracy theories that might push a disturbed person over the edge. Beck was silent Sunday, but his website, The Blaze, was filled with examples of liberals politicizing the shooting.
The site links to Olbermann’s special comment, in which he said Beck “obsesses, nearly as strangely as this Mr. Loughner did, about gold and debt;” and to Krugman’s blog post in which he cites Beck and says “violent acts are what happen when you create a climate of hate.”
Taken together, these clips form the foundation of what could be a strong counterpunch from Beck on his radio and television shows on Monday.
Beck has been accused before of inciting people to violence, a charge that he has always denied. Last month, to illustrate the absurdity of these claims, he discussed the Florida school board shooting, noting with mock glee that the shooter had links to Media Matters, a frequent Beck critic, on his Facebook page.
“Let me make this very clear,” Beck said. “Media Matters did not try to go in and shoot the school board. It was the crazy nut job that did it. Period. Nobody’s responsible for making anybody go do anything violent except crazy people who decide that violence is the answer.”
Conservative firebrand Andrew Breitbart has already begun to throw the left’s attempts to tie the shooting to the right back at them.
“Not since fake N-Word hurled at Reps Carson/Lewis has an anti-Tea Party strategy blown up in left’s face so Yosemite Sam-like,” tweeted Breitbart, referring to Rep. Andre Carson and Rep. John Lewis’s claims that racial slurs were hurled at them during a tea party event.
Although the episode was widely reported, no video or audio evidence ever surfaced to prove the claims, and the lack of evidence has remained one of the right’s favorite examples of the left’s attempts to smear them as racist.
In a post titled “Breaking: Democrats Plotted to Blame Tea Party for Slaughter,” Jim Hoft, a blogger on Breitbart’s Big Government website, picks up a quote that an anonymous Democratic operative gave to POLITICO as evidence of what he believes is a similarly orchestrated smear.
“They need to deftly pin this on the tea partiers,” said the Democrat. “Just like the Clinton White House deftly pinned the Oklahoma City bombing on the militia and anti-government people.”
Grover Norquist, president of Americans for Tax Reform, suggested the left has a “sad” history of politicizing violence.
“When John F. Kennedy was killed by a supporter of the Soviet Union and Cuba – Lee Harvey Oswald – the establishment left announced that conservatism in Dallas was to blame. A communist kills, conservative America is to blame,” Norquist said.
“Now we have a 22-year-old with no discernible politics (one hint, the “Communist Manifesto” cited approvingly on his website)….and Keith Olbermann is joined by the Democrat Sheriff Clarence Dupnik from Southern Arizona who both blame conservatives. Violence is bad. Liberal Democrats blaming violence on conservatives is so old and anticipated it is now a cliche.”
And Fran Wendelboe, a Republican New Hampshire state representative until December 2010, knocked the idea put forward among liberal commentators that stricter gun control measures would have prevented the Arizona tragedy.
“I hope that this act of a deranged individual does not open the door to finger-pointing against imagined causes,” Wendelboe said. “As a thirty-plus year concealed carry license holder, I accept a deep responsibility to be always ready and vigilant when armed to protect the public from such attacks. As the saying goes, firearms don’t kill people, it is the person pulling the trigger who kill people. Using acts such as these to try to limit the possession/use of firearms of honest citizens will make America a much LESS safe place to live.”
a commie killed JFK, laughner read commie manifesto.
Interesting that this dog and pony show just appears. Almost like it is planned to take the heat and momentum off the issues in the House. Conservatives gain momentum, and this boom, Evil conservatives are back.
I dont believe anything from the government or from their media.
Tea Party is for sucks. I think I'll re-post this to my page. I hope she recovers and that the butcher that did the deed is connected to the TP and on their payroll.
This is a person who is ready to send his neighbors to the re-education camp.
“I sent a very direct and sharply worded (although respectful) email to Roger Ailes at FOX News yesterday regarding Shep Smith and Geraldo Rivera. They both make me sick.”
Well done! Thanks!!
We are being forced into the arms of Glenn Beck. He has nailed these communist forces to the wall before the conservative media could even find and boot up their laptop.
It’s errie how Beck has exposed and disposed these crazy lefties, IN THEIR OWN WORDS, yet FOX and conservative writers are still stuck in yesterday, running with nothing he has exposed. FOX is after rage ratings and we are giving it to them. And now this blood libel stuff. Just more barking and howling at the moon on both sides, while Beck slays giants, alone.
Does Jerry even have a detectable rating? Even with the sound off he’s intolerable.
Let's make that comparison and see what the Left does.
-PJ
The left is screaming as loud as they can over the weekend because they know they’re about to get the message crammed right back down their throats starting Monday once talk radio’s week starts...
The next time a communist goes on a shooting rampage, we will have YOUR RHETORIC to blame. < /liberal>
I guess he missed Megyn Kelly tear the Sheriff's comments to shreds. Over and over again.
But then Rivera is afraid of/hates strong women.
I'm sure he agreed with the Sheriff.
Racist misogynist=Jeraldo Rivera
Give the jerks just enough rope to hang themselves and not one inch more.
Um, no. We don't "round people up". People like him, a likely schizophrenic, needed to be treated. Now he'll be tried for murder.
They won’t b/c it doesn’t fit into their agenda.
Isn’t threatening to take away our Constitutional rights because of the actions of a mad man, inflammatory rhetoric? Also when the left tries to blame this on the right, when they know it isn’t true, isn’t that also inflammatory rhetoric?
We all have to fight these lying bastards.
Don’t forget - Linda Lopez (State Senator) was one of the first to blame the TEA Party and also erroneously stated that the shooter was a former Afghanistan war veteran. Lopez apparently pulled this little factoid out of her ass, lol. This is an elected official folks - yippee./s
I suspect we wont see a death penalty in this case because this kid is seriously loco en la cabeza.
I saw a doc on FOX a few hours ago explaining that it is a mistake to look for a political motivation, all signs point to a classic case of schizophrenia.
That doc was the first person I have heard make sensible comments about this kid since this happened.
I’ll read this tomorrow.
dont’ know why geraldo is even on tv anymore. he’s dull, boring and acts very silly but...on to more important things...I can’t pull up the video of Megan Kelly and the sheriff.
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