New Republic Editor: 'The Arizona Shooting Is Not a Product of Right-Wing Rage'

NewsBusters ^ | January 10, 2011 | P.J. Gladnick

[PJ-Comix]

Although your humble correspondent has crossed swords (nanny note: "crossed swords" is strictly a metaphor) with the senior editor of the The New Republic in the past, he highly recommends Jonathan Chait's latest article in The New Republic, "The Arizona Shooting Is Not A Product Of Right-Wing Rage," as required reading for those members of the mainstream media who have blamed the "right-wing" for the shootings of Congresswoman Gabrille Giffords and others in Arizona on Saturday.

Despite the fact that most of Chait's article displayed some refreshing mental clarity I do have some caveats about it because he does revert to slamming conservatives for supposed extremism on other matters. However, those problems with the article aside for the moment, let us first take a look at Chait correctly chastising those quick to blame "right-wingers" for the Arizona shootings:

Conservatives are furious that the shooting of Gabrielle Giffords is being pinned on them. Their indignation is justified....

...The rhetorical attempts to connect Jared Loughner to mainstream politics take two forms, neither convincing. One is to condemn the use of combat metaphors in politics, such as Sarah Palin's web page superimposing gunsights upon Democratic districts targeted by the GOP. Glenn Reynolds persuasively notes that this is a well-established, bipartisan practice:

[<1/1,000,000th%]

You haven’t been keeping up.

Loughner admires Che Guevara, Karl Marx, Hugo Chavez and Obama.

He’s a regular poster at DailyKos.

His friends call him left-wing.

Good enough for me.

[Alberta's Child]

I think Chait rightly recognizes the huge risk in politicizing this incident when more and more evidence is emerging that the guy was a leftist at heart. This is a pre-emptive "cover our @sses" moment for him.

[MrB]

lies... native language... ideological father...

John 8:42-44

[PJ-Comix]

He’s a regular poster at DailyKos.

Screen name?

[Carley]

It’s the MAKE IT UP MEDIA

[aruanan]

It might be time to do this to the left. I am getting tired of their juvenile antics and their babysitters in the media just give them more juice instead of sending them to bed.

It's more like they give them more Red Bull.

[ez]

Where did u hear he posted at Daily Kos?

[Interesting Times]

They don’t look like “gunsights” to me.

They aren't - they're surveyors' map marks.

[<1/1,000,000th%]

There was some talk yesterday that the DailyKos link wasn't him.

But the MySpace link is still out there.

[Cyber Liberty]

OK, you can have the metaphor. But don’t touch the similes!