Giffords v. Cantor
It took approximately two picoseconds before Jared Lee Loughner’s shooting rampage at an appearance by Rep. Gabriele Giffords was blamed on Tea Party rhetoric.
“Bloodshed Puts New Focus on Vitriol in Politics,” wrote the New York Times, which followed up with an editorial that said while one couldn’t blame Republicans directly for Loughner, nevertheless, Republicans were to blame for Loughner.
This was the tone of approximately 99.975 percent of the coverage, despite the fact that, as it turned out, conservative rhetoric had absolutely nothing to do with the demons inside Jared Loughner’s head.
Nevertheless, we were all supposed to embrace a “new tone” of civility. That is, until the Tea Party caucus in Congress refused to go along with a hike in the debt ceiling. Suddenly, it was perfectly appropriate to label one’s political opponents “terrorists” in the literal sense. Along with members of an American “taliban” and so on.
Well. Yesterday, a Tennessee man pleaded guilty to threatening to destroy Eric Cantor, kill his wife, and rape his daughter. Nice.
This isn’t the first such case, either.
Yet so far, I haven’t seen anyone suggest that the guilty parties were motivated by the vituperative rhetoric directed at Cantor by the left.
What vituperative rhetoric? Oh, just the accusations that he is a traitor who is “trying to stop the U.S. government in its tracks,” a “callous” pol who engages in “political hostage-taking with lives and livelihoods in the balance,” a rich guy who hates ordinary people, not to mention an unethical crook who “uses insider info to make money” … and let’s not even get into the vile anti-semitic rants out there …
To be perfectly clear, I am not suggesting that the parties who threatened Cantor WERE motivated by the vituperative rhetoric of the left. The point is simply this: None of those who said the Giffords incident was motivated by vituperative rhetoric have yet to retract the assertion. It stands to reason that they ought to blame the left for the threats made at Cantor — or apologize.
I wouldn’t sit on a hot stove waiting for either development, though.
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Update: See what I mean? —
