Three Articles

This posting has links to three articles, all concerned with the Press' exaggerated reaction to the Tucson massacre.

Michelle Malkin rounded up a litany of the outrageous vitriol produced by leaders of the left wing movement over the last 10 years in her posting "The progressive Climate of Hate" on her blog. Michelle's detailed history shows the mild comments that come from the right pale in comparison to left wing rage directed at conservatives. That article with its extensive documentation can be found here.

The second article is by John Fricke in The American Thinker entitled "The Media Has Declared... WAR!" It has a great quote:

In a newsroom somewhere on Saturday, shortly after the event broke, one turned to another and asked, "Why would someone do this?" The response was not "I have no idea" or "let's find out -- now." No, the response was "Well, why do you think? Why would anyone do something like this? Because conservative white men are dangerous deranged, people waiting to kill us!"

With that they launched a war trying to convince America that Loughner was a right wing supporter who went berserk. That article can be found here.

The final article is "New Media Soundly Defeats Left-Wing Media’s Political Witch Hunt" by John Nolte in Big Journalism. Focusing in on the resounding rejection by the American people of the vicious attacks on Sarah Palin and the TEA Party movement, Nolte argues that the efforts by the press to blame conservatives for Loughner's paranoid schizophrenia did not work because they no longer have a monopoly on the news. That article can be found here.

From conversations I have had with people in the TEA Party movement, the attacks have had an interesting reaction. They have triggered an outrage that is resulting in renewed enthusiasm for growing the TEA Party movement. It is a reminder that stirring the pot is a risky business. When it starts to boil over you cannot always control the result. In this case I believe the ignorant attacks from the left missed their goal badly.