Saturday, February 9, 2013

A Lefty Killer?

Wall Street Journal ^ | February 8, 2013 | James Taranto

Remember when liberal journalists and politicians tried to incite a moral panic by blaming a series of violent crimes on the Tea Party, Rush Limbaugh, Fox News and assorted other bugbears?

 If you don't, Michelle Malkin has a refresher:

The 2009 massacre of three Pittsburgh police officers (which lib journos falsely blamed on Fox News, Glenn Beck, and the "heated, apocalyptic rhetoric of the anti-Obama forces"); the 2009 suicide insurance scam/murder hoax of Kentucky census worker Bill Sparkman (which New York magazine falsely blamed on Rush Limbaugh, "conservative media personalities, websites and even members of Congress"); the 2009 Holocaust-museum shooting (which MSNBC commentator Joan Walsh blamed on Limbaugh, Bill O'Reilly, and yours truly); the 2010 Times Square jihad bomb plot (which Mayor Michael Bloomberg falsely blamed on tea-party activists protesting Obamacare); and the 2011 Tucson massacre, which liberals continue to blame on former GOP vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin.
Not all of these crimes were without political motive: The Pittsburgh and Holocaust Museum killers reportedly were white supremacists, and a "jihadi bomb plot" is political by definition. But the claim that conservative media figures or the Tea Party was somehow to blame was a scurrilous lie designed to stigmatize critics of the party in power.
The case of Christopher Dorner seems tailor-made for conservatives who would like to start a moral panic about left-wing violence--or just to enjoy a little payback. As the Los Angeles Times reports, Dorner, an erstwhile officer in the Los Angeles Police Department, "is wanted in connection with a double homicide in Irvine on Sunday and the shooting of three police officers, one fatally, in Riverside County on Thursday":
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...

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