Disgusting journalism

The New York Times is highly respected among the intelligentsia in America today. It used to be respected among all levels of society. Not any more. Here's the latest reason why most people have given up on the paper. Consider the terrible shootings in Arizona.

Remember the rampage of a Muslim at a U.S. military post, where he shot up many soldiers? How did the Times react? It urged caution when trying to assign blame: "In the aftermath of this unforgivable attack, it will be important to avoid drawing prejudicial conclusions from the fact that Major Hasan is an American Muslim whose parents came from the Middle East."

That seemed like a proper note of restraint. But the Tucson Safeway massacre prompted exactly the opposite reaction. What was once known as the paper of record egged on its readers to draw invidious conclusions that are not only prejudicial but contrary to fact. It was disgusting and immoral to do so. Here's what the Times came up with:

"It is facile and mistaken to attribute this particular madman's act directly to Republicans or Tea Party members. But it is legitimate to hold Republicans and particularly their most virulent supporters in the media responsible for the gale of anger that has produced the vast majority of these threats, setting the nation on edge. Many on the right have exploited the arguments of division, reaping political power by demonizing immigrants, or welfare recipients, or bureaucrats. They seem to have persuaded many Americans that the government is not just misguided, but the enemy of the people . . . Now, having seen first hand the horror of political violence, Arizona should lead the nation in quieting the voices of intolerance, demanding an end to the temptations of bloodshed, and imposing sensible controls on its instruments."

The Times has outdone itself in a frenzy of blame. To describe the Tucson massacre as an act of "political violence" is, quite simply, a lie. The paper has seized on a madman's act of wanton violence as an excuse to instigate a witch hunt against those it regards as its domestic foes. Consider the words of its star columnist, Paul Krugman. Less than two hours after the news of the shooting broke, he opined on the Times website: "We don't have proof yet that this was political, but the odds are that it was." Even his Monday column had not given up on this fantasy when he said violent rhetoric caused the massacre, falsely asserting it is "coming, overwhelmingly, from the right."

Oh really??? In the National Review an author ran through a list of examples of violent rhetoric that came from the left. Check these out:

"Even before [George W.] Bush was elected president, the kill-Bush talk and imagery started. When Governor Bush was delivering his 2000 convention speech, Craig Kilborn, a CBS talk-show host, showed him on the screen with the words "SNIPERS WANTED." Six years later, Bill Maher, the comedian-pundit, was having a conversation with John Kerry. He asked the senator what he had gotten his wife for her birthday. Kerry answered that he had taken her to Vermont. Maher said, "You could have went to New Hampshire and killed two birds with one stone." (New Hampshire is an early primary state, of course.) Kerry said, "Or I could have gone to 1600 Pennsylvania and killed the real bird with one stone." (This is the same Kerry who joked in 1988, "Somebody told me the other day that the Secret Service has orders that if George Bush is shot, they're to shoot Quayle.") Also in 2006, the New York comptroller, Alan Hevesi, spoke to graduating students at Queens College. He said that his fellow Democrat, Sen. Charles Schumer, would "put a bullet between the president's eyes if he could get away with it."

Then there's the Democrat congressman from Pennsylvania who just last October told a newspaper, "That [Rick] Scott down there that's running for governor of Florida. Instead of running for governor of Florida, they ought to have him and shoot him. Put him against the wall and shoot him."

Another bit of violent rhetoric appeared as the lead sentence of an article on the Times op-ed page in December 2009: "A message to progressives: By all means, hang Senator Joe Lieberman in effigy." The author: Paul Krugman. This is the same man who held a party on the night of Obama's election to the Presidency: "We had two or three TVs set up and we had a little portable outside fire pit and we let people throw in an effigy or whatever they wanted to get rid of for the past eight years. One of our Italian colleagues threw in an effigy of Berlusconi." This is the same man who now bleats about the vicious rhetoric of the right.

I don't know about you, but this smear against conservatives is a new low in my book. Before all the facts were in (we now know the shooter in Arizona was simply deranged), leftists were accusing conservatives of stirring this crazy individual to action. Decent people of whatever political stripe must say enough is enough.