I'm trying to figure out why liberals never noticed hate speech over the last nine years when it was directed at conservatives. I mean, we've had movies and books fantasizing about the assassination of President George W. Bush, we've had protests, fake lynchings, interviews with leftwing lunatics and more, but nary a peep against those events.
Now we have Paul Krugman alternately wringing his hands and salivating at the prospect of violence against President Barack Obama. I say "salivating," because his hyperbolic rhetoric practically demands it.
Now, for the most part, the likes of Fox News and the R.N.C. haven’t directly incited violence, despite Bill O’Reilly’s declarations that “some” called Dr. Tiller “Tiller the Baby Killer,” that he had “blood on his hands,” and that he was a “guy operating a death mill.” But they have gone out of their way to provide a platform for conspiracy theories and apocalyptic rhetoric, just as they did the last time a Democrat held the White House.
William Jacobson notes that Krugman tries to blame the shooting of a Holocaust Museum guard on conservatives, even though the killer's hatred of conservatives and Fox News has been documented.
While Krugman places the blame on conservatives for the museum [and Tiller] shooter[s], Krugman fails to consider the implications of his own logic. Since Krugman has been one of the harshest critics of the Bush policies (as continued by the Obama administration), then using his own logic Krugman himself is "winding up" the next Islamist terrorist attack. Or maybe Krugman wound up the last Islamist attack, just days before the museum shooting, when a convert to Islam upset over U.S. policies in Iraq and Afghanistan killed an Army recruiter.
Will Krugman accept the responsibility he seeks to impose on others? Don't count on it. The best thing about playing the "hate card" is that consistency is not required.
Many on the left have conveniently forgotten their own overheated rhetoric against the Bush administration. But if you are going to argue that every nut that kills somebody is Bill O'Reilly's responsibility, why not blame the guard's attack on Keith Olbermann or Amanda Marcotte?
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