Just minutes after it was made clear that the two dead New York City police officers had been assassinated in a revenge attack, the blame game began in earnest, and conservatives, who are typically reticent in this area, began a notable volte face. Twitter, that hotbed of instant reaction, immediately lit up with talk of culpability. “Anti-police rhetoric is what encouraged all of this,” one user wrote. “If you don’t think months of anti-police incitement played a role,” another suggested, “you’re lying.” Meanwhile, Geraldo Rivera posed a popular question, inquiring as to whether “the harsh anti-police rhetoric from protestors & officials alike create climate where a scumbag terrorist felt justified to attack cops?” From the Right, the favorite answer to this query was, “Yes.” At its worst this reaction was self-serving and cathartic, representing an unlovely example of good old-fashioned political revenge. At its best, however, it has hinted at what is a coherent and congruous case. Of all the supposed instances in which a political group has been accused of “inciting” murder, the advocates of this view have argued, this one is the strongest. In addition to there having been an explicit instruction — a fringe element within the protest group having shouted the words, “What do we want? Dead cops! When do what them? Now!” — there was also a direct connection between the perpetrator and his alleged champions. Moreover, the killer not only traveled from a neighboring state in order to target cops in New York City — no casual act — but he had previously attended a Manhattan-based protest, the target of which was the NYPD. Given these facts, those of this persuasion charge, it is imperative to lay at least some responsibility at the agitators’ feet. As I recorded yesterday afternoon, I do not agree with this assessment. But I should note for the sake of fairness that it is at least consistent. [...] Consider, if you will, the recent behavior of Salon’s Joan Walsh, who yesterday suggested in earnest that the conservative-led condemnation of the “climate” that supposedly provoked the shootings in New York City represented the unconscionable “politicization” of murder. “To blame the peaceful movement against police brutality that’s emerged nationwide,” Walsh wrote, is “the worst in demagoguery.” “Right wingers,” she added, “are using a terrible tragedy to make sure that no one can find middle ground.” Prima facie, I concur with Walsh, of course. But what, we might ask, has finally led her to this conclusion? After the shooting of Gabby Giffords in 2011, Walsh fretted dramatically about “the rhetoric of violence”; asked aloud, “Will any prominent conservatives denounce ‘reload’ and ‘crosshairs’ imagery?”; inquired dishonestly, “Is it really controversial to suggest that the overheated anti-government rhetoric of the last two years, with its often violent imagery, ought to be toned down?”; described Sarah Palin’s pretty standard political-campaign map as “unconscionable”; hoped that Republicans would find it in their hearts to “listen to Pima County Sheriff Clarence Dupnik, who denounced ‘the vitriol that comes out of certain mouths about the government’ at a Saturday night press conference”; played a remarkably dishonest game of “But Anyway . . . ,” repeatedly noting that there was “no evidence” that Jared Loughner had reacted to any right-wing rhetoric before insinuating in the next breath that he must have; and, when her well was running dry, went so far as to suggest without any attestation at all that the shooter was a registered Republican. *****************
Posted on: Wed, 31 Dec 2014 00:36:08 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015