Predictable

Matthew Hoy
By Matthew Hoy on June 12, 2009

If there's one thing you can say about New York Times columnist Paul Krugman, it's that you know what to expect and you get it. The word is "predictable."

In the past two weeks there have been three horrific murders. First, there was the murder of abortionist George Tiller at his church. A day later two soldiers fresh out of basic training were shot by a Muslim convert -- Pvt. William Long fatally. Finally, earlier this week a deranged anti-Semite killed security guard Stephen Johns at the entrance to the Holocaust Museum in Washington, D.C.

How the media treats these murders tell us far more about the media than they do about pro-lifers, Muslims, anti-military or anti-Semitic nutjobs.

In today's column, Krugman uses the first and third murders as the basis for accusing everyone he disagrees with politically as "haters."

But with the murder of Dr. George Tiller by an anti-abortion fanatic, closely followed by a shooting by a white supremacist at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, the analysis looks prescient.

There is, however, one important thing that the D.H.S. report didn’t say: Today, as in the early years of the Clinton administration but to an even greater extent, right-wing extremism is being systematically fed by the conservative media and political establishment.

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.

And at this point, whatever dividing line there was between mainstream conservatism and the black-helicopter crowd seems to have been virtually erased.

Krugman goes on to single out Glenn Beck, The Washington Times, Rush Limbaugh, Jon Voight and others for blame for creating an atmosphere conducive to the murders of Tiller and security guard Johns.

Conservatives made the point repeatedly last week: When a nut kills an abortionist, the entire pro-life movement is treated as though it pulled the trigger. When a ex-con Muslim extremist kills a soldier -- it was just a single nut.

Krugman also mischaracterizes the views of the Holocaust Museum shooter as right wing, when they were certainly more left-wing. While blaming Fox News' Bill O'Reilly for complicity in Tiller's murder, Krugman fails to note that James von Brunn hated O'Reilly. He hated George W. Bush and the "neocons." He was one of those 9/11-truthers who thought the 9/11 terrorist attacks were an inside job. Aside from the anti-Semitism and 9/11-truthing, von Brunn was much more in agreement with Krugman than with any of the conservatives Krugman listed.

And it should be noted that anti-Semitism is a left-wing phenomenon nowadays. Conservatives are largely very pro-Israel. It's leftist academics (see Walt, Mearshimer) who sound far more like von Brunn with his "JEWS control the world" insanity.

Krugman ignores the Long murder altogether, and he would undoubtedly bristle at claims that Code Pink or International ANSWER or Rep. John Murtha or President Barack "we just drop bombs on innocent Muslims in Pakistan" Obama had any responsibility for creating a hostile atmosphere toward American troops.

The truth is that politics in America would be better off if both sides acknowledged that each of these three cases was the work of wacko nutjobs -- and wacko nutjobs alone.

Unfortunately, Democrats like Krugman are too invested in the "Big Hate" of Republicans to concede this basic truth. The fact that the mainstream media -- both print and broadcast -- also perpetuate these destructive stereotypes demonstrate how blinkered they are.

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