America was stunned when Jared Lee Loughner pulled out a gun in a Tucson, Arizona, supermarket parking lot in 2011 and shot then-Rep. Gabrielle Giffords in the head at point-blank range and killed six others. No one recalls a TV pundit wondering whether the people should root for Giffords to survive— or anyone with the gall to imply her head wound was “self-inflicted.”
That was not the case with the shooting of House Majority Whip Steve Scalise and four others last week. Outgoing “CBS Evening News” anchor Scott Pelley proclaimed, “It’s time to ask whether the attack on the United States Congress yesterday was foreseeable, predictable and, to some degree, self-inflicted.” Wrong. It was time for Pelley to evacuate the anchor chair.
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