A reporter for The Washington Post, apparently enraged that National Review issued an op-ed correctly denouncing the Democratic Party for their recent rhetoric that has stoked the flames of violence, issued a tweet in which he blamed “right-wing anger/mobs” for instigating the shooting of Congresswoman Gabby Giffords in 2011.
Kane should know better; the shooter who targeted Giffords, Jared Loughner, was shown to have no political leanings, a fact that was offered in response to his irresponsible tweet:
Gutowski also pointed Kane back in the direction of a newspaper Kane knows and loves:
The Left has been trying to link Loughner to the Right for years; in 2017 the New York Times had to offer an apology after linking the 2011 shooting to a map circulated by Sarah Palin’s political action committee which showed certain electoral districts under crosshairs.
Even before that, the Times wrote in 2011:
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
As James Taranto wrote in The American Spectator:
To describe the massacre as an act of “political violence” was, quite simply, a lie. It was as if, two days after the Columbine massacre, a conservative newspaper of the Times‘s stature had termed that atrocity an act of “educational violence” and used it as an occasion to denounce teachers unions. Such an editorial would be dishonest and indecent even if the arguments it made were meritorious.
The New York Times used a madman’s act of wanton violence as an excuse to instigate a witch hunt against those it regarded as its domestic foes.