Joining Wonkette
in the small group of non-conservatives who aren't losing their
credibility, libertarian Jesse Walker of Reason identifies the
precise motivation for the left's willingness to use yesterday's
tragedy at the Holocaust Museum as a talking point used against
the right:
The effect [of the DHS report on "right-wing extremism" isn't
to make right-wing terror attacks less likely. It's to make it
easier to smear nonviolent, noncriminal figures on the right,
just as the most substantial effect of a red scare was to make
it easier to smear nonviolent, noncriminal figures on the left.
The fact that communist spies really existed didn't justify
Joseph McCarthy's antics, and the fact that armed extremists
really exist doesn't justify the Department of Homeland
Security's report.
That's exactly right. If you are so cynical as to use the
occasion of a security guard laying down his life to protect
museumgoers under attack from a lone, crazed gunman as an
opportunity to score points against your political opponents,
then you do not have journalistic integrity.
Oh, and by the way, yesterday's killer
hates neocons and Bill O'Reilly. For what it's worth.
Brooksanne| 6.11.09 @ 1:53PM
I would suggest that the liberal glee is due in part to their -- EVEN their -- discomfort with Tiller.
They know that you can't work up a sympathetic frenzy over a baby killer, even if his murder was wrong (and it was; also stupid).
So they are discharging their ammo on this one.