Speaking at the memorial of Jared Loughner’s victims on Wednesday night, President Barack Obama delivered a plea for an end to the ideological war over who, other than Loughner, is responsible for the mass murder in Tucson, Arizona.
But the left’s man in the White House had barely closed his remarks when David Brock (left) the head of MediaMatters, a leftist media “watchdog,” fingered talk- and radio-show host Glenn Beck, and by implication, others like him, as mortal threats to the American political order.
Problem is, we now know that Loughner didn’t watch political television or listen to talk radio. But that didn’t stop Brock. Nor did it stop Twitter users from “tweeting” their wish for the assassination of Sarah Palin.
For his part, Obama urged calm. Said the president:
But at a time when our discourse has become so sharply polarized — at a time when we are far too eager to lay the blame for all that ails the world at the feet of those who happen to think differently than we do — it’s important for us to pause for a moment and make sure that we’re talking with each other in a way that heals, not in a way that wounds.
Scripture tells us that there is evil in the world, and that terrible things happen for reasons that defy human understanding. In the words of Job, “When I looked for light, then came darkness.” Bad things happen, and we have to guard against simple explanations in the aftermath.
For the truth is none of us can know exactly what triggered this vicious attack. None of us can know with any certainty what might have stopped these shots from being fired, or what thoughts lurked in the inner recesses of a violent man’s mind. Yes, we have to examine all the facts behind this tragedy. We cannot and will not be passive in the face of such violence. We should be willing to challenge old assumptions in order to lessen the prospects of such violence in the future. But what we cannot do is use this tragedy as one more occasion to turn on each other. That we cannot do. That we cannot do.
As we discuss these issues, let each of us do so with a good dose of humility. Rather than pointing fingers or assigning blame, let’s use this occasion to expand our moral imaginations, to listen to each other more carefully, to sharpen our instincts for empathy and remind ourselves of all the ways that our hopes and dreams are bound together.
Brock wasn’t listening. Appearing on MSNBC’s Hardball, hosted by the leftist Chris Matthews, Brock claimed Beck was directly responsible for three “assassination” attempts.
Glenn Beck himself has been responsible for three thwarted assassination attempts this year, and Sarah Palin hasn’t condemned that. …
[H]e burned Nancy Pelosi in effigy on his set. He tried to poison her with a chalice, OK? Some weeks later, somebody tried to firebomb Nancy Pelosi’s house. That guy’s mother went on television and said he gets all of his ideas from Fox News. Do you know about Senator Patty Murray and the death threat that she got? …
It’s recorded — the guy says after the health care vote. He says you have a target on your back and I can accomplish what I want to accomplish with one bullet. Now he’s tried, convicted, and in the sentencing phase, his cousin writes in for leniency, and she describes in a very chilling memo — it’s on our website — that he was slowly drawn into Glenn Beck’s world. And she portrays the guy, the attempted assassin, Charlie Wilson, as a victim of Beck. …
And number three, which you probably do know about, this liberal foundation in San Francisco was targeted by a gunman, Byron Williams, in June. The shooter gave jailhouse interviews, and we published them, and he says Glenn Beck is this schoolteacher on television and points to specific episodes of the Glenn Beck show that inspired him do it.
MediaMatters, Brock’s media “watchdog” that wouldn’t exist without the largesse of leftist billionaire George Soros, posted a more elaborate explanation of Beck’s complicity in Loughner’s rampage. Relatives and friends of the three crackpots Brock described said the crackpots either watched Beck or Fox News.
Brock’s outfit concluded that Beck “inspired Byron Williams, Who Planned Mass Murders At Tides, ACLU.” Tides is a Soros-backed leftist foundation that funds MediaMatters, one of Beck’s frequent targets. MediaMatters also charged that Beck was “linked with stoking ‘fears'” that caused another nutcase to threaten U.S. Sen. Patty Murray. And Fox, MediaMatters charges, “Inspired Gregory Giusti To Repeatedly Threaten To Destroy Pelosi’s Home.”
Problem is, MediaMatters’ evidence that Beck “inspired” these maniacs consists only of the opinions of people who knew them.
That truth raises the obvious question of what Beck had to do with Loughner, given that a close friend said Loughner didn’t watch television and radio talk shows. As well, as this site reported yesterday, Loughner’s roots are leftist, even if he did not swallow the leftist material of which he partook.
As Politico’s Michael Calderone observed:
The ongoing cable news debate over heated political rhetoric is the type of back-and-forth between media talking heads that shooting suspect Jared Loughner likely wouldn’t have bothered watching. Zach Osler, a high school friend, said that Loughner “did not watch TV,” disliked the news,” and “didn’t listen to political radio.”
“He didn’t take sides,” Osler explained. “He wasn’t on the left. He wasn’t on the right.”
In other words, Loughner’s wasn’t listening to Beck, Rush Limbaugh or Mark Levin.
As for Brock’s bogus assertion that “Glenn Beck Himself Has Been Responsible For Three Thwarted Assassination Attempts This Year,” one wonders how he missed the news that Twitter users most certainly called for the murder of Palin. Leftist Matthews, a legman for deceased House Speaker Tip O’Neill before venturing into “journalism,” didn’t ask leftist Brock whether the following tweets, reported by Fox News, were acceptable:
“My hatred for Sarah Palin continues to grow… I think this woman should be assassinated. Sorry about chya.”
“Sarah Palin should be shot for her encouragement of fanaticism against Democrats.”
“am I wrong to say sarah palin should be shot, fully realizing it would just crystallize radical right wing retards into more violence?”
Question for Brock: If Palin is attacked, who is responsible?
