Monday January 17, 2011

NEW VOICE COLUMN UP, in which I try to get some perspective on the continuing Tucson disaster by focusing on one of its small but telling epiphenomena: The wildly increased rightwing rage at Paul Krugman. Krugman, like a lot of people, points out that Rep. Giffords and Judge Roll were threatened prior to being shot, and that this is worth considering when we talk about the atmosphere that engendered the shootings; wingnuts go apeshit. I see more than one reason for it.

One of the things they focus on is Krugman's citation of the Michele Bachmann "armed and dangerous" comments. As I mentioned last week, supplying the context for Bachmann's remarks actually shows them to be more provocative than advertised, not less. But the conservative consensus is that Krugman is libeling the poor woman with her own words. Hoystory, for instance, claims "Krugman took that Bachmann quote so out of context that if she weren’t a public official Krugman and the Times might find themselves facing a false light libel suit."

Hoystory also says that "the last time the media went this wrong for so long was probably the 1996 Atlanta Olympics bombing when hero Richard Jewell was falsely tarred as the bomber." I'm surprised he didn't bring up Bruno Hauptmann and the Lindbergh Baby. Can you imagine being so absurdly paranoid that you think a decades-long conspiracy has been successfully pursued against you by a bunch of underpaid writers and editors? It'd be more dignified to claim your were being stalked by janitors.

UPDATE. Readers do the updating I'm too drunk to do! For example, they point out that the actual Atlanta bomber turned out to be a Christian Identity nut and abortion clinic bomber. "If The Media had simply accused right-wing gun nuts of that one," says Doghouse Riley, "they'd've turned out to be right."