Anders Behring Breivik, the miserable piece of garbage who murdered almost 100 people in Oslo last week, is now being depicted by some as the poster child for Christians and conservatives everywhere. This is based on a very strong piece of evidence: in his Facebook profile, Breivik describes himself as a “conservative Christian.”
He also wrote a 1,500-page manifesto, which he sent to dozens of media outlets and others shortly before his attack. As Ezra Dulis at Big Journalism points out, the NYT and WaPo have yet to call for a crowdsourcing effort to scour through the document as they did with, say, Sarah Palin’s e-mails. Which is odd, because:
Breivik’s actual words completely contradict the “Conservative Christian” caricature. [In his manifesto] you can see how, to save the environment, he wants the world to rid itself of oil consumption. You can see how he wants a one-child policy, government control of private industries, the breakup of Rupert Murdoch’s media empire, the military support of Russia to prevent a possible U.S. invasion of Europe, and the removal of all U.S. military bases from European soil. Yes, the tea party platform through and through, folks!
You can read the details at Big Journalism. Other than being a Murdoch-loathing, anti-capitalist treehugger who “does not have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ or God,” Breivik is basically your garden-variety teabagger.
When the news of the attack broke, many people suspected the terrorist or terrorists were motivated by Islam. I did, based on what I was reading at Reuters, the NYT, and elsewhere. When the news broke that the attacker wasn’t Muslim, I noted it immediately. When the facts changed, I changed my opinion.
Will these bloggers and media outlets that are trying to tie Breivik to American conservatives bother to note what’s actually in his manifesto? Will these facts change their opinion? Or are they so eager to use a mass murder for political purposes that they don’t care about the truth?
These aren’t rhetorical questions, I hope.