National Review columnist Mark Steyn on Friday criticized attempts to psychoanalyze accused Aurora, Colo., “Batman” shooter James Holmes and any ties he may have to political organizations, as ABC’s Brian Ross attempted earlier in the day.
Guest-hosting Rush Limbaugh’s radio show, Steyn contrasted media coverage of the Colorado shooting to the 2009 massacre at Fort Hood, Texas, committed by Army Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan.
“Nobody ever says, ‘Where did Maj. Hasan get the ideas that made him want to stand on a table shouting ‘Allahu Akbar’ and gun down a bunch of people?’” Steyn said. “That is an isolated one-off. It doesn’t have anything to do with any books he might have read or any spiritual advisers he might have listened to. That’s an entirely insulated one-off.”
The incident in Aurora, Colo., evoked a more immediate reaction, with several Twitter users suggesting that Rush Limbaugh’s commentary on “Batman: The Dark Knight Rises” may have motivated the shooting.
“But when it comes to some guy of no known political affiliation, who may have no political affiliations whatsoever, but when he decides to walk into a motion picture theater and kill a bunch of people, then the first thing that has to happen is that has to be pinned on right-wing talk radio and Fox News and all kinds of other stuff,” said Steyn. “This is pathetic. It’s abysmal. It’s not worth talking about.”
And that according to Steyn, the author of “After America: Get Ready for Armageddon,” is evidence of a double standard.
“It only cuts one way — this,” he said. “Just think about the world you would live in if what Rush said about Batman was no longer within the approved level of political discourse… That would be the equivalent of living in a straightjacket.”