If you’re not reading NRO’s daily newsletter, Morning Jolt, you should check it out. As somebody who used to do The Daily Caller’s morning newsletter, I know it’s not always an easy job, and Jim Geraghty is a terrific writer. Take a minute and sign up for it.
But I have to take issue with something Geraghty wrote this morning about the Roanoke shooter:
When a gay black man murders his white colleagues out of a sense of racial grievance, a lot of folks on my side seem to want the same rush to find the true cause, i.e., “The black shooter was radicalized by the constant media race-baiting.”
We’re now seeing the Right’s version of “Sarah Palin’s Facebook page map caused the Tucson shooting.” Maybe the turnabout is fair play, but it’s every bit as illogical. Conservative adoption of this argument probably further legitimizes the philosophy that when something horrific happens, we should look at controversial media sources as the real source of the problem. We’ve seen a rotating cast of media scapegoats — violent video games, rap music, heavy metal music, even Dungeons and Dragons. It’s never enough to blame the person who pulled the trigger or committed the crime; we want to apply the transitive property to point the finger at some other force we don’t like.
I agree that nobody is responsible for a murder except the murderer. But I also don’t think we should ignore the murderer’s openly stated motives, and I think Jared Lee Loughner is a really bad comparison.
When Loughner shot 19 people back in January 2011, including Arizona Rep. Gabby Giffords, our moral, ethical, and intellectual betters took no time at all to start assigning blame:
Here’s the evil, mind-controlling Sarah Palin map they were talking about:
Can you follow the impeccable logic? Giffords’ district was one of those marked on this map, and then she got shot, so of course the map was responsible for her shooting. It was Palin’s fault.
Did Loughner ever see that map? Did he ever cite it? Did he ever express any interest at all in Palin? If anybody has ever found out, they’ve kept it to themselves.
Compare that to Vester Lee Flanagan, or Bryce Williams, or whatever that murdering lunatic was calling himself that day. He was actually live-tweeting his own crime spree, and he told us exactly why he did it:
— Jim Treacher (@jtLOL) August 26, 2015
Today’s tweets by Vester Lee Flanagan, aka Bryce Williams @bryce_williams7. There’s no justification for what he did. pic.twitter.com/m2BqGQAfAT
— Michael Strauss (@Mfs2K) August 26, 2015
And hours later he faxed a 23-page manifesto to ABC News, calling for race war because he wanted revenge for the Charleston massacre.
Flanagan told us exactly why he did it, as he was doing it. And I believe him.
Does this mean anybody but Flanagan is responsible for what he did? No, it doesn’t. But the same people who invented a motive for Jared Loughner out of whole cloth are choosing to ignore this murderer’s plainly stated motive, because it doesn’t fit their narrative. And we shouldn’t allow that to pass without comment.
Here’s all Michael Moore had to say for himself yesterday:
Modest Proposal: If Congress won’t pass gun laws then they should just give Kevlar vests 2 all Americans. Cost: $40B, just 3wks of I/A war$.
— Michael Moore (@MMFlint) August 26, 2015
Modest Proposal#2:TIME says the cost per soldier in Afghan is $3.9M/yr. Why not use that money instead & start issuing everyone a bodyguard?
— Michael Moore (@MMFlint) August 26, 2015
Because nothing will be done about guns or the American men who continue 2 use them, why not pay off these men like we did during the surge?
— Michael Moore (@MMFlint) August 26, 2015
Well, what else is Michael Moore going to say about this? A gay black journalist murdered two white people on live TV because he wanted to start a race war. It’s a leftist’s worst nightmare.
There’s no way to blame Palin, or the Confederate flag, or any of the other usual suspects. So they blame the gun. They blame the NRA. They forget the previous standard they imposed, because it really wasn’t a standard at all.
Breitbart had the nerve to publish an accurate headline about it, based on information the killer published on social media even as he was fleeing the cops, and people freaked out:
So, can all of us political folks stop pretending that Breitbart has any place in the mainstream discourse now? pic.twitter.com/fMimWU1agV
— Hunter Walker (@hunterw) August 26, 2015
This goes beyond jumping the shark. What you’re witnessing here is jamming spiked cleats into the brain of the shark. pic.twitter.com/odIu1zdIMs
— Ben Howe (@BenHowe) August 26, 2015
*thinks to himself* i should definitely post my story about the scary BLACK murderer. pic.twitter.com/rvvRdqAmSe
— Jamelle Bouie (@jbouie) August 26, 2015
Hmm. Horrible, horrible story happening here, on every possible level. How can I, as a Breitbart employee, possibly make this worse? Hmm.
— David Waldman (@KagroX) August 26, 2015
at what point do we stop pretending breitbart is anything other than a white supremacist hate site? https://t.co/WfQEpUp6Ep
— Max Fisher (@Max_Fisher) August 26, 2015
I’m too angry to be tweeting about these racist demagogues at Breitbart but I can’t contain myself right now. pic.twitter.com/Jz3zTTr6HF
— Jonathan Chait (@jonathanchait) August 26, 2015
One of these things is something Breitbart dot com considers race-baiting. One is not. pic.twitter.com/lomZAdjbDm
— Elise Foley (@elisefoley) August 26, 2015
Facts are facts, even if you don’t like the people reporting them. Even if they don’t help you achieve your agenda.
In summary: Liberals assigned a false motive to Jared Lee Loughner within hours of the Tucson shooting. Vester Lee Flanagan told us exactly why he did it, and acknowledging that fact makes liberals furious.
Not all murderous lunatics with the middle name “Lee” are alike.
