Putting a target on a map is bad unless left-wingers do it.
When Sarah Palin put up a map with various targets on it, that made Jared Lee Loughner go on a shooting rampage, even though there’s no evidence he ever saw the map.
You don’t need evidence when it just feels right.
When Floyd Lee Corkins walked into the DC headquarters of the Family Research Council with a backpack full of Chick-fil-A sandwiches and a gun, fully intending to shoot as many people as possible and then smear the sandwiches in their dying faces for disagreeing with him about gay marriage, he specifically said he picked the place from the Southern Poverty Law Center’s “Hate Map.”
Evidence doesn’t matter when it just feels wrong.
Co-founder of the Southern Poverty Law Center Morris Dees said his group’s “Hate Map” “doesn’t cause anybody to attack,” despite Floyd Lee Corkins’ admission that he targeted the Family Research Council (FRC) after going to the center’s website.
As Corkins told the FBI after his arrest, he learned of the FRC online, “It was a, uh, Southern Poverty Law, lists, anti-gay groups. I found them online. I did a little bit of research, went to the website, stuff like that.”
Corkins attempted a mass shooting on Aug. 15, 2012, opening fire at the Family Research Council and wounding Security Guard Leo Johnson.
Armed with more than 95 rounds of ammunition and 15 Chick-fil-a sandwiches, Corkins told the FBI that he chose the FRC as his first target after looking at a list of “anti-gay” groups on the SPLC’s website…
CNSNews.com also tried to ask Dees about a double standard after former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin’s rhetoric was blamed for the shooting of former Rep. Gabby Giffords in Tuscon, Ariz. Dees said he was not familiar with the case.
Well, of course Morris Dees isn’t familiar with that case. He’d have to pay attention to what his own group said about it.
Richard Cohen, SPLC President, 1/10/11:
A year ago, we introduced a new school curriculum, Civil Discourse in the Classroom and Beyond, with this urgent call: “There is a pressing need to change the tenor of public debate from shouts and slurs to something more reasoned.”
The tragedy in Tucson this weekend reminds us that it’s a call that politicians and pundits would do well to heed.
We may never get a clear picture of what was going through the confused mind of the Tucson gunman. But as my colleague Mark Potok explained on NPR this morning, with all the vitriol on the airwaves, it’s not surprising that someone has taken deadly aim at an elected official.
Tea Party darlings like Sharron Angle talk about using “second amendment remedies” to change the course of the country. The shameless Glenn Beck feeds the lunatic fringe with talk of the government herding Americans into FEMA concentration camps and of imminent violence from mysterious forces “from the left.” Sarah Palin uses phrases like “don’t retreat, reload” and shows the districts of various Democrats in Congress, including that of Tucson’s Gabrielle Giffords, in the crosshairs.
Yeah, but that was different. Those people are bad. The SPLC is good! Bad people make other bad people do bad things, but good people don’t make bad people do bad things. Then they wouldn’t be good people anymore, would they? Duh!
And that’s why Jared Loughner is a household name, but Floyd Corkins isn’t. Here endeth the lesson.
(Hat tip: JWF)
