Following the assassination of two New York Police Department officers, the New York Times editorial board defended New York Mayor Bill de Blasio from claims that he had helped stoke an anti-cop environment in the city. (VIDEO: Giuliani: Obama, Holder Should Be ‘Ashamed’ For Creating ‘Severe Anti-Police Hatred’)
Entitled “Mr. de Blasio’s Call For Harmony,” the Times fiercely hits back at politicians placing the blame for the attack on de Blasio for his anti-cop rhetoric.
“Irresponsible voices are poisoning this debate: George Pataki, a former New York governor, said that ‘divisive anticop rhetoric’ from Attorney General Eric Holder Jr. and Mr. de Blasio inspired the killing of the two officers; Rudolph Giuliani, a former mayor of New York City, spread the falsehood that Mr. de Blasio had let the protests get out of control (they have been amazingly peaceful); Raymond Kelly, a former New York police commissioner, falsely accused Mr. de Blasio of running on an ‘antipolice’ platform.”
The Times also defends Eric Garner protesters from criticism, despite the evidence being rather clear that a rather vocal segment chanted “Want do we want? Dead cops!” and even clearer evidence that the shooter vowed revenge for the deaths of Michael Brown and Eric Garner. (RELATED: Suspect In NYPD Cop Execution Sought Revenge For Mike Brown And Eric Garner)
Instead, The New York Times said violent protesters were “on the fringe,” adding that, “The protesters and their defenders, including Mayor de Blasio, need offer no apologies for denouncing misguided and brutal police tactics and deploring the evident injustice of the deaths of unarmed black men like Eric Garner.”
Interestingly, The New York Times had a completely different point-of-view when the tea party, the Republican Party and Sarah Palin were accused of fostering an environment that led a schizophrenic man to shoot then-Rep. Gabby Giffords. (RELATED: Giffords Shot, Palin Blamed)
The Times then noted, in an op-ed entitled “Bloodshed and Invective in Arizona,” that shooter Jared Loughner was clearly deranged, but added that, “he is very much a part of a widespread squall of fear, anger and intolerance that has produced violent threats against scores of politicians and infected the political mainstream with violent imagery…”
Whether intentionally or accidentally, all the threats the Times highlighted were against Democrats. “Last spring, Capitol security officials said threats against members of Congress had tripled over the previous year, almost all from opponents of health care reform. An effigy of Representative Frank Kratovil Jr., a Maryland Democrat, was hung from a gallows outside his district office. Ms. Giffords’s district office door was smashed after the health vote, possibly by a bullet.”
To its credit, the Times said that it was “facile and mistaken to attribute this particular madman’s act directly to Republicans or Tea Party members.” But it continued to, well, basically blame the Republicans for violence anyways. (RELATED: NYT’s Peter Baker: Those Crazy Republicans Are Pretending They Don’t Want Obama To Get Shot)
“But it is legitimate to hold Republicans and particularly their most virulent supporters in the media responsible for the gale of anger that has produced the vast majority of these threats, setting the nation on edge. Many on the right have exploited the arguments of division, reaping political power by demonizing immigrants, or welfare recipients, or bureaucrats. They seem to have persuaded many Americans that the government is not just misguided, but the enemy of the people.”
For good measure, the Times editorial also claimed the attack showed how downright racist Arizona is:
“That whirlwind has touched down most forcefully in Arizona, which Pima County Sheriff Clarence Dupnik described after the shooting as the capital of ‘the anger, the hatred and the bigotry that goes on in this country.’ Anti-immigrant sentiment in the state, firmly opposed by Ms. Giffords, has reached the point where Latino studies programs that advocate ethnic solidarity have actually been made illegal.”
