The Washington Post‘s and MSNBC’s Eugene Robinson on the shooting of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords by a deranged man, 2011:
Robinson [on MSNBC]: I think we should take note of the fact that it is almost invariably the mentally disturbed or upset who are most susceptible to vitriolic political rhetoric and who take it seriously. Who … might look at cross hairs on a map and take that seriously … [and] today I think we can say incontrovertibly that violent political rhetoric and the threat of political violence comes exclusively from the right.
Keith Olbermann; I’ve never been convinced still that most of the people saying these things actually want to see people shot. What, though, does that matter at this point if people are being shot? How straight a line does it have to be from the one to the other?
Robinson: Well, I think this is a case in which intent doesn’t obviate the crime. No, … I don’t think they actually intend people to take this seriously, but it can and there are people who are unbalanced who have access to guns who do take it seriously, and we should know that by now. And so we should, frankly, temper our rhetoric, all of us, to take into account the fact that we’re not supposed to have this sort of hatred in us for a different political view…. [V]itriol, it may be free speech, but words do have consequences.
Although it’s not always clear what Robinson is trying to say, here it is pretty clear that the “crime” that is not “obviated” by the absence of “intent” actually kill anyone is right wing rhetoric and even graphic metaphors (crosshairs).
Now, compare Robinson’s view of the lethality of right wing rhetoric with the innocence of left wing rhetoric. Here is the Washington Post‘s and MSNBC’s Eugene Robinson on the recent shooting of two New York City cops by a deranged killer who announced his intention to kill cops as retribution for Brown and Garner in his Wash. Post column, “Wrongly Pointing Fingers.”
A disturbed career criminal named Ismaaiyl Brinsley committed this unspeakable atrocity by himself, amid a spree of insane mayhem: Earlier in the day, he shot and critically wounded a woman he had been seeing; later, on a subway platform, he shot and killed himself.
Brinsley’s reported claim to be acting in some warped sense of revenge for the deaths of Michael Brown and Eric Garner was delusional and illegitimate…. The demonstrations sparked by the exoneration of the officers who killed Brown and Garner were pro-accountability, not anti-police….
I don’t know the right way to make sense of such depravity. But I am certain that the way not to make sense of it is to blame nonviolent protesters, exercising their constitutional rights of assembly and speech, for the acts of a deranged killer.
Those peaceful protestors seeking only “accountability” were presumably the ones caught on video chanting “What Do We Want? Dead Cops! When Do We Want It? Now!”
If Eugene Robinson didn’t exist we might have to invent him. Oh, wait. No, we wouldn’t. There are too many others just like him.
