That said, I do not discount the immediate crisis of violent political extremism. People are being killed. It's not good, obviously. But what's especially dangerous is the political opportunism that comes even before the blood is dry and the facts are known, and in recent weeks that despicable opportunism's been the bailiwick of the left.
I know what folks will say: "Both sides do it ... [insert extremist right-wing counter-example here]." Thus all of us are left to retreat back into the insular comfort-zone of our own partisan cocoon.
It's understandable. But in my opinion, in the context of the Holocaust Museum shooting, leftist commentators have refused to look at the facts. The most important essay written this last few days is Ben Johnson's, "Holocaust Museum Shooter: Christian-Hating Socialist." James von Brunn is in no way representative of today's conservative right, and blaming Sean Hannity, Rush Limbaugh, and other conservative talking heads for the violence only feeds the divisiveness.
But readers can hash it out for themselves. Leftists are so invested in finding evil in the conservative movement that no amount of factual analysis will dislodge them from their "eliminationist" mindset. And I'll make no bones about it: Some of those mucking in the hate are generally evil in my estimation.
With that, let's look at a few recent commentaries trying to provide some perspective on all of this.
Here's Jeffrey Goldberg, via Memeorandum, writing on Judith Warner's idiocy. Goldberg campares the Holocaust Memorial attack to the killing of Private William Long:
The attacks in Arkansas and Washington are both manifestations of a radical type of intolerance, and they are linked in very deep ways. The left, generally speaking, doesn't want to acknowledge Muslim intolerance, and the right, generally speaking, doesn't want to acknowledge white, Christian intolerance. But they both exist, and they should both be acknowledged.Okay, here's John Hinderaker's effort at calmness:
Various media sources are referring to von Brunn as a "right wing" murderer, more or less as they refer to people like us as "right wingers." This is a dubious characterization, to say the least: anti-Semitism is overwhelmingly a phenomenon of the Left in today's world, and Leon Wolf, at RedState, points out that Mr. von Brunn's political views are typical of those commonly expressed at the Daily Kos. No surprise there.Also, here's my friend Daniel Nexon's post, "Some Thoughts on the American Politics Topic du Jour":
So is the Daily Kos to blame for von Brunn's insane murder? Earlier today I got an email with a link to an article claiming that Barack Obama is to blame, since Obama has legitimized hatred of Israel. Is that fair?
I don't think so. As hateful and misguided as many liberals may be, if they aren't actually advocating violence (like Randi Rhodes, say) they shouldn't be blamed if a lone nut takes their ideology to the extreme. Vigorous political debate is legal--as is bigotry, for that matter; murder is not. That's a very bright line, and all that needs to be said on the subject. Who is to blame for murder? The murderer.
There's no substantive difference between the attempts by right-wingers to define Nazism as a phenomena of the left and Marxist attempts to define Soviet Socialism as "state capitalism."You see, everyone's got their spin, even if they're in roughly the same neighborhood.
Anyway, I think the speed with which the right-wing blogsphere has circled the wagons over the shooting at the Holocaust museum speaks for itself.
It should be patently obvious that any disagreements your typical conservatives have with someone like Von Brunn are far more important than relative location on a one-dimensional political spectrum.
But one more point: No matter how one situates themselves on this debate (the left's more awful than the right, blah, blah ...), I don't think there should be much debate that the mass media and the Democratic establishment are working in tandem with the fever-swamp radicals to exploit the violence for sheer partisan advantage. Explicitly or implicitly, the result is the same: The murder of George Tiller, for example, is a national calamity, while the death of Private Long was largely swept under the rug.
For more on this, see Victory Davis Hanson, "David Letterman, Rev. Wright, and Thoughts on a Creepy Culture."
See also, Frugal Café Blog Zone, "Obama Quick to Decry Abortionist’s Murder… Why Is He Still Mute on Soldier’s Murder by Black Muslim Terrorist?."
