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The Tweetable Guide To Media Myths And Left-wing Violence

As Andy noted this morning, the Denver Post was busy scrubbing the Colorado school shooter's socialist beliefs from its own reporting. On Twitter, I reviewed the media's history of convenient speculation and outright lies when it comes to the perpetrators of violence.

Sept 2009: census-taker Bill Sparkman found hanged in rural Kentucky. Media speculated it was Tea Party. (He killed himself.)

— Gabriel Malor (@gabrielmalor) December 14, 2013

Sparkman wanted it to look like he'd been murdered so his family could collect on his life insurance.

Feb 2010: Joe Stack flies small plane into an IRS building. Anti-tax TP rhetoric blamed. (He quoted from the Communist Manifesto.)

— Gabriel Malor (@gabrielmalor) December 14, 2013

Several media outlets simply scrubbed Stack's quotation from the Communist Manifesto out of their publications of his suicide screed.

Feb 2010: Amy Bishop shoots colleagues at University of Alabama faculty meeting. Gun-loving Tea Party suspected. (She was an Obama voter.)

— Gabriel Malor (@gabrielmalor) December 14, 2013

Dr. Amy Bishop turned out to be a potential serial killer after scrutiny revealed the unusual shotgun killing of her brother decades earlier. She was also a registered Democrat suffering from suicidal thoughts related to her failure to obtain tenure.

March 2010: John Patrick Bedell shot two Pentagon security. A right-wing extremist, media asked? (A registered Democrat and 9/11 Truther.)

— Gabriel Malor (@gabrielmalor) December 14, 2013

To this very day, if you type "John Patrick Bedell" into Google, the very first autofill suggestion is "John Patrick Bedell tea party." That's not deliberate malice from Google. The predictive search is based on how often a word or phrase was searched. In other words, folks were so desperate to find out if Bedell was a tea partier, they taught Google to watch for it.

May 2010: massive Times Square car bomb found. Bloomberg speculates it's someone upset about ACA. (Actually, plain vanilla jihadist scum.)

— Gabriel Malor (@gabrielmalor) December 14, 2013

Mayor Bloomberg, without any information about the bomber at all, decided to speculate that it was someone upset about the new healthcare law. And nobody thought to question him on that.

August 2010: Amid GZM debate, Muslim cabbie stabbed in NYC. Media speculates: a RWNJ? (Actually, a Lefty art student off his meds.)

— Gabriel Malor (@gabrielmalor) December 14, 2013

Even better: the Lefty art student off his meds had actually done some work for the PR firm hired to promote the Ground Zero Mosque.

Sept 2010: James Lee takes hostages at Discovery Chan HQ. Media speculates: climate change denier? (An environmentalist who hates humans.)

— Gabriel Malor (@gabrielmalor) December 14, 2013

Lee was a particularly toxic example of leftwing nutbaggery. He was once convicted for smuggling illegal aliens into the United States. He wrote in his manifesto that he wanted to save the planet by "stopping the human race from breeding any more disgusting human babies!"

@gabrielmalor Dec 2010: Clay Duke shoots at FL school board. Mike Malloy blames Glenn Beck. (Actually, Media Matters among his fav sites.)

— John Sexton (@verumserum) December 14, 2013

That's one I had forgotten about. Thank you to @verumserum for the reminder.

Jan 2011: Jared Lee Loughner shoots up campaign event of Rep. Giffords. Media: TP rhetoric is to blame. (An apolitical conspiracy theorist.)

— Gabriel Malor (@gabrielmalor) December 14, 2013

The Tucson shooting set off my very first rant and list of media myths about nonexistent right-wing violence.

July 2012: James Holmes shoots up theater in Aurora, CO. Brian Ross suggests he's a TPer on live TV. (Just another unmedicated nutter.)

— Gabriel Malor (@gabrielmalor) December 14, 2013

I dusted off and added to the list following ABC's Brian Ross' beclowning and was asked to write it up for an op-ed in the NYPost.

Aug 2012: Floyd Lee Corkins shoots up @FRCdc based on @SPLCenter's "target list." Media: [crickets]. h/t @JammieWF

— Gabriel Malor (@gabrielmalor) December 14, 2013

This was the case of the media that didn't bark. A politically-motivated shooting in the media's own backyard. They grudgingly covered the shooting itself, but were curiously quiet about Corkins' motive in targeting FRC, which he explicitly said was based on the Southern Poverty Law Center's target list.

April 2013: Tsarnaev bros bomb Boston Marathon. Media suggests RWNJ commemorating "Patriot's Day." (Actually, just more jihadist scum.)

— Gabriel Malor (@gabrielmalor) December 14, 2013

Twitter pal Amy Otto (@CAAmyO) reminded me that should have been "Obama-voting jihadist scum." Good point. The Tsarnaev's had the whole profile of modern American mass killers: jihadists, leftists, nutters.

Oct. 2013: Media retroactively blames right wing for JFK assassination. (Actually, LHO was a communist defector.)

— Gabriel Malor (@gabrielmalor) December 14, 2013

Media's desire to pin violence on the right is so overwhelming they're actually rewriting history to do it.

In 2012, I wrote:

The media's habitual blaming of the political right is endemic and incurable. Media figures sincerely believe the right wing is violent, so naturally assume that violent people must be right-wing. This won’t be the last time they make that mistake.

I'm telling you again: this won't be the last time I have to pull out this list.