The worst "both sides do it" of the day
by digby
Ladies and gentlemen, Howard Kurtz, describing "reckless rhetoric" around the Charleston massacre and began with this example:
Todd Rutherford, a South Carolina state rep, unloaded in an interview with CNN’s Jake Tapper. He said the gunman “watches the news and he watches things like Fox News, where they talk about things that they call news, but they’re really not. They use that coded language, they use hate speech, they talk about the president as if he’s not the president, they talk about churchgoers that they’re not really churchgoers. And that’s what this young man acted on.”
I was inclined to cut Rutherford some slack because he was very emotional and lost a friend in that church. But then he doubled down in an interview with Bill O’Reilly.
This is the worst kind of politicization. I shouldn’t even have to say this: We don’t even know if the shooter watched Fox. When people on Fox News criticize President Obama, they’re not acting as if he’s not president, and I have no clue what Rutherford means by talking about churchgoers as if they’re not churchgoers.
Think about this lawmaker’s message: Someone watches Fox and goes berserk. This was a heinous act committed by a psychopath, a white supremacist consumed by hate, and Rutherford couldn’t wait 24 hours before dragging in a cable news network he doesn’t like.
But in fairness he then mentioned the NRA board member who blamed the victim State Senator Reverend Clementa Pinckney for failing to allow guns in the church. Even steven. Blaming Fox News' continuously kvetching about black people, calling them "race hustlers" and more is just as bad as a gun nut who blames the victim for his own death.
Kurtz also blamed Hillary Clinton and brought up Bill Clinton's famous speech about right wing media in the wake of Oklahoma City:
Unfortunately, both sides have a history of engaging in shameful rhetoric over the years. After the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing, in remarks aimed at Rush Limbaugh, Bill Clinton blamed “loud and angry voices” that “keep some people are paranoid as possible…They spread hate, they leave the impression that, by their very words, that violence is acceptable.”
Limbaugh responded that “liberals intend to use this tragedy for their own political gain," blaming "many in the mainstream media" for "irresponsible attempts to categorize and demonize those who had nothing to do with this."
In fact, it's quite clear that liberals are a just terrible people and the right is fresh as an innocent speckled pup frolicking in a meadow when it comes to all this stuff. Year after year, decade after decade, right wing crazies are killing people for political purposes and right wing rhetoric has nothing to do with it. The problem is liberals who make note of all those upstanding conservatives who insist that the FBI not investigate right wing terrorists because for some bizarre reason they think it might infringe on their own first amendment rights. Got it.
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