The Ugly Politics of Mass Killings

FUNNY THING ABOUT RIGHT WINGERS

So far, I haven't heard anyone on the right saying that the authorities shouldn't charge Malik Nidal Hassan with a hate crime because doing so would be a totalitarian, Orwellian criminalization of a thoughtcrime. But surely they'll want to make that point firmly and decisively in the days to come ... right?

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And I'm confused. Right-wingers (NewsBusters in particular) have told us for years that the "liberal media" doesn't like to acknowledge certain demographic information about certain suspects in horrible crimes ... but right now CNN is prominently highlighting a convenience-store surveillance video showing Hasan in a traditional Middle Eastern robe and skullcap (the story is headlined "Fort Hood Suspect Seemed 'Cool, Calm, Religious'"), while the front pages of Talking Points Memo and the Huffington Post prominently feature stories that claim Nidal shouted "Allahu akbar!" before shooting (a claim made by Fort Hood's commanding officer in an interview on the allegedly arch-liberal NBC). How can this be? Where's the liberal cover-up? And if there's no cover-up, gosh, why isn't NewsBusters heaping these news outlets with praise?

(The same right-wingers, of course, went to great pains to make the case that James von Brunn, the man charged with shooting up the Holocaust Museum, was a liberal. But our side, naturally, is the guilty side.)