AP: Giffords Shooter 'Believed the U.S. Government Was Behind

As media outlet after media outlet advances the bogus theory that Jared Lee Loughner was incited to kill innocent people by the rhetoric of prominent conservatives, details emerging about the life of the Tucson gunman completely refute such assertions. Adding to the growing list of evidence countering these claims is the following juicy tidbit buried in an Associated Press piece published…
Noel Sheppard

Rubio Goes to Washington

"You didn't fly here to celebrate me," Marco Rubio announced from the stage of the Ronald Reagan Building in Washington, D.C. The comment could have been received as a bit jarring coming from Rubio. Hours after being sworn in as a U.S. senator, this former insurgent candidate who bucked his party's national establishment to challenge their hand-crafted candidate -- Charlie Crist, the…
Kathryn Jean Lopez

Open Thread: 'The Politics of Blood Libel

In the Wall Street Journal, law professor Glenn Reynolds, of Instapundit fame, recounts some tactics of the left's ongoing crusade to pin Saturday's tragic Tuscon, Arizona shootings on Sarah Palin. Reynolds recalls points made at NewsBusters and elsewhere, and concludes thusly: To be clear, if you're using this event to criticize the "rhetoric" of Mrs. Palin or others with whom you disagree,…
NB Staff

New York Times Blames 'Vitriol in Politics,' Palin's Campaign Map for

Sunday’s New York Times led with the shooting of Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, a three-term Democrat representing Tucson, in an assassination attempt in which six others were killed, including a federal judge and a nine-year-old girl. The suspect in custody is 22-year-old Jared Lee Loughner. The suspect’s Myspace and Youtube pages are filled with crazed syllogisms, dominated by thoughts…
Clay Waters

Daily Kos Campaign Director Uses 'Target Lists' Frequently

With the founder of the Daily Kos deliberately trying to tie Sarah Palin's target list to yesterday's shooting in Tucson, perhaps it's time Markos Moulitsas took this opportunity to look at his own people in regards to using incendiary rhetoric.  Markos took the time to send a message to his followers yesterday tweeting, “Mission accomplished, Sarah Palin”.  But if target lists are considered…
Rusty Weiss

Who Knew NPR Execs Were So Well-Paid (Overpaid

Washington Post media reporter Paul Farhi was complete enough in his reporting on the internal NPR review of the Juan Williams firing on Saturday that he included financial numbers that NPR released on the bonuses of NPR CEO Vivian Schiller. The decision to cancel her bonus over that Fox-loathing fiasco was a six-figure decision: According to tax records released by NPR on Friday, Schiller…
Tim Graham

Washington Post’s Pearlstein Charges Republican Policies ‘Kill Peo

Talk about incendiary and toxic talk. In Friday’s Washington Post, business section columnist Steven Pearlstein proclaimed that “what's particularly noteworthy about” congressional Republican “fixation with ‘job killing’” Democratic policies, such as Obamacare, “is that it stands in such contrast to the complete lack of concern about policies that kill people rather than jobs.” Pearlstein, a…
Brent Baker

NYT: 'It's Legitimate to Blame Republicans and Their Most Virulent Sup

As we move into the second day following the horrendous attack on innocent citizens in Tucson, Arizona, the media's blame game continues. Although the New York Times editorial board stopped short of claiming Republicans and the Tea Party were responsible for inciting Jared Lee Loughner to commit this heinous crime, the Gray Lady made it clear it feels the Right are the cause of a "gale of…
Noel Sheppard

Entire Chris Matthews Panel Sees Obama A Big Winner In First Quarter

Talk about bullish consensus, the entire panel on this weekend's "Chris Matthews Show" felt that President Obama was going to be a big winner in the first quarter of this year making him the proverbial comeback kid. Alex Wagner of Politics Daily went so far as to predict, "Obama’s going to be flying on angels wings two feet off the ground" (video follows with transcript and commentary):
Noel Sheppard

Steve Malzberg Battles Rachel Sklar Over Giffords Shooting Blame Game

As NewsBusters has been reporting, the Gabrielle Giffords shooting blame game has been in full swing since the moment shots were fired in Tucson Saturday. With this in mind, Howard Kurtz invited conservative talk radio host Steve Malzberg and Mediaite editor-at-large Rachel Sklar on Sunday's "Reliable Sources" to fight over whether all the finger-pointing at right-wing figures like Sarah…
Noel Sheppard

Piling On: Reuters Dispatch Wants to Tame 'Tough Political Rhetoric

"Never let the facts get in the way of a good story" must be the motto at Reuters, or at least of the wire service's Richard Cowan, three other contributors, and Editor Jackie Frank. Cowan's late Sunday afternoon dispatch (HT to an e-mailer) is caricature-driven collection of cliches, half-truth, outright myths, and totally predictable oversights. There's the racial slurs before the heath…
Tom Blumer

Arizona Sheriff Admits There's No Evidence 'Vitriolic Rhetoric' Incite

Since making his claim Saturday that the Tucson shootings were caused by "vitriolic rhetoric that we hear day in and day out from people in the radio business and some people in the TV business," Pima County Arizona Sheriff Clarence Dupnik has become a media darling being regularly quoted by press outlets from coast to coast. On Sunday, during strong questioning from Fox News's Megyn Kelly,…
Noel Sheppard

WaPo Publishes Sociologist Who Compares 'Low-Income' Supporters of Bus

A recurring feature in the Washington Post's weekly Outlook section is a column devoted to "Five myths about" a particular topic. The feature for January 9 -- "5 myths about why the South seceded" -- happened to address a timely historical topic considering this year marks the sesquicentennial of the beginning of the U.S. Civil War. Yet the author, sociologist James W. Loewen, couldn't…
Ken Shepherd

Network Journalists Advance Leftist Wish to Blame Palin (and Tea Party

“The shooter’s motivation is still unknown,” Katie Couric announced as she anchored Saturday’s CBS Evening News, but that didn’t deter CBS, nor CNN, NBC and ABC on Saturday night and into Sunday morning from forwarding attempts to blame Sarah Palin and, by implication, the Tea Party, for the Tucson shooting. “Giffords was one of 20 Democrats whose districts were lit up in cross hairs on a…
Brent Baker