Let the Blame Game Begin

Gary Fouse
fousesquawk


Even while Gabrielle Giffords fights for her life, the left has already decided who is responsible for the tragedy in Tucson. At this stage, we know some details about the accused shooter, Jared Lee Loughner. It appears on the surface that he is a deeply disturbed young man who left a bizarre YouTube video that rambled about people not being literate and contained strange references to English grammar etc. If we were to make a guess, we might say he is a latter-day Mark David Chapman. His favorite books include Mein Kampf and the Communist Manifesto. Giffords herself is a centrist who criticized the government for not securing the southern border and supports 2nd Amendment gun rights. Yet, before all the facts are in , the left-wing media, particularly MSNBC and the Huffington Post, have reached a verdict. Behind Jared Lee Loughner lie the usual suspects; the Tea Party, Rush Limbaugh, talk radio, Sarah Palin, the Republicans, Glenn Beck, Bill O'Reilly and Fox News.

The Huffington Post is tilting starboard with all the opinions of its leftist commentators assessing blame. They even feature an "important message" from Keith Olbermann ("hat tip" to Huffpo).

Olbermann, while admitting that he once made an error in rhetoric regarding Hillary Clinton, predictably named all of his enemies in discussing the blame for the shootings in Tucson.

What's worse, it is entirely possible that come Monday, many in Congress will renew their calls for censorship on talk radio, Fox News, the blogosphere, and any disagreement with the administration's agenda (which, of course, must be racist in nature).

As is my wont, I spent most of my time yesterday following the news on Fox. There was no partisanship going on. Shepherd Smith did a professional job following the rapidly-moving news story. Everybody was hoping and praying for the recovery of all involved. Yesterday was not a day for Republicans vs Democrats, liberals vs conservatives, etc. We should have all been pulling together as decent Americans. That is what I witnessed yesterday on Fox News and on into this morning.

And lest one of my readers point it out, let me admit here that not too long ago, I posted an article on Giffords when she asked a general during hearings about what steps the military in Afghanistan was taking to reduce the carbon footprint caused by the military presence in that nation. I poked fun at her for that question and called her an "airhead". It is easy to say I wish I had those words back now. I could, of course, go back and delete that comment and hope nobody remembered it. I would rather own up to it. Is that the kind of remark that may lead a nut like Loughner to pick up a gun? I seriously doubt it, but maybe Mr Olbermann feels otherwise. The truth is that if you want to go down that road with people like Limbaugh, Palin and Beck, then Olbermann is as guilty as anyone for the incendiary things he has said about conservatives. Had Giffords been a conservative Republican, would we be condemning Olbermann for all his remarks about "slack-jawed tea-baggers"? If you want to hear angry vitriol, take the time to spend 5 hours on any one night on MSNBC listening to the same tired old theme about how racist and ignorant conservatives, Republicans and Tea-Partiers are.

We will learn more about Loughner in the days ahead, and perhaps, a link to some group may be found. The Huffington Post is already speculating about some tenuous tie to some racist group called American Renaissance. We shall see. In the meantime, no connection to any tea party, conservative talk show host or Fox News has been found. Until that occurs, the record of the tea party groups is still clean. There has been no violent incident that I am aware of carried out by the tea party groups. In fact, the only violent incidents at tea party rallies or town hall meetings that I know of were carried out by their opponents in places like Tampa and St Louis. Of course, none of that matters to partisan media hacks like Olbermann and the rest of his ilk.

One would think that in moments like this, we could all pull together instead of using a tragedy to make political points, points that-as yet- are not there.

Why don't we take a breath, let the facts come out and all join together to pray for Giffords, the other victims and their families?