Finger Pointing: the ultimate fail

Suddenly the Media is Concerned About Tone

Via Redstate Posted by Erick Erickson Last night on John King USA I tried very hard to keep my blood from boiling. Cornell Belcher, a very good guy, tried to claim that the right’s history of rhetoric is worse than the left’s.

I’ll meet you half way on that, just for the sake of argument, and say the left and right can at times be equally vile, but only for the sake of argument. But really, maybe the right’s history of rhetoric is greater if only because the left goes beyond rhetoric to outright violence.

And that’s the jumping off point here for the media. Because suddenly the media wants to talk about changing the political tone in this country — a tone the media itself has helped contribute to with its selective sensationalizing of subjects.

When Kos gloated over the deaths of Americans in Fallujah, the media wasn’t interested in changing the tone. When groups showed up outside Karl Rove’s house to protest, the media was not interested in changing the tone.

When SEIU protestors showed up on the front porch of a Bank of America Executive’s house, the media was not interested in changing the tone. When leftists attacked a military recruiting office, the media was not interested in changing the tone.

When arsonists burned down Sarah Palin’s church, the media was not interested in changing the tone. When rioters tried to burn down Seattle during a free trade summit, the media was not interested in changing the tone.

But when Jared Loughner, a mentally unstable Karl Marx reading registered independent whose friends described him as a leftist, guns down a Bush appointed federal judge and tries to take out a Congresswoman, suddenly the media is interested in changing the tone, but only because the tea party movement had something or other to do with something that didn’t have anything to do with Jared Loughner.

Oh yeah, the tea party movement won in November. That’s why we suddenly have to change the tone.