It has become apparent in the last 24 hours that the mainstream media is bent on attributing some level of blame for yesterday's tragic shooting in Tuscon, Arizona to Sarah Palin. The chief piece of evidence for this claim is a map SarahPAC devised that placed crosshairs over a number of congressional districts the group would target during the 2010 election cycle.
But if violent metaphors in political rhetoric drive crazy people to violence, than the media had better save some blame for themselves, since political reporting is replete with such language (Howard Kurtz noted that fact in his column today). Here are just a few examples:
BRIAN WILLIAMS (Nightly News, October 29, 2008): On our broadcast here tonight, the air war. With just six days to go now, Obama takes to the airwaves tonight in a multimillion-dollar blitz, as McCain keeps swinging, determined to land a punch.
DIANE SAWYER (20/20, October 3, 2008): "Like Cindy McCain, Michelle Obama has also been in the political crosshairs. That comment she made in two stump speeches in Wisconsin one day...."
CHRIS CUOMO (GMA, March 20, 2008): "If we go to a convention, do you think that there's some merit to this idea that the Clinton ground war is too strong and could overwhelm at the convention?"
CHRIS CUOMO (GMA, November 2, 2006): "Senator John Kerry is keeping a low profile after apologizing for remarks that put him in the political crosshairs of both political parties and the President...."
Here's where you all come in, NBers. This is a very incomplete list of these types of statements. Let's scour the archives and dig up as many such examples as we can (keep in mind, that these exclude actual calls for violence, which are not exactly rare among the far-left, and even among mainstream media talkers). If the MSM is really going to assign blame for this type of language, they need to be reminded of the massive glass house they're sitting in.
