MSNBC's Contessa Brewer: 'People' Are Blaming 'Vitriolic Right-Wing Talkers' for Shooting

MSNBC's Contessa Brewer on Tuesday spread the blame for Saturday's spree shooting, singling out "vitriolic right-wing talkers and the Tea Party." Several groups seemed to be on Brewer's list, with the notable exception of Jared Loughner. He was only mentioned as a failure of the mental health system.

Closing the 12pm hour of News Live, Brewer summarized, "We've been following the fallout from the Tucson shooting and there is a lot of blame to go around. People are blaming the vitriolic right-wing talkers and the Tea Party." (When Brewer mentioned "people," one could largely substitute the word "journalists.")

[See video below. MP3 audio here.]
 

Finally getting around to the actual killer, Brewer opined, "They're blaming the gun culture, but perhaps if we spent more time scrutinizing the gaps in our mental health system, perhaps people like Jared Loughner wouldn't fall through them."

A transcript of the January 11 segment, which aired at 12:55pm EST, follows:

CONTESSA BREWER: We've been following the fallout from the Tucson shooting and there is a lot of blame to go around. People are blaming the vitriolic right-wing talkers and the Tea Party. They're blaming the gun culture, but perhaps if we spent more time scrutinizing the gaps in our mental health system, perhaps people like Jared Loughner wouldn't fall through them. Ike Crosson tweets, "Contessa, you can't be more correct. Once again, mental health is being placed on the back burner. Bryan Lovsness writes, "Mental health is a taboo subject still in some states, especially for males, to ask for help." And Alice Beebe posts, "We need to be able to report mental health issues just like we report child abuse." I always appreciate you weighing in. We've had an interesting, lively discussion about this, though most of it has turned back to gun control issues. I'm Contessa Brewer, thanks for watching today.

— Scott Whitlock is a news analyst for the Media Research Center. Click here to follow him on Twitter.