If I were to start a quotidian blog post about the biggest asshat of the day you'd think it would just be a matter of copying and pasting Scott Walker's latest press release. Today, however, the asshattery comes from Gregory Humphrey who is the proprietor of Caffeinated Politics.
He has several posts about the tragedy in Tuscon but, from reading them, you'd never think that Jared Loughner had pulled the trigger. No, it's the NRA's fault. Wait, no. It's because of the tactics of conservatives. The shootings have little to do with the shooter, in Humphrey's land of delegated fault. Instead the blame lies at the doorsteps of the NRA, Sarah Palin, and Glenn Beck.
In blaming conservatives tactics, he points to this essay by George Packer. Humphrey selectively quotes the paragraphs which describe right-wing rhetoric and fails to note Packer's opening salvo which doesn't make the connections that Humphrey does. To wit:
Judging from his Internet postings, Jared Lee Loughner is a delusional young man whose inner political landscape is a swamp of dystopian novels, left- and right-wing tracts, conspiracy theories, and contempt for his fellow human beings. He refers to the gold and silver standard; that doesn't make Ron Paul responsible for the shootings. He is fond of “Animal Farm”; George Orwell didn't guide the hand that pulled the automatic pistol's trigger. Marx and Hitler produced a lot of corpses, but not the ones in Tucson.
Let's reiterate. Humphrey blames others for Laughner's deed an, in support of this argument, links to an article which does the exact opposite.
In addition to doing his level best to avoid the fact that Loughner did the deed, Humphrey engages in guilt by association. "Jared Lee Loughner, Arizona Shooter, Held Right-Wing Points Of View", he shouts to the heavens. Never mind that Loughner sure seems to be bat-shit insane. Go to the assassin's YouTube page and watch.
"The government is implying mind control and brainwash on the people by controlling grammar," says one bit. In another he describes some weird Phildickian notion about B.C.E. years being "unable to start" and so we're trapped in one of PKD's Black Iron Prisons where "the years in A.D.E. don't cease". I mean, just watch these videos with all their warped syllogisms – the guy was off his rocker. Yet the only thing Humphrey gets out of this situation is that it's all the fault of the right-wing. That being mentally disturbed might have something to do with it apparently never crossed Humphrey's mind.
Had the Internet been around in the 1970s and someone had written a blog post simply mentioning that Dan White (assassin of San Francisco Mayor George Moscone and Supervisor Harvey Milk) was a Democrat and noted "troubling but not surprising" or pointed out in the 1990s that Jeffrey Dahmer was a homosexual Mr. Humphrey would have no doubt and quite rightly denounced them. But when a young man who is surely not all together mentally and who blathers about the gold standard murders several people, then it's open season. Whomever Humphrey doesn't personally like gets tarred and blamed. Pointing out that Laughner had some right-wing views is equivalent to simply noting that Dahmer was gay or that someone in the 1950s frequented the same laundromat as a known member of the Communist Party.
For someone who advocates that all politicians be college-educated and that good, rational political discourse should prevail, Humphrey sure can't get enough innuendo or too gleefully place cause and effect where it suits him most, evidence be damned.
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