Backlash Mounts Over Biased Coverage Of Arizona Tragedy

President Barack Obama and the first lady shared a dramatic moment of silence on the south lawn of the White House at 11 a.m. ET Monday in observance of the tragic Arizona shooting that left Rep. Gabrielle Giffords fighting for her life, even as a major conservative backlash mounted against media outlets who blamed the shooting on inflammatory right-wing rhetoric.

The shooting spree at a Tucson Safeway on Saturday was allegedly the work of 22-year-old Jared Loughner, an Armed Services reject who had a previous history of mental issues. Various sources report Loughner had exhibited increasingly bizarre behavior in recent months. Thirteen others were wounded and six people were killed in the shooting.

An initial NPR report erroneously announced that Giffords had passed away. NPR apologized for that error on Monday, calling it a “grave error.” Regardless, pundits and politicians immediately pounced Saturday at what they apparently saw as a political opportunity.

A variety of news outlets pointed to a Sarah Palin Facebook post nine months ago that listed a number of Democrats the GOP hoped to defeat, using what appeared to be crosshairs symbols, which were soon removed. Giffords’ district was one of those listed, and Giffords later made a cable TV appearance cautioning that heated political rhetoric could have serious consequences.

What those outlets overlooked: The left-wing Daily Kos blog also had targeted Giffords for her centrist positions, and wrote of putting her in the “bull's-eye.”

The New York Times’ headline for the story was “Bloodshed Puts New Focus on Vitriol in Politics.” Times columnist Paul Krugman blamed “political hatred” and recalled a recent federal report on the danger of right-wing extremism.

MSNBC's Keith Olbermann remarked: "If Sarah Palin, whose website put and today scrubbed bullseye targets on 20 representatives including Gabby Giffords, does not repudiate her own part in amplifying violence and violent imagery in politics, she must be dismissed from politics."

Appearing on CSPAN Monday, Weekly Standard editor Bill Kristol said efforts to link the shooting to conservative political dialog amounted to practicing “McCarthyism.”

Noting that both parties had used words such as “targets” in political discussions, Kristol said, “The attempt to exploit this tragedy is distasteful."

Efforts to link 22-year-old Loughner to conservative political rhetoric soon collided with reality, as the nature of Loughner’s own remarks and writings emerged.

His online rants appeared to reflect a muddled, possibly left-wing viewpoint that embrace anarchy.

Intellectually, his influences appeared to range from Karl Marx to Hitler’s Mein Kampf.

Kicked out of Pima Community College for his bizarre behavior, he wrote in a YouTube video: “I can’t trust the current government because of fabrications. The government is implying mind control and brainwash on the people by controlling grammar."

Conservatives and media commentators expressed revulsion and how the tragedy seemed to be used in some quarters as political fodder.

“In all my years as a working journalist, I have never seen more shallow analysis from liberal commentators than I have now, with this terrible tragedy in Arizona,” Fox News contributor and author Bernard Goldberg told Newsmax.

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