Krugman Claims Colorado Dark Knight Shooting Due to Incendiary Rhetoric, Tea Party
Published by Dan Collins on July 20, 2012 | 4 Responses
Inevitably, the blaming of the theater massacre in Aurora, CO, on people's expressions of political free speech began immediately, with George Stephanopoulos suggesting that the shooter may have been a member of a local TEA Party, who had attended a seminar on Islamist terrorism, according to his personal page at the site. Now, Joel Pollak at Breitbart brings forth information that suggests that the shooter might be a registered Democrat, born in California, one James Holmes, of Aurora, 24.
Dark Knight Rises features a villain named Bane, who combines with Catwoman to wreak havoc on the well-heeled in Gotham City. Bane breathes noxious gas to stoke his evil mojo, apparently. The Colorado shooter, who hadn't seen the movie, since it was premiering, but would have been able to see the trailers, which featured Occupy-style mob scenes to which were added explosions and other stock-in-trade filmic violence. The point is, Bane and Catwoman don't believe that society's rewards are properly distributed, and they're waging war on the rich in this violent fashion, which brings Bruce Wayne out of retirement. It seems unlikely that a TEA Party type would identify with villain Bane. That won't prevent the real nuts from claiming that it was a false flag operation.
Mind you, there are plenty on the radical left who continue to villify Brandon Darby for having prevented atrocities, who are now decrying this atrocity and trying to tie it to the TEA Party types, who are mistrusted by the Southern Poverty Law Center and its public relations arm, the Department of Homeland Security. If this had happened at the Republican National Convention, it wouldn't be such a big deal. As it is, the slaughter has caused numerous leftist luminaries once again to call for more stringent gun legislation—the very ones who seem to think that Fast and Furious is not a big deal. And the embattled AG may have more trouble coming as the details about the bomber of an Israeli tour bus in Bulgaria emerge.
Kudos to Paul Krugman, though, for taking the cake. [see update below]
When you heard the terrible news from Arizona, were you completely surprised? Or were you, at some level, expecting something like this atrocity to happen?
Put me in the latter category. I’ve had a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach ever since the final stages of the 2008 campaign. I remembered the upsurge in political hatred after Bill Clinton’s election in 1992 — an upsurge that culminated in the Oklahoma City bombing. And you could see, just by watching the crowds at McCain-Palin rallies, that it was ready to happen again. The Department of Homeland Security reached the same conclusion: in April 2009 an internal report warned that right-wing extremism was on the rise, with a growing potential for violence.
In Krugman's fevered imagination, this had to take place in Arizona, rather than Aurora, since that is an evil place full of people who resist being overrun by illegal immigrants and cause trouble for well-meaning administrations who accidentally cause hundreds of Mexicans to be killed by cartel members with guns they've been allowed to acquire in the US, and one of whose Sheriff's keeps on questioning Obama's legitimacy and enforcing the law, even though Janet Napolitano thinks she gets to decide with Eric Holder which ones get enforced and which ones not, and even how they are written, to the surprise of some in Congress who strangely believed they were still members of what is drolly called a 'legislature.'
Krugman, naturally, is too great a genius to be required to have control of such piddling details as which state these dozen people (so far) were murdered. Mere facts must give way to his outrage. He also is apparently too great a genius to require an editor at the NYT, who would only cripple the fluidity with which his enormous intellect expresses itself.
What a jerk. It was the climate, don't you know? It's always climate, unless it happens to someone else, in which case it's weather.
UPDATE: With the red face of total embarrassment, I announce that it has been brought to my attention that Krugman was actually referencing the Gabby Giffords shooting, which did occur in Arizona, and not Colorado, but which turned out not to have anything to do with the TEA Party. I will permit this to stand as an example to me of my own stupidity.
However, it also gives me the opportunity to ask whether Mr. Krugman ever did retract his views as expressed in that piece. |
