On Wednesday evening, The New York Times released its editorial on the attempted massacre of Republican Congressmen and their aides by a Trump-hating Bernie Sanders supporter. It was, without a doubt, the worst editorial they have run in a decade.
The editorial essentially called for gun control — no shock, since every shooting with a semi-automatic engenders a fully automatic response from the mainstream press. But the truly egregious part of the incoherently awful essay came when The Times attempted to pin the rise in toxic rhetoric in the United States on … Sarah Palin. Really.
Here’s the most insane section:
Was this attack evidence of how vicious American politics has become? Probably. In 2011, when Jared Lee Loughner opened fire in a supermarket parking lot, grievously wounding Representative Gabby Giffords and killing six people, including a 9-year-old girl, the link to political incitement was clear. Before the shooting, Sarah Palin’s political action committee circulated a map of targeted electoral districts that put Ms. Giffords and 19 other Democrats under stylized cross hairs. Conservatives and right-wing media were quick on Wednesday to demand forceful condemnation of hate speech and crimes by anti-Trump liberals. They’re right. Though there’s no sign of incitement as direct as in the Giffords attack, liberals should of course hold themselves to the same standard of decency that they ask of the right.