We cannot blame one nutjob for the shooting of 19 people Saturday in Tucson, Ariz., and wash our hands of it. We cannot pretend that this is only about him and not about us. Worst of all, we cannot say we were not warned. For more than two years, sensible people have been pleading with their fellow Americans to tone down the rhetoric, to quit with the demonizing, to end the fear-mongering....The safe observation for us to make now—you will hear it from others all week—is that the angry and irresponsible talk that might lead an unhinged person to pick up a gun is common across the political landscape, from right to left. But that simply is not true.
Overwhelmingly today, the fear-mongering and demonizing flow from the right, aided and abetted by cable TV and talk-radio hosts. They may represent only the irresponsible fringe of conservatism in America, but they are drowning out the thoughtful voices of the vast majority of conservatives.
Conservative cable news and talk-radio hosts don't represent the "irresponsible fringe." They run the movement. To claim that the unelected leaders of the GOP are somehow on the fringe is to replace a false equivalency with a dishonest distinction.
