Academic

HOW BAD WAS THE MEDIA COVERAGE OF TUCSON? So bad that Charles Blow is writing about ?The Tucson Wit?

By Glenn Reynolds

HOW BAD WAS THE MEDIA COVERAGE OF TUCSON? So bad that Charles Blow is writing about “The Tucson Witch Hunt.”

Within hours of the shooting, there was a full-fledged witch hunt to link the shooter to the right.

?I saw Goody Proctor with the devil! Oh, I mean Jared Lee Loughner! Yes him. With the devil!?

The only problem is that there was no evidence then, and even now, that overheated rhetoric from the right had anything to do with the shooting. (In fact, a couple of people who said they knew him have described him as either apolitical or ?quite liberal.?) The picture emerging is of a sad and lonely soul slowly, and publicly, slipping into insanity. . . . Concocting connections to advance an argument actually weakens it. The argument for tonal moderation has been done a tremendous disservice by those who sought to score political points in the absence of proof.

Ya think?

Full post as published by Instapundit.com on January 15, 2011 (boomark / email).