Monday, January 10, 2011

Jumping to conclusions that the shooter was a right-wing nut job and trying to lay blame at Sarah Palin's feet

Shame on the journalists and other folks who do this and are doing this.

The shooter appears to be a young deranged man, who appears if nothing else to have ties and sympathy for the left side of the political spectrum.

Have we all lost all sense of propriety here?  Where are the calls to not rush to judgment today?


Journalists urged caution after Ft. Hood shooting, now race to place blame Palin after Arizona shootings
By Byron York - Washington Examiner

On November 5, 2009, Maj. Nidal Hasan opened fire at a troop readiness center in Ft. Hood, Texas, killing 13 people.  Within hours of the killings, the world knew that Hasan reportedly shouted "Allahu Akbar!" before he began shooting, visited websites associated with Islamist violence, wrote Internet postings justifying Muslim suicide bombings, considered U.S. forces his enemy, opposed American involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan as wars on Islam, and told a neighbor shortly before the shootings that he was going "to do good work for God." 

There was ample evidence, in other words, that the Ft. Hood attack was an act of Islamist violence.
Nevertheless, public officials, journalists, and commentators were quick to caution that the public should not "jump to conclusions" about Hasan's motive.  CNN, in particular, became a forum for repeated warnings that the subject should be discussed with particular care.

"The important thing is for everyone not to jump to conclusions," said retired Gen. Wesley Clark on CNN the night of the shootings.

The rest of the story: