By its own standards, the New York Times deserves blame for the Poway synagogue shooting - Thomas Lifson

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by Thomas Lifson

If the shoe fits...

Does anyone else remember when a New York Times editorial blamed Sarah Palin for the shooting of Gabby Giffords because of a bulls-eye on a map?

The New York Times published a hideous, obviously anti-Semitic cartoon the day before a gunman entered a Chabad synagogue in suburban San Diego, killing one person and injuring 3.

Rabbi Yonah Fradkin, executive director of Chabad of San Diego County, says in a statement that Lori Kaye, 60, of Poway was killed. He says those injured in the shooting Saturday were Rabbi Yisroel Goldstein, Noya Dahan, 8, Almog Peretz, 34.

By the standards that a 2017 New York Times editorial published after Bernie Sanders supporter James Hodgkinson attempted a mass assassination of members of the GOP House caucus, the Times bears some responsibility.

In 2011, 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. At the time, we and others were sharply critical of the heated political rhetoric on the right. Before the shooting, Sarah Palin’s political action committee circulated a map that showed the targeted electoral districts of Ms. Giffords and 19 other Democrats under stylized cross hairs.

Keep in mind that an unsigned editorial means that it is the product of [the]  editorial board itself, not just one op-ed writer, and is this the Times’ official position Punditfact described the hornet’s nest the NYT prodded with a stick:

The New York Times has since issued a correction following broad criticism. (snip)
The original editorial claimed that maps circulated by Sarah Palin's PAC amounted to "political incitement," which the authors said was clearly linked to the subsequent 2011 shooting of Rep. Gabby Giffords, D-Ariz. (snip)
The editorial, penned amid the frenzy of the mass shooting, sought to connect the attack on GOP lawmakers with the 2011 Giffords shooting to make a broader point about politically motivated violence. The piece reasoned that the latest attack, which left the gunman dead and four injured, including House Majority Whip Steve Scalise, R–La., was probably "evidence of how vicious American politics has become," and that the shooter’s derangement "found its fuel in politics."

Now, I think it is nonsense to blame attempted mass assassinations on one item published somewhere. But the NYT proclaimed that standard when it gave them an excuse to vilify Sarah Palin. Now, the shoe is on the other foot (which to mix metaphors, is firmly planted in the Times’ metaphorical mouth).

Hat tips: Andrew Bolt, John McMahon

Thomas Lifson

Source: https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2019/04/by_its_emown_standardsem_the_new_york_times_deserves_blame_for_the_poway_synagogue_shooting.html

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