James Eric Fuller (above) allegedly threatened a Tea Party activist at a "healing" event in Tucson.
We are now past one week from the day a psychotic man brought tragic death and injury to Tucson, Arizona. It is now a well-documented fact that Jared Loughner listened to only the impenetrable and evil demons in his head, and not to any particular talk radio show host or a politician.
As I wrote on this blog a few days ago, I hated even thinking that the left and the “mainstream media” would so quickly exploit the tragedy to libel the Tea Party movement, Sarah Palin and anyone who vocally opposed the left’s vision of America. But, alas, that was the case.
Indeed, it is a sick (but, perhaps, apt) irony, that one of the victims of the shooting showed up at an ABC television event to yell “you’re dead” at a Tea Party spokesman in attendance.That man, James Eric Fuller, has been “involuntarily committed to an undisclosed medical facility.” Why would Fuller make such a threat toward a Tea Party activist?
Until we know Fuller’s psychological profile at least as well as we now do Loughner’s, the jury’s out. But, if we are to use the standards of evidence the MSM/left employed in the day of the shooting, we can say that Fuller’s motivations are linked much more strongly to the MSM/left’s blood libel than Loughner’s motivations were ever sensibly linked to the Tea Party and Palin. From the Associated Press:
Grief-stricken after the Tucson supermarket massacre, shooting victim James Eric Fuller found comfort in writing down the Declaration of Independence from memory while recovering in a hospital.
The self-described liberal and military veteran became distraught Saturday and began ranting at the end of a televised town hall meeting about the shooting. He took a picture of Tucson Tea Party co-founder Trent Humphries and yelled, “You’re dead” before calling others in the church a bunch of “whores,” authorities said.
He was arrested and taken to a hospital for a mental evaluation.
In media interviews and on the Internet, Fuller, a former limousine driver and census worker, has said he worked hard to get Rep. Gabrielle Giffords re-elected, and was going over questions he had prepared for her when the shooting began. He was shot in the knee and back and spent two days in the hospital.
We may know the truth of Fuller’s motivations in time — and we pray for his swift recovery, both physical and psychological. Meanwhile, we can still note the efforts by the MSM and the left his past week to pretend the shooting had anything to do with non-left politics.
James Taranto at the WSJ has done a fantastic job rebutting the blood libel the left has imposed on the Tea Party and Palin. Jonah Goldberg has a great column on the matter. Jonathan S. Tobin has an interesting take at the Contentions blog. And John Steele Gordon (also at Contentions) has a good breakdown on madness of The New York Times‘ Paul Krugman on this issue.
The point we all are making is that the MSM/left has exploited this tragic incident to achieve what they have not yet been able to accomplish — getting the bulk of America to agree that opposition the recent and aggressive dash towards statism is not only wrong-headed, but literally, dangerous.
It is said that the remedy for “bad” speech is more speech. I endorse that maxim here — as we all must.
