The media's "soul searching" about violent political rhetoric in light of the Arizona tragedy I find gag-inducing, since it almost always includes the SCLM's need to build a false equivalency between the right and the left.
This morning's example struck close to home (both my real-world home of Boston and my virtual-world home of Dailykos)--here's a snip from today's Boston Globe:
"Senator Richard Durbin, an Illinois Democrat, criticized Palin in a TV interview for using the targeting symbolism. Palin, through a spokesman, said she never expected anybody would have considered the map a violent image.
Such use of metaphor, while controversial, is not unusual. Dailykos.com, a liberal political blog, also placed Giffords on a "target list" for defeat in the Democratic primaries for voting against former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, saying that "not all of these people will get or even deserve primaries, but this vote certainly puts a bull’s-eye on their district."
Here's the full article.
The equivalency they're trying to build is such a stretch, it's almost laughable. Desperate to show that they're not liberal-leaning, that the left is just as bad as the right, the reporters obviously did a keyword diary search, and this is the best they could come up with. I say "almost laughable" because the violent right-wing rhetoric will never be held accountable as long as the media is protecting it with the "everyone does it" bullshit.
This was waiting for me on my homescreen (boston.com) when I woke up this morning, and it hit me hard--for some unknown reason, I expected better from my hometown news.