New York Times Hits a New Low

Naturally the New York Times shows up this morning with an editorial entitled “America’s Lethal Politics,” which includes the following:

In 2011, when 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 of targeted electoral districts that put Ms. Giffords and 19 other Democrats under stylized cross hairs. But no connection to that crime was ever established.

That’s because there was no connection between political rhetoric or the “targets” on Sarah Palin’s PAC map and the Giffords shooting. The shooter, Jared Loughner, was a mentally deranged person whose politics, if he could be said to have had any at all, were distinctly left wing. But the Times can’t help itself.

In fact, the original version of this editorial did not have that last sentence saying that “no connection” had been established. They hastily appended a correction:

If the Times had any decency they’d retract the whole editorial. But I wonder if the Times editorial page hasn’t just decided to give up trying to be serious at all, and is now joining the trolling brigades.

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