The Christian Science Monitor’s Peter Grier engages in another irresponsible and stupid smear of conservatives, alleging that the Bush-hating 9-11 truther who wounded two in yesterday’s Pentagon shooting was motivated by “right-wing extremism.”
For some reason, there is a class of journalists and wishful-thinking liberals that believe, despite mountains of evidence to the contrary, that every person with a grievance against the government is somehow “right-wing.” News Flash: Belief in limited government is in no way related to conspiracy-mongering about criminal conspiracies within government, nor to theories that the government caused or let 9-11 happen.
Conspiracy theorists and anti-government activists exist at both extremes of the ideological spectrum. (Ever hear of draft resisters? Tax protesters who base their objections on wars fought by the government? The Black Panthers? Jonestown?) And the last two extremist acts we’ve seen — the IRS bomber and the Pentagon shooter — had clear markings of coming from the fringe Left. That’s what 9-11 trutherism, deranged hatred of George W. Bush, and stated antipathy toward free enterprise would suggest to any sane person.
But that doesn’t stop irresponsible writers form immediately ascribing all acts of political violence to the Right.
