JAMES TARANTO ON MEDIA INCITEMENT AND OBAMAVILLE VIOLENCE:
In covering the Tea Party, of course, the Times emphasized its supposed extremism and violence. Brisbane doesn’t even mention these themes his column on Obamaville, even though there has been a good bit of violence there, whereas Tea Party violence was a figment of left-wing imaginations. That tells you something about the agenda of the Times and other like-minded news outlets.
The media helped create and now helps sustain the Obamaville monster, but that doesn’t mean they can control it. In recent days videos have surfaced from Oakland, Calif., and Portland, Ore., showing Obamavillians attacking local news crews attempting to report on the going-on.
The Portland video is especially creepy. It shows an angry white man–his face obscured part of the time by a pink scarf–shouting obscenities at a newsman, and declaring: “We are the 99%, you’re the 1%. . . . We don’t want you in our society.” The distinction between demonization and dehumanization is a very fine one, and media figures who have encouraged this foul and dangerous movement will have a lot to answer for if it continues to escalate.
But they’ll probably just blame the Tea Party or something.