KEVIN JAMES writes that he called the French election, and the Franco-chattering classes’ reaction to it — way back in April. He’s also got a comment on Pim Fortuyn’s assassination, which he describes as the consequence of hate speech:

The controversial party leader is invariably described as “far-right”, “extreme right”, and suchlike in the world press, and made out to be the Dutch equivalent of Jean-Marie Le Pen. As Dave Kopel conclusively demonstrated in his Sunday article for the Rocky Mountain News, the portrayal of this gay Dutch sociology professor—take in carefully all four words: “gay Dutch sociology professor”—as some sort of neo-fascist extremist is a ridiculous slander.

And now it has proven a deadly slander.

If the Europeans truly value democracy, they ought to start demonstrating in the streets. Not in protest of the affrontery of people like Fortuyn for daring to question the Continent’s political orthodoxies, as they have been up to now, but rather against the European political and media elites for ensuring that Fortuyn and others who agree with him are demonized and denied a fair hearing.

This process of character assassination is profoundly anti-democratic, and appeared dangerous enough before, as I explained in “Understanding Le Pen’s triumph”. How much more dangerous it appears now, after today’s demonstration that character assassination can incite the more deadly kind…even in a place like the Netherlands.

Yeah. After the Oklahoma City bombing, everyone from Newt Gingrich to Rush Limbaugh was charged by Clinton spinmeisters (quite deliberately, as George Stephanopoulos recounts in his memoirs) of creating a “climate of hate” that led to a terrorist act, an accusation immediately picked up by bien pensant media figures.

I look forward to seeing the New York Times editorial page draw similar lessons for Europe.

UPDATE: Rod Dreher has some thoughts on The Corner.