Shameless: Politico.com insinuates “the right” wanted Giffords dead over green stance
As I noted yesterday in response to the attempted assassination of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-AZ8), the mainstream media has been nothing short of shameless in its attempts to try and insinuate – or outright declare – that it was “the right” who targeted her for murder. Josh Trevino wrote yesterday numerous times on Twitter (here’s one instance) about how Politico had joined in on the “blame right wing vitriol” bandwagon. Today, they continue to add to it with their latest extremely irresponsible hit piece. The headline: Gabrielle Giffords’s ‘green’ question riled right. The “story”:
Rep. Gabrielle Giffords drew the wrath of conservatives last June after questioning a top U.S. official over how green the country’s military operations are in Afghanistan, with clips of the exchange prompting some of the heated rhetoric that local police officials say is to blame for the lone gunman who shot her and 19 others in Tucson on Saturday.
Glenn Beck, conservative columnists and one of Giffords’ Republican primary opponents piled on after the Arizona Democrat asked Gen. David Petraeus to explain whether he had any plans to use solar panels and hydropower to increase fuel efficiency in an otherwise dangerous battle zone.
Clips of the Giffords-Petraeus exchange during a House Armed Services Committee hearing quickly went viral during the summer, as critics questioned Giffords for bringing up the issue in the first place.
[…]
On Beck’s radio program, co-host Pat Gray offered his own interpretation of Petraeus’ comments. “I pause because that’s the dumbest thing anybody’s ever asked me, you moron,” Gray said. “Are you really asking me, a four-star, a five-star general, what is Petraeus, if I’m getting solar-powered panels on our Afghanistan bases? Is that really the biggest concern I should have right now? Renewable energy on our military bases when we’re fighting a war? You’ve got to be kidding me. That’s unbelievable.”
Beck added: “That’s unsustainable. This whole system is unsustainable.”
The Red State blog posted the video and an accompanying article with the headline: “Rep. Giffords to Petraeus: You’re Fighting Two Wars? But What About Windmills?”
Yep – this “issue” came up … last June. So Politico.com recycles the news that prominent conservatives like Glenn Beck disagreed with Rep. Giffords on her green energy stance now why? Oh, yes – someone tried to kill her this past weekend, and it fits in perfectly with the sensationalistic angle the MSM has been running with to link Glenn Beck and popular conservative blogs like Red State with “anger” towards Giffords. Coincidence? Not a chance. This was deliberate, in spite of the fact that – as I also noted in my post from yesterday – Loughner’s reading material alone indicates he was far from a “Tea Party” type.
But why should Politico.com let the facts get in the way of trying to entice online readers to click on links to their website?
Chris Horner at AmSpec also noticed this, and writes:
But then came “POLITICO’s Darren Samuelsohn has a look at the conservative backlash that occurred last June after Giffords asked Gen. David Petraeus to explain whether he had any plans to use solar panels and hydropower to increase fuel efficiency in an otherwise dangerous battle zone” — linking to a full, uh, ‘news’ item, “Gabrielle Giffords’s ‘green’ question riled right”.
Yeah, yeah, I know, they’re just sayin’ she was very outspoken abut the green agenda and then she was shot, is all.
Outraged? Let the editors at Politico.com know what you think.
On the other hand, major props to ABC News’ Jake Tapper for not jumping on the “blame conservatives” bandwagon.