Ever creative in finding things for which to blame the "right wing," Salon magazine is criticizing conservatives in a headline ("Planned Parenthood Firebombed, Right Wing Silent") about an apparent incident in McKinney, Texas last Tuesday in which an unknown person allegedly threw a Molotov cocktail at a Planned Parenthood establishment.
No one with even superficial understanding of conservatives and a sound mind could conclude the conservative movement supports throwing Molotov cocktails at business establishments, even left-wing ones. That we did not comment on an incident that received almost no press attention and at which no one was injured is more logically attributed to the fact that we, like almost everyone else on the planet, had no idea it took place.
But Salon doesn't stop there. Author Alex Pareene goes further, implying conservatives are implicated in the incident because we criticize the federally-funded Planned Parenthood. Tossing aside the possibility that any criticisms might be legitimate and that organizations receiving federal funding by the very act of receiving such -- entirely voluntary -- funding invite public (or at least, taxpayer) scrutiny, Pareene somewhat creepily and quite wrongly adds that the "goal" of the right's criticism of Planned Parenthood is to "control women's bodies."
If Salon's criticism is sincere, in the interest of consistency one would expect it to likewise criticize our liberal vice president likening Tea Party members to "terrorists." I don't see that condemnation on Salon now. Instead, it more or less piled on this morning, publishing this by Michael Lind:
Today's Tea Party movement is merely the latest of a series of attacks on American democracy by the white Southern minority, which for more than two centuries has not hesitated to paralyze, sabotage or, in the case of the Civil War, destroy American democracy in order to get their [sic] way."
The conclusion to Pareene's piece is similarly irresponsible: "...this attack [on Planned Parenthood] seems more likely to be the work of a politically motivated person with conservative beliefs than a random act of vandalism."
Pareene admits he doesn't know that's true, but Salon published the accusation anyway.
