Maybe CNN lacks the guts to directly claim that a Republican sent those devices. And so it has resorted to the cowardly contrivance of putting the accusation in the mouths of others.
First, in its 6 AM New Day opening this morning, Alisyn Camerota highlighted a Washington Post headline: "Amid Incendiary Rhetoric, Targets of Trump's Words Become Targets of Bombs."
Just in case the accusation wasn't explicit enough, CNN—under a "Breaking News" banner—then ran a clip of New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo [brother of CNN's Chris Cuomo] saying:
"This is political terrorism. This is American terrorism. This is red versus blue terrorism."
"Red versus blue terrorism." Got that? Cuomo unequivocally claims that this is a case of Republican terrorism targeting Democrats. And CNN runs that as Breaking News.
The WashPost story, by Philip Rucker, reads like a sloppy editorial. It begins:
In the home stretch of the fall campaign, President Trump has called Democrats “evil” and argued they are “too dangerous to govern.” He has denounced Barack Obama’s presidency and demonized former secretary of state Hillary Clinton, inspiring chants of “Lock her up!” at his rallies.
The president has also used his bully pulpit to taunt Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) as a “low I.Q. individual,” impugn former CIA director John Brennan and fan conspiracy theories about liberal philanthropist George Soros. And he has called the news media “the enemy of the people,” singling out CNN’s reporting as “fake news.”
This week, these targets of Trump’s rhetoric became the intended targets of actual violence in the form of pipe bombs, many of which turned up Wednesday.
Note: Cuomo also seems to be suffering from a bad case of pipe-bomb envy.
