There has yet to be any evidence circumstantial or otherwise to indicate that James Holmes had a political motivation or enticement to murder innocent people at a movie theater in Aurora, Colorado, Friday.
Despite this, in the middle of a panel discussion about this massacre Sunday, NBC Meet the Press host David Gregory brought up former President Bill Clinton's words following the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing that most at the time felt were directed at conservative talk radio host Rush Limbaugh (video follows with transcript and commentary):
DAVID GREGORY: Secretary Chertoff, you’ve worked in a political administration, you deal with counter-terror threats but you’ve also paid attention to somebody who thinks about threats around the country to political dialogue, the coarsening of dialogue across the media spectrum from entertainment to-- to news and commentary. And I-- I was thinking, harkening back to President Obama’s words after Gabby Giffords was shot and then to Bill Clinton back in 1995 after Oklahoma City, and I’ll put something he said up on the screen. He said--back then, President Clinton--“We hear so many loud and angry voices in America today whose sole goal seems to be to try to keep some people as paranoid as possible and the rest of us all torn up and upset with each other. They spread hate. They leave the impression that, by their very words, that violence is acceptable.”
GREGORY: Let me emphasize as we sit here today, we know nothing about motivation in this particular case, political or otherwise. But President Clinton’s words back in 1995 could be true today, couldn’t they, about how some of the public discourse can fall on more vulnerable ears?
Irrespective of Chertoff's answer, absolutely nothing has surfaced to suggest Holmes had any interest in politics or exposure to talk radio.
As such, Gregory was making an accusatory implication - and for those familiar with Clinton's words directly at Limbaugh - without any basis in truth or fact.
Given all the recent erroneous rushes to judgment by liberal media members - including ABC's Brian Ross wrongly claiming Friday that Holmes was a Tea Partier! - will these folks ever learn to avoid wading into uncharted waters without the facts?
Or would that be too much like journalism?
