A day after the New York Times ignored the connection between Floyd Corkins, who attempted a mass murder at a conservative think tank, and the left-wing "hate group" monitor Southern Poverty Law Center, which had labeled FRC "anti-gay," there broke another case of bias by omission regarding news that might embarrass prominent liberals. Chris Dorner, an ex-cop on a vengeful rampage against police officers in Los Angeles, praised liberal media personalities in his oddly chatty "manifesto" posted on Facebook. Those details were absent from Friday's account by Adam Nagourney and Ian Lovett, "Manhunt On for Ex-Officer Accused of Police Vendetta."
Yet the Times has previously made up entirely fantastical accusations about conservatives like Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh, and Bill O'Reilly, accusing them with no links or evidence whatsoever of fanning flames of hatred that incited murder.
Dorner's manifesto included paeans to liberal journalists, among much else:
Chris Matthews, Joe Scarborough, Pat Harvey, Brian Williams, Soledad Obrien, Wolf Blitzer, Meredith Viera, Tavis Smiley, and Anderson Cooper, keep up the great work and follow Cronkite's lead. I hold many of you in the same regard as Tom Brokaw and the late Peter Jennings. Cooper, stop nagging and berating your guest, they're your (guest). Mr. Scarborough, we met at McGuire's pub in P-cola in 2002 when I was stationed there. It was an honor conversing with you about politics, family, and life.
Willie Geist, you're a talented and charismatic journalist. Stop with all the talk show shenanigans and get back to your core of reporting. Your future is brighter than most.
Revoke the citizenship of Fareed Zakaria and deport him. I've never heard a positive word about America or its interest from his mouth, ever. On the same day, give Piers Morgan an indefinite resident alien and Visa card. Mr. Morgan, the problem that many American gun owners have with you and your continuous discussion of gun control is that you are not an American citizen and have an accent that is distinct and clarifies that you are a foreigner. I want you to know that I agree with you 100% on enacting stricter firearm laws but you must understand that your critics will always have in the back of their mind that you are native to a country that we won our sovereignty from while using firearms as a last resort in defense and you come from a country that has no legal private ownership of firearms. That is disheartening to American gun owners and rightfully so.
Dorner also praised politicians, mostly Democrats, including Barack Obama, Joe Biden, Hillary Clinton, Chris Christie, and the first President Bush, and vilified NRA president Wayne LaPierre.
Of course, the liberal figures praised by Dorner had nothing to do with his crimes. Yet Times journalists have linked conservative media personalities and the Tea Party to crimes they had no link to at all, not even very tenuous ones as in Dornan's rant.
Classless Times columnist Paul Krugman posted just two hours after the shooting of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords' in Tucson, before the suspect's name had even been released, suggesting he shooter was a right-wing political assassin:
We don't have proof yet that this was political, but the odds are that it was. She's been the target of violence before. And for those wondering why a Blue Dog Democrat, the kind Republicans might be able to work with, might be a target, the answer is that she's a Democrat who survived what was otherwise a GOP sweep in Arizona, precisely because the Republicans nominated a Tea Party activist. (Her father says that "the whole Tea Party" was her enemy.) And yes, she was on Sarah Palin's infamous "crosshairs" list.
For a week after the Giffords' shooting the paper was crammed with stories blaming conservatism for inciting killer Jared Loughner, from Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer's immigration policy, to "right-wing militia groups," to the GOP's "most virulent supporters in the media."
Even before Loughner's rampage, then-Times columnist Frank Rich made a long and ludicrous attempt to link atrocities, real and hypothetical, past and future, to conservatives he despised.
From the text of Friday's story on Dorner:
A former Navy reservist who was fired from the Los Angeles Police Department in 2008 has gone on a murderous rampage aimed at police officers and their families, law enforcement officials said Thursday, killing at least three people -- including an 11-year veteran of the Riverside Police Department -- and setting off a huge manhunt across Southern California.
....
The suspect was identified as Christopher J. Dorner, 33, who worked for the Police Department from 2005 to 2008. Mr. Dorner posted a rambling and threatening note on his Facebook page, which police referred to as “his manifesto,” complaining of severe depression and pledging to kill officers to avenge his dismissal for filing a false report accusing a colleague of abuse.
