If someone designed a computer program that randomly generated nuggets of liberal conventional wisdom, MSNBC’s Alex Wagner could sue them for violating her intellectual property. In a segment on that cable news network’s hour of bias confirmation, the Southern Poverty Law Center’s Mark Potok, spokesman for a group Floyd Lee Corkins admitted had motivated him to kill as many people at the Family Research Council as he could, alleged that Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev were motivated to their act of terrorism by conservative thinkers. They laughably centered this claim on the fact that the elder Boston Marathon bomber was partially influenced by Alex Jones – a conspiracy theorist slash entertainer without a political home. But this panel segment also displayed flagrant, and intentional, intellectual dishonesty by ignoring the bombers’ other sources of political influence.
Perhaps the summer lull is to blame for Now’s decision to broadcast a segment about racial animus motivating the American right in for umpteenth time. Perhaps it is a psychological compulsion. No matter. To summarize the predictable segment below, Potok alleged that the Tsarnaevs were motivated to their bloody act of terrorism by Jones’ unhinged rants. This led the panel to decry the rise of racism in America which has followed the political ascension of President Barack Obama.
Judging by this segment alone, one would suspect that there is no investigative reporting into what actually motivated the Tsarnaevs. In fact, there is a wealth of journalism which would inform that conversation – that is, if informing had been the objective.
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