Andrew Bolt – Wednesday, January 12, 11 (03:40 pm)
Of all the grotesquely irresponsible claims made about a madman’s shooting of congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, this must rank among the very worst:
Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton labeled Arizona shooter Jared Lee Loughner an “extremist” while taping a town hall segment for a talk show in Abu Dhabi today.
Her remarks came during her trip through the Middle East, where she is working to build relationships with leaders in the region. Indeed, Clinton seemed to use the word to encourage collaboration among Arab countries and the U.S. to eradicate extremism everywhere.
“Look, we have extremists in my country,” Clinton said. “A wonderful, incredibly brave young woman Congress member, Congresswoman Giffords was just shot in our country. We have the same kinds of problems. So rather than standing off from each other, we should work to try to prevent the extremists anywhere from being able to commit violence.”
It’s clear that Clinton was at one level equating a lone and universally reviled madman, acting from some crazed concern for bad grammar and a “third currency”, with organised international terrorist groups drawing inspiration from a popular jihadist ideology. She also drew a moral equivalence not just between the US and the Middle East, but, between the US Right wing and terrorist groups such as al Qaeda.
What she has done is not just tell an untruth about Loughner, making an insane loner of (if anything) the Left seem a tool of the Right.
She has not just told an untruth about the US by implying it a faces in Loughner a challenge analogous to what Muslim nations face with jihadist movements.
She has not just smeared the US Right by implying Loughner has some popular mandate for what he’s done as jihadist have for their actions.
Worse, she has further trashed the US’s moral stature in the fight against jihadism, apparently just to politicise a random and despicable tragedy.
And Democrats dare moralise about “toxic” rhetoric and the consequences of rash political speech.
