Only conservatives hate!

For those who insist that is true, Michelle Malkin  gives you this.  Warning, it can be pretty disturbing.  Of course this is NOT to say there is no such rhetoric on the Right.  It's all over the place.  It always has been.  Just like there have always been fringe elements on the Left who say such things.  And sometimes those fringe elements can find a voice in a radio talk show, a daytime television talk show c. 1980s, a political rally, a comedy routine, a poster, you name it.  It's always been there.  And if we want to talk about our current climate, go for it.  If we want to use this horrible mass murder in Arizona for some self reflection, that's fine.  If we try to improve ourselves then that's making good out of something bad. 

But the shame, the crime if I may wax rhetorical, of this has been those in the media, including the supposedly 'repsectable mainstream media', who have tried to cash in on this nightmare killing in order to shut down debate and therefore ram through the pathway of their own agendas.  Who have tried, despite the existence of the Internet ad the ease of finding the above cases, to act as if vitriol is of 'them' along.  Some I admit, like Joe Klein, have pointed at least a limp finger at the like of Keith Olbermann or MSNBC in general.  But far too few have. 

And nowhere do you hear other names, like Jon Stewart, Bill Maher, or Joy Behar, who has her own show on CNN HLN.  How about such academic lovelies as Sam Harris or media darling Christopher Hitchens, who have made a career saying they nothing less than hate all religions, or the religions they deem unworthy to continue.  Where is that?  But enough of this.  Anyone who has a brain knows that any group, any ideology, any institution has its zealots, its extremes, its bad apples. 

In all of this, my biggest question is why does the media, why do journalists, continue to act as if the Internet isn't there.  As if multiple media outlets with competing biases aren't able to dig and find facts that contradict what they are trying to say, the bias they are trying to advance?  Do they have contempt for people?  Or my biggest fear, do they figure we are at a point where we don't care about facts at all, just our agendas?  The latter concerns me the most, and more than anything, is the factor of modern discourse I worry about.