The New York Times had all the excuses it needed to blame violent Republican rhetoric after the shocking attack on Nancy Pelosi’s San Francisco home.
Reporter Catie Edmondson started the blame game with Sunday’s edition, “Pelosi attack Highlights Increasing Fears Of Violence Incited By Politics.” She blamed not the deluded home invader but some of the mean things Republicans have said over the past two decades about Pelosi.
It also highlighted the fact that Ms. Pelosi was the first female Speaker of the House of Representatives, and a long-standing fixture of Democratic politics, has been increasingly mocked by Republicans
The paper expanded on this idea with a 1,800-word story in Monday’s edition. Reporters Annie Karni and Catie Edmondson joined forces under a headline that confirmed GOP guilt by association: “Nancy Pelosi Vilified by G.O.P. for years, Is a Top Threat Target.”
The same paper that celebrates every time unfunny Saturday Night Live mocks a conservative…suddenly can’t take a joke, declaring the GOP’s mere opposition to Pelosi was “demoniz[ing] and dehumaniz[ing]” (click “expand”):
The Republican National Committee ran an ad featuring Ms. Pelosi’s face framed by the barrel of the gun in 2009. It was a parody of the James Bond film “Goldfinger”, in which the second-in-line to the presidency was played by Pussy Galore.
After a long campaign by Republicans to demonize, dehumanize, and dehumanize Ms. Pelosi in increasingly vile ways for years, the attack on Paul Pelosi, Ms. Pelosi’s husband, was carried out on Friday. It left him with a fractured skull.
For nearly two decades, Republicans have made Ms. Pelosi the most sinister Democratic villain. She has been the evil star of their fund-raising appeals and advertisements in an attempt to energize their core supporters. The language and images have fuelled the anger against Ms. Pelosi from the right. This has been fueled in recent years by a toxic stew conspiracy theories and misinformation that has flourished on the internet and social networks with little resistance from elected Republicans.
It is hard to see the intensity of Times outrage when Republican politicians are attacked by ideologically motivated men (as opposed just crazy like Pelosi’s attacker). James Hodgkinson shot at Republican congressmen in a baseball field in 2017, seriously wounding CongressmanSteve Skalise (R–LA).
Rand Paul, Republican Senator from Kentucky, has been attacked at least twice to the disgust of leftist Twitterati as well as Democratic U.S. Senate Candidates. He has not received any sympathy cards in the Pelosi-style from The Times.
The paper mistakenly referred to itself as left-wing and lamented that “[t]he vilification [of Ms. Pelosi increased recently, when she emerged as Democrats’ most potent foe to Mr. Trump”. Trump had “branded her crazy as a bedbug” while the left “made her a sunglasses-wearing icon.”
The Times made Pelosi a “sunglasses-wearing legend” twice in its news pages. Both were made possible by reporter Sheryl Gay Stolberg. This was after a “triumphant” Pelosi confrontation in the Oval Office. Stolberg praised the Speaker’s “power stride” out of the White House that day in dark sunglasses, an orange coat, making Ms. Pelosi a fashion trendsetter.
