Media tries to avoid blaming bomber's religious bigotry

Erick Erickson:

There is a battle of funny headlines playing out across America.

According to the Wall Street Journal, “Suspects Roused by Jihadist Thought.”

Surprisingly, the New York Times headline was “Boston Suspect Cites Islamic Extremist Beliefs as Motive”. Unsurprisingly, they changed it to “Boston Suspects Are Seen as Self-Taught and Fueled by Web”. Note that now, instead of fueled by religious zeal, it’s the series of tubes known as the internet that did it.

The Washington Post, of course, has to take all the religion out of it and blame America.”Boston bombing suspect cites U.S. wars as motivation, officials say,” reads the Washington Post headline.

Credit where it is due, the Washington Post does a masterful job of blaming America. “[T]he evidence so far suggests they were “self-radicalized” through Internet sites and U.S. actions in the Muslim world.” The Internet and American actions did it.

Time magazine is already exploring whether boxing might have had something to do with it.

It is amazing that within a one week period the media went from speculating that right wingers were celebrating Hitler’s birthday on tax day to blaming Chechen nationalism to hearing the bomber say he was inspired by Islam to announcing it’s not him, it’s us to blame.

Had it been a tea partier who launched a terror attack at the Boston Marathon, the media would spend weeks blaming Republicans, conservatives, talk radio rhetoric, and Fox News hosts for inspiring the bombing.

But because the bomber himself says he was inspired by his religious faith and that faith happens to be Islam, the media will ascribe other reasons to explain the attack that are more palatable to the its liberal sensibilities. As often happens in these cases, the media quickly descends into blaming America first.

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Many have gone into full "blame America first" mode.  Fighting back against those making war against us is evidently provocative to modern liberals.   Ignoring the obvious, these the bombers were Islamic religious bigots who hate everyone who rejects their weird beliefs, is too much for much of the mainstream media.  I think they really fear that Americans will lash out and start lynching Muslims.