Tucson: "... an ideological dog's breakfast"

Chris Selley analyzes Canadian press pundit's commentary on the Tuscon shootings:

... three main narratives have emerged: (1) It’s all but inconceivable that the assailant wasn’t influenced or motivated by the violent rhetoric of certain Tea Party followers. (2) It’s all but inconceivable that he was influenced by them — insanity is just insanity, always. (3) He may or may not have been influenced by them, but while we’re here, let’s say how much we deplore violent political rhetoric, because nothing occurs in a vacuum, words have meaning or [insert alternative vacuous text explaining why we’re railing against something we just said might be irrelevant]. (4) What the hell is wrong with you people? We have very little idea what motivated him, and what we do know is an ideological dog’s breakfast.

In Camp One we have Judith Timson in The Globe and Mail, ... the Globe’s John Doyle, ... in the Toronto Star, we have Linda McQuaig, for whom there’s absolutely no doubt that “hostile, right-wing extremism” is to blame, along with the media who tolerate it. ... 

And so on, ending with:

... people do realize Loughner’s going to have a trial, right? It’s reasonable to hope we’re eventually going to find out rather precisely what allegedly drove him over the edge. [Methinks this is a tad dubious. I'm not sure we can expect much precision from a madman as to his true motives. Plus, he's going to have lawyers who will do their best to mudify things sufficiently to keep their client off death row, including blaming "right-wing rhetoric".]

... Ultimately, the rush to judge is, at best, incredibly unhealthy — at worst it’s disgustingly partisan.

All in all, excellent points, funny lines.