Anthrax terror mailings, NPR, and the Blame Righty crowd: A history lesson

Anthrax terror mailings, NPR, and the Blame Righty crowd: A history lesson

Remember when @NPR baselessly smeared and blamed the Traditional Values Coalition for the 2001 anthrax mailings? I do. The Blame Righty crowd never learns and thrives on public amnesia ==> https://t.co/tR0BuEFZLL

— Michelle Malkin (@michellemalkin) October 25, 2018

Democrats and CNN executives have wasted no time blaming President Trump, Republicans, and conservative media for the mail bombs or bomb-like devices received this week by high-profile liberals.

There’s no question these are acts of domestic terrorism. But to assume partisan political motivation is to forget several incidents where such assumptions made asses out of the assumers.

Do you remember what happened the aftermath of the 2001 anthrax mailing attacks – which are still unsolved?

Letters laced with anthrax were sent to the NYPost and NBC News a week after 9/11. Two more letters, postmarked October 9, 2001, were sent to Senators Tom Daschle and Pat Leahy with even more refined (“weaponized”) anthrax. Five people died, 22 were infected. Government scientist Steven Hatfill was unjustly defamed as a suspect by the New York Times and others. And National Public Radio recklessly and baselessly implied that the conservative Traditional Values Coalition might be under investigation for targeting Daschle and Leahy.

The NPR story suggested that the conservative Christian group “fit the profile” of groups that might have been responsible for those types of letters and targeted the group because it had complained about Daschle and Leahy’s efforts to remove the phrase “So help me God” from the senatorial oath. Only after public pressure from Christian activists did NPR acknowledge the slanderous story was “inappropriate.” NPR issued a hollow apology and urged critics to “move on.”

Liberal journalists have indeed moved on, refusing to learn their lesson. We have no idea what the motivations of the person or entity behind this week’s latest terror mailings are. Yet, Blame Righty is the knee-jerk impulse and non-stop message of the day by shameless opportunists who never let a crisis go to waste.