The Crazymakers

More on Castagana, who used the alias "Marc Costanzo" online. Apparently, he's a big fan of Mmes. Coulter, Ingraham and Malkin. From Keith Olbermann's interview of Radar's John Cook:

OLBERMANN: ...But the Ann Coulter-Laura Ingraham-Michelle Malkin connection is—how is that best described? Is that hero worship? Or crushes of some kind, or do we know what that is?

COOK: Well, I mean, if he is idolizing them, that sounds like hero worship to me. I mean, I think, you know, these, Ann Coulter and Malkin, you know, they sort of present a kind of rhetorical world view where they have their troops out there, and I think he thought of himself as one of their troops and wanted to live up to their standards.

And I mean, I don’t think we can always hold these people responsible for the actions of the least hinged of their followers, but I think it is clear that he was an acolyte of the Coulters and the Malkins, and I think that they clearly enjoy having acolytes, and they clearly sort of issue calls to action -- not necessarily to send threatening powder-filled envelopes to you in so many words, but they certainly exhort their followers to let themselves be known.

No, those three women didn't order Castagana to send out the white powder threats, but they are professional crazymakers whose hateful bile contributes to the poisonous atmosphere that breeds people like him.

They didn't commit the crime, but they can't completely wash their hands off this. Their words are calculated to incite outrage in their most rabid followers, in ways so blatant they can't feign ignorance of it. They know exactly what they're doing.

Orcinus weighs in:

But neither are they blameless in these matters. Moral culpability lies in the court of public opinion -- and as Olbermann and Cook explored here, blame for the influence of hateful rhetoric on unstable characters can't all be laid at the feet of those actors. Responsibility lies with the people encouraging them to hate as well. People like Coulter, Malkin, and Limbaugh don't need to be taken to court. What they have earned is to be shunned and ignored as the moral lepers they are.

+Save/Share | |