Newsweek finds a new way to keep the Big Lie alive

NEWSWEEK,  the magazine that the Washington Post sold for one dollar, makes a new effort to remain relevant. They devise a way to further the big lie about a connection between the Arizona shootings and the Tea Party -- indirectly but very obviously, with cover art of an assassin wrapped in an American flag.

The cover story by Jonathan Alter is more than 2,000 words. And what one word does not appear in that article? Zeitgeist. 

Remember when Newsweek used to do reporting?

There is absolutely no excuse for Newsweek's false image of America-loving assassins now that so much is known about the Arizona shooter. Even if they believe The Narrative with all their hearts. The astute Andrew Klavan, way back on January 9:

. . . Indeed, the Left’s hysterical response to all who disagree with it — that they are racist or sexist or “phobic” or somehow reminiscent of Hitler — has become so predictable that satirists, from the libertarian Greg Gutfeld to the liberal Jon Stewart, have made fun of it in routines.

But never mind that, because the Left’s sudden talk about incendiary political rhetoric in the wake of the Arizona shooting isn’t really about political rhetoric at all. It’s about the real-world failure of leftist policies everywhere—the bankrupting of nations and states by greedy unions and unfundable social programs, the destruction of inner cities by identity politics, and the appeasement of Muslim extremists in the face of worldwide jihad, not to mention the frequently fatal effects of delirious environmentalism. Europe is in debt and on fire. American citizens are in political revolt. Even the most left-wing president ever is making desperate overtures to his right.

But all that might be tolerable to leftists if they weren’t starting to lose control of the one weapon in which they have the most faith:  the narrative. The narrative is what leftists believe in instead of the truth.

The Arizona shooter lived in his own dark little world. The Left's utopian dream world is a brighter place, but it isn't sustainable. It's falling apart before their eyes.  Their dark side is becoming more transparent as they become more desperate, and as alternative voices are more accessible.

Daniel Henninger explains one foundation of "The Narrative".

There has been a great effort this week to come to grips with the American left's reaction to the Tucson shooting. Paul Krugman of the New York Times and its editorial page, George Packer of the New Yorker, E.J. Dionne of the Washington Post, Jonathan Alter of Newsweek and others, in varying degrees, have linked the murders to the intensity of opposition to the policies and presidency of Barack Obama. As Mr. Krugman asked in his Monday commentary: "Were you, at some level, expecting something like this atrocity to happen?"

The "you" would be his audience, and the answer is yes, they thought that in these times "something like this" could happen in the United States. Other media commentators, without a microbe of conservatism in their bloodstreams, have rejected this suggestion.

So what was the point? Why attempt the gymnastic logic of asserting that the act of a deranged personality was linked to the tea parties and the American right? Two reasons: Political calculation and personal belief. . .

The divide between this strain of the American left and its conservative opponents is about more than politics and policy. It goes back a long way, it is deep, and it will never be bridged. It is cultural, and it explains more than anything the "intensity" that exists now between these two competing camps. (The independent laments: "Can't we all just get along?" Answer: No.)

The Rosetta Stone that explains this tribal divide is Columbia historian Richard Hofstadter's classic 1964 essay, "The Paranoid Style in American Politics." Hofstadter's piece for Harper's may be unfamiliar to many now, but each writer at the opening of this column knows by rote what Hofstadter's essay taught generations of young, left-wing intellectuals about conservatism and the right. . . 

Read the whole thing.  They REALLY MUST believe that Repulicans are dangerous.  Noam Chomsky is quoted below.  His textbooks recently sold more than any other author at the UCLA bookstore (don't know if he's still the top seller).  He has said, among other things, that we have to be balanced in our thinking about Pol Pot's killing fields in Cambodia -  considering the benefits as well as the losses.  Pol Pot's goal was to totally obliterate the people's memory of their culture so he could build a new, pure one.   The only "benefit" I know of is that he killed off practically everyone who knew how to farm, so the "non-evil" people (those who weren't considered dangerous because the didn't wear eyeglasses or exhibit any significant sign of education) had nothing to eat.:

“The latest election....you could almost interpret it as a kind of death knell for the species," (said) Chomsky, an emeritus professor of linguistics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology."

Oh, boy.

And remember that libeling the Right is the only way the Left can win.