Soccer Dad

Sudden jihad/nazi/confederate syndrome

Barry Rubin wonders what news coverage of different events in history followed the same pattern as coverage of last week's Fort Hood massacre. The satire is hilarious, but at the end he makes a number of important points including:

The media can often be stupid but when it censors reporting for political or social engineering reasons, freedom is jeopardized. The correct phrase is: The public's right to know. It is not: The public has to be guided into drawing the proper conclusions by slanting and limiting information even if the conclusions being pressed on them are lies and nonsense.

Now it's possible that the shooting was a case of what Daniel Pipes coined Sudden Jihad Syndrome. But more likely what's going on is denial, just like in the LAX shootings in 2002.