Jodi,

I agree with you: the Chris Matthews and Sean Hannitys of this world -- to pick a talking head from each side of the political spectrum -- play up to their various constituencies, re-affirm preconceived notions and do their best to prevent a meaningful exchange of ideas that could reach a mutually beneficial compromise.

The fusion of news media and advocacy (plus entertainment!) has not done much for the distillation of meaningful information to the masses and maintaining civility in public discourse.

did you read what he wrote? It was like a list of talking points in the tea baggers  game book.

When you have a bunch of crazies and a network like Fox News , that promotes anti govt. lies, this is what you get. 

***

Here we go. Something bad happens, and let's immediately blame Fox and conservatives. First, do we know anything about this guy yet, except what he wrote? Quite frankly, from his "manifesto", he seems to be pissed at everyone. Among those he attacks are Big Business, the medical system, the Catholic Church,  and George Bush. Based on this I could say he was inspired by left wing nut jobs since those are some of their favorite targets. But the truth is we don't know yet if any group inspired him, or it was just his apparently miserable life that did it. The last time you tried to tie a death to "hate merchants" on the right, it turned out to have nothing at all to do with them. Can't we wait to find out what really happened before we use a tragedy to make political points?

On a positive note, I was just told that no one other than the pilot was killed and only two were injured. I hope that this is the case.

FOX News sucks.  It's shit.  Seriously; hook your TV up to a coxial cable and drop the other end in shit and you'll see FOX news on the screen.

This guy doesn't seem to me to be a product of FOX news.  This guy just seems crazy and pissed-off.  I don't think you have to look any further than that.

It's like Hitler: "He was a Christian!" "He was an atheist!"  Hey, HE WAS HITLER.  Sometimes subtext-mining is a waste of time.

Based on this I could say he was inspired by left wing nut jobs since those are some of their favorite targets.

No he seems like a libertarian, Ron Paul revolution type if anything.He had owned several businesses so that pretty much rules him out as a member of the far left.

there are very strong Marxist undertones to his word choices. 

Not really. He complained about big business, the tax system and "big brother" added to the fact he was a business owner himself, I'd say that alone disqualifies him as a Marxist or leftist in any way. He seemed to be all over the place in his rantings, so he may be on the same leverl as someome like the unabomber that was simply nuts and blmaed the government for his failed life.