Jumping to conclusions

I was shocked at the breaking coverage on CNN Saturday night about the shooting at Rep. Giffords' public event in Arizona. What shocked me even more was to listen to Wolf Blitzer try to ascertain the suspect's political inclinations based on the rambling entries he left various places on the internet. One could almost hear his disappointment to find the Communist Manifesto listed among the alleged shooter's "favorite books," thus making it difficult to paint him as a rabid "right-winger."

Memo to Wolf: not everything is about politics. I know that's hard to understand for people employed by the government/media complex, but it's true. Sometimes, a deranged nut is just a deranged nut.

But this isn't the first time people have gone out of their way to divine political motivations within moments of a tragedy. Mayor Bloomberg and others speculated the attempted car bomb in Times Square last May might be the work of "Obamacare opponents." Of course, once Faisal Shahzad of Pakistan plead guilty, we heard no more of that particular nonsense.

It's disgraceful to see newscasters and public figures advance convenient pet theories on such tragedies before hardly any facts are in. One thing is certain: having failed to brand the Tea Party movement as racist in motivation, it appears the next memo from whatever replaced Journolist instructed everyone to associate it with violence.

It's true many Tea Party sympathizers either wonder about or are actively preparing to be able to defend themselves from social chaos -- or their own government. Why they feel the need to do so isn't hard to understand.

Meanwhile, it shouldn't be difficult for people of every political persuasion to wish Representative Giffords a full recovery, and to express condolences for the innocent bystanders who lost their lives in this senseless act.