If right-wing broadcasters like Bill O’Reilly don’t want to be blamed when someone murders a person they have repeatedly demonized—as in the case of George Tiller, the doctor shot dead in his Wichita, Kans., church last Sunday by an anti-abortion zealot—then they ought to moderate their rhetoric. No doubt they will choose their words more carefully for a while, as Mr. O’Reilly did in the immediate aftermath of the Tiller killing—and they will whine piteously, as he did, about anyone who calls attention to their screaming extremism.
This familiar cycle of shaming and blaming, which often follows incidents such as the Tiller killing, may well be pointless.
