Various members of Congress and media outlets recently received letters containing a suspicious powder and threatening biological attack. The threats, now being investigated by the FBI, "demanded an end to corporate money and lobbying in U.S. politics, an end to corporate personhood," according to news reports.
Those are two of the principal demands of the Occupy Wall Street movement, which already has gained considerable notoriety for its violent tendencies. So the question now becomes: Should the Occupy movement get the Tea Party treatment?
It was only last January, recall, that roughly 3 billion gallons of ink were spilled blaming the Tea Party for Jared Loughner's rampage at an Arizona event, where he shot and nearly killed Democratic Rep. Gabrielle Giffords.
Despite the lack of any indication from Loughner that he had ever even heard of the Tea Party movement, countless news outlets hastened to blame the grassroots activists for Loughner's behavior. "Anti-government, pro-gun, xenophobic populism made the Giffords shooting more likely," according to a typical dispatch that appeared in Slate.
If it is fair to blame the Tea Party for the Giffords shooting, then it would be even more fair to blame the Occupy movement for the threatening letters.
Just to be clear, we don't for a second think either charge is fair. The thousands of individuals who peacefully exercise their constitutional right to air grievances cannot be held responsible for the dangerous acts of isolated individuals. Plenty of other media outlets, however, plainly hold a different standard — though we doubt they'll apply it with any consistency.
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