A good example comes courtesy of Paul Kane at the WashPost, as he details the concerns Pelosi raised on Thursday about the rise of violent political rhetoric in America.
The Post lede:
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) on Thursday said she worries that the protests of President Obama's health-care legislation may be of a similar nature to anti-gay rhetoric in the late 1970s in San Francisco, which culminated in the assassinations of two of her home town's political leaders.
Most of the article deals with the Republican response to Pelosi's comments. (Because GOP spin is always the most newsworthy occurrence, right?) And then Kane added [emphasis added]:
Pelosi had already infuriated Obama critics last month when she said opponents of his health-care plan were carrying “swastikas and symbols like that” to town hall meetings. Conservatives excoriated Pelosi for her implicit labeling of them as Nazis.
What did Kane leave out? Oh yeah, the fact that Pelosi was right; that anti-Obama protesters were carrying “swastikas and symbols like that” to town hall meetings. Meaning, Pelosi made a claim, the Post notes today that it “infuriated” conservatives, and then forgets to mentions that Pelosi's claim was, y'know, accurate.
BTW, conservatives are aghast that Pelosi seemed to draw conclusions between today's violent rhetoric and the assassinations of S.F.'s liberal mayor, George Moscone, and openly gay supervisor Harvey Milk. Denouncing the comparison, right-wing blogger Ed Morrissey insists it doesn't work because Moscone and Milk's assassin, Dan White, wasn't some kind of right-wing nut. He was just a “moderate” politician who happened to snap.
Actually, here's what one of White's homophobic campaign brochures from the `70's declared:
“There are thousands upon thousands of frustrated, angry people waiting to unleash a fury that can and will eradicate the malignancies which blight our city. I am not going to be forced out of San Francisco by splinter groups of radicals, social deviates, incorrigibles."
“Moderate,” indeed.