By: Charles C. W. Cooke - nationalreview.com - March 28, 2023

Per Ari Blaff, Terry Moran said the following on television yesterday:

ABC News anchor Terry Moran mischaracterized the legislation and implied it may have been related to the attack.

“The shooter identified herself as a transgender person. The state of Tennessee earlier this month passed and the governor signed a bill that banned transgender medical care for minors as well as a law that prohibited adult entertainment as well as male and female impersonators after a series of drag show controversies in that state.”

I would like to know what is supposed to come next in Moran’s sequence. The shooter was transgender; Tennessee had passed some laws she didn’t like; therefore . . .

Therefore what? Therefore what happened makes sense? Therefore she had no choice but to murder some nine-year-olds? Therefore the State of Tennessee is guilty in some sense? What?

I’d like to know why these facts were raised as they were. Because, to be quite honest with you, I cannot see an innocent explanation for Moran’s having juxtaposed them with the news he was relaying. Certainly, we can quibble over the scale of Moran’s implication, but there seems little doubt that his words were explanatory in nature.

And, unless such explanations are followed by immediate condemnation — which Moran’s were not — that’s a pretty massive problem, isn’t it? Elsewhere yesterday, an NBC reporter named Benjamin Ryan tweeted that “NBC has ID’d the Nashville school shooter as [], 28, who identifies as transgender and had no previous criminal record. Nashville is home to the Daily Wire, a hub of anti-trans activity by @MattWalshBlog, @BenShapiro and @MichaelJKnowles.”

Okay. Therefore what? Therefore Walsh, Shapiro, and Knowles are ultimately responsible? Therefore the shooter should have targeted those people instead? Therefore what? I’d like to know.

I cannot help but notice that the press has found a clever way of having it both ways in situations such as these. If, rather than six Christians being murdered by a transgender activist, a Christian activist had murdered six transgender people, both Moran and Ryan would have said . . . well, they’d have said exactly the same thing, wouldn’t they? Whatever happens, the blame runs only in one direction. “Someone did something horrible — oh, and while you’re here, have you heard about the right-wing speech or legislation that we’d like you to think explains it?”

Had they wished to, both Moran and Ryan could have mentioned all manner of equally irrelevant information — including, just off the top of my head, that March 31st of this year has been marked out as “Trans Day of Vengeance.” Had they wished to, they could have noted that there are a whole host of influential groups in this country that spend their days happily convincing trans people that opposition to irreversible surgery for minors is akin to “genocide.” Had they wished to, they could have pointed out that the victims were all Christians. But they didn’t. Not, of course, because they agree with me in thinking that blaming broader groups for the actions of evil individuals is lazy and illiberal, but because it would simply never occur to them that the causation in which they believe might work the other way around. If a person progressives like is attacked, then that must be the result of conservatives speaking or voting or living as they see fit. And if a person progressives like is an attacker, then that must be the fault of the result of conservatives speaking or voting or living as they see fit. Whatever happens, the same people get blamed. It’s revolting.