Imagine that Floyd Corkins, the man who walked into the offices of the pro-life, pro-traditional marriage Family Research Council and shot a guard, had walked instead into, say, an abortion clinic. Imagine further that he'd been a member of a pro-life group, or the NRA, or the Tea Party, or a fan of conservative talk radio, or just a Republican. What do you suppose the media reaction to this near-tragedy would be?
But Corkins, as it happens, is none of those things, nor did he attack an abortion clinic. He himself is a volunteer for a gay and lesbian community center, and he entered the offices of a conservative group which opposes both gay marriage and abortion with the intent, apparently, of doing harm because of the stance the FRC takes on these issues.
Consequently, the media has been relatively mute. Mr. Corkins doesn't fit their template of the angry, white (he's African-American), right-winger. So there are no Google searches to ascertain the extent of his left-wing associations, there are no accusations that the inflammatory rhetoric of left-wing talk radio or tv inspired his act, no national introspection to biopsy the cancer that festers in our collective soul that periodically erupts in malignancies like Mr. Corkins.
To the extent that Mr. Corkins is political he seems to be liberal and thus his deed is not nearly as newsworthy as it would've been had he been conservative.
