Right-wing media outlets promote mobs on children

This story has shades of the SCHIP controversy of 2007, in which right-wing commentators like Michelle Malkin participated in harassment of a family that praised SCHIP.

Respected writer Eric Boehlert reports that right-wing media outlets are now unleashing violent mobs on private citizens - including children. The major culprits in this crusade are Fox News and convicted tax cheat Sun Myung Moon's Washington Times.

Recently, some nobody at the Washington Times urged readers to dig up personal information about participants in a National Endowment for the Arts initiative. At first glance, it smacked of a witch hunt, but the effort was actually even more sinister than it first appeared.

All evidence suggests it was an effort to personally harass these targets - and their children. The Washington Times is read primarily by right-wing cultists - the same people who claim Obama was born in Kenya and who harassed the SCHIP family. (In its home market, circulation numbers for the Times trail the Washington Post badly.) In this effort, the Times was trying to appeal to reactionary weirdoes who don't have the decency to leave children alone.

People call me crazy because I was expelled from a Catholic high school - but I'm not one of the ones going around claiming the President was born in Kenya and that climate change is a hoax. Psychological instability and right-wing media hype make a dangerous combination.

(Source: http://mediamatters.org/columns/200909290001)