Tea Party Bloggers, the Boston Bombing, and the Cult of Perpetual Victimhood

It's a shocking and terrible crime. A blast that was almost certainly terrorism (run of the mill mass murder can't be ruled out yet) rocked the finish line at the Boston Marathon, followed quickly by another. The brutal carnage has resulted in the death of three, with the real possibility of that number rising still -- many of the injuries were horrific.

The smoke had barely cleared before the speculation began -- and with it, the idiocy. Reports were confused, unclear, sometimes contradictory. But one group of Americans felt they had a firm grasp one the true story in Boston. And that story was that they -- the rightwing, Tea Party, wingnut bloggers -- were the real victims in the day's tragedy.

Leading the charge was the blog "Fire Andrea Mitchell," claiming that CNN's Wolf Blitzer had blamed the Tea Party for the bombing. The right went insane on Twitter, which is where the right goes to go insane these days, and the story spread like widlfire. "CNN's Wolf Blitzer just speculated if anti-tax groups were behind the bombing WITH ZERO EVIDENCE," one tweeted -- which turned out to be a massively hypocritical statement.

Blitzer's supposed "blaming" of the Tea Party right consisted of one sentence, "It is a state holiday in Massachusetts today called Patriots' Day and, uh, who knows if that had anything at all to do with these explosions." The only way you to take that as an attack on the right is if you wanted so badly to wear the mantle of victimhood that you'd twist anything anyone said in order to take offense. If you were so self-absorbed as to be able to do that, then the victims weren't those people bleeding on the streets of Boston, the real victims were the wingnut bloggers and their audience.

Meanwhile, gun nut and professional conspiracy theorist Alex Jones decided the story "stinks to high heaven" and he thought it was a "false flag." Later on his radio show, he claimed that this was all connected somehow to the massive drop in gold prices the same day. Of course, none of that makes any sense at all, but that's never stopped Jones before. The one consistent, underlying theory rattling around in Jones' head was familiar, though: the "false flag operation" was carried out by the government to create an excuse to crack down on the Tea Party.

This particular brand of idiocy found it's way into a press conference held by Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick, where a "reporter" for Jones' Infowars website asked the governor about a "false flag staged attack." Patrick gave him all the attention he deserved, immediately blowing him off.

When the bombs went off in Boston, the right immediately politicized the event and made themselves the real victims in this tragedy. But that's what they always do. If you've ever had the misfortune to visit Michelle Malkin's site, the lasting impression you take away is one of unending whininess. The right is in perpetual search of some reason to play the victim. When they find it, they go all echo chamber, announcing their victimhood to the world in the most strident tones possible.

And the strangest part about it is that nobody cares. Their little daily freakouts accomplish nothing, they change the political landscape in no way. There's a desperate pointlessness to it all, reinforced by the fact that on your average day, no one else is paying any attention to it. They're locked in perpetual outrage -- mostly over things they've taken completely out of context and proportion. That is, when the source of the outrage isn't just some BS of their own invention.

Yesterday was really no different from any other daily in Wingnutistan. Every day is Victim Day and everything -- every goddam thing that happens to anyone, anywhere -- is all about them. Because they're the most important people in the entire world.

And if you don't recognize that, they'll whine endlessly until you do.

-Wisco

[photo by jaredeberhardt]