Such is the current MSM climate that The Politico can report uncritically this shameless spinning of the Giffords shooting:

One veteran Democratic operative, who blames overheated rhetoric for the shooting, said President Barack Obama should carefully but forcefully do what his predecessor did.

”They need to deftly pin this on the tea partiers,” said the Democrat. ”Just like the Clinton White House deftly pinned the Oklahoma City bombing on the militia and anti-government people.”

In fact, of course, there was no connection whatever between the Oklahoma City bombing and the militia movement. This "veteran Democrat" is tacitly acknowledging that evidence is not needed for this type of smear.

Right now, the first smear target, incredibly, appears to be our friends at American Renaissance

An internal Department of Homeland Security memo obtained by Fox News suggests that alleged gunman Jared Loughner — accused of killing six people, shooting Arizona Democratic Rep. Gabrielle Giffords and wounding 12 others — may have ties to the American Renaissance group, though it's unclear if he was directly affiliated with the publication or group.

Arizona Suspected Gunman Had 'Troubled Past,' But Mostly Flew Under Radar, by Jana Winter, Foxnews.com January 9, 2011.

Fox does quote AR editor Jared Taylor ably defending himself against DHS's ridiculous charges:

But Taylor, a 1973 graduate in philosophy from Yale University, told Fox News on Sunday that he had never heard of Loughner until Saturday and has checked the group's records going back 20 years and has not found any subscriptions for Loughner to American Renaissance publications.

He added he also has no indication that Loughner ever attended any events hosted by the group, which have been held on the East Coast where the organization is based.

Taylor also denied reference to the group as being "anti-ZOG."

"That is complete nonsense," he said. "I have absolutely no idea what DHS is talking about. We have never used the term 'ZOG.' We have never thought in those terms. If this is the level of research we are getting from DHS, then Heaven help us," he said.

Jared Taylor tells me that he's called DHS and has been told to call back Monday. Apparently we have no homeland security over the weekend. Maybe that's just as well.

Look to see if any MSM reports finally get around to mentioning that American Renaissance was not able to hold its conference last year because of left-wing threats, which not one MSM outlet reported at the time.

After a 2009 case of Immigrant Mass Murder Syndrome, I wrote:

If the killer in the Binghamton immigration center massacre had been a white American, I have no doubt that much of the VDARE.COM Editorial Collective would be in police custody right now.

But of course the killer was an immigrant, so the killings went straight down the MSM memory hole.

Looks like we're about to test my proposition now.