For those of you that don't know there is a shitstorm raging in the rightwing nutosphere around one of own. At about midday on Thursday BoyBlue wrote a diary entitled "My CongressWOMAN voted against Nancy Pelosi! And is now DEAD to me!" When the news of yesterday's tragedy broke BoyBlue was of course shocked and dismayed. In another (arguably) rash decision BoyBlue deleted the diary in question. In retrospect it may have been more prudent to edit the diary title and add a paragraph expressing his current feelings. Alas, hindsight is 20/20 and the deed is done.
UPDATE: Please go Tip and Rec BoyBlue's Apology, but at the same time tip & rec this one... This one has a chance of making a dent in the google search of BoyBlue's original diary title.
The ensuing feeding frenzy by the right wing nutosphere was picked up and further distorted by none other than the New York Times which was addressed in byteb'sreclisted diary last night.
I've seen a few comments mentioning that Kos and MB have addressed this issue in passing, but I see a need to confront this head on. This isn't about false equivalency. It matters not one whit whether yesterday's shooter was a teabagger or a DFH in the context of this diary. By that I mean THIS ONE... The one you're reading right now. This is about damage control. A man's life and the dKos community is being dragged through the mud. I for one am not going to sit on my hands and let it happen. Hiding comments and deleting diaries is just going to exacerbate the problem.
I see nothing to run away from here. Granted, it's a facepalm of titanic proportions, but we can't make it go away. We need to accept it, own it, analyze it, understand it and most of all ADDRESS IT... out in the open... transparently... candidly.
We also need to spread out into the blogosphere and confront this meme head on. This diary will start doing that as soon as I publish it. It will immediately make the top of this list. (EDIT: Apparently I was wrong... I've never asked before but PLEASE REC THIS! I'm going to need some traffic in order to get a place among the trash that's out there.)
BoyBlue is a sensitive, emotional, and rash individual with history of suicidal thoughts. He is in no way connected with the events that occurred yesterday or the perpetrator. We as a community need to let the world know that. We need to rally around him before he becomes another victim of this tragedy.
Note: I have deliberately left out the names of the victims, the location of the tragedy, and the name of the suspect. I see no reason to tie this to that any further than has already been done elsewhere.