Above, a clip from the always-dependable Faux News. One of their dimmer bulbs is asking a shaken survivor of the attack whether there have been “anti-Semetic [sic] acts” against the Sikh temple before.

But along comes CNN to clarify matters: “Sikh people are not Muslim, but Hindu. They can be easily mistaken for Muslim or Taliban.”

CNN finally got up to speed, sort of. Here, a journo tells us the Sikhs have been “unfairly targeted” because they are often mistaken for Muslims:



Presumably Muslims may be fairly targeted.

Most commentators have figured out by now that Sikhs are not Muslim, Hindu or Jewish. But the clangers continue.

The corporate media are indeed having a hard time with them Sikhs, but they aren’t the only ones. Those interested in discourse should pay close attention to the goldmine of text that the latest American mass murder has generated.

Here’s Republican presidential hopeful Mitt Romney:

Presumptive Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney called the slayings “a senseless act of violence and a tragedy that should never befall any house of worship.”

Why is this a “senseless” act of violence? Did the murderer spontaneously erupt, or could it be that his act was coldly and rationally planned? If his attack was truly senseless, we could not, by definition, understand anything about it. Yet this tiresome cliche is almost inevitably uttered when these periodic outbreaks occur. (What would a “sensible” act of violence be, incidentally, other than of the defensive kind? Violence sanctioned by the state?)

Then, the President himself:

And from the White House, President Barack Obama said the United States had been “enriched” by Sikhs, “who are a part of our broader American family.”

“Broader” American family? What would a narrower American family look like? Would it include the President? Some would say not.

Currently, some commentators are calling the assault on the temple an act of “domestic terrorism.” But the killer turns out to be white, and a neo-Nazi. Watch the media soon drop the “terrorist” label, and move smoothly to a narrative of the “crazed lone gunman” genre. We wouldn’t, after all, want the “white community” to be unfairly targeted.