On Saturday, Peter Holley of The Washington Post published an article effectively blaming a pro-Trump radio station for inspiring James Hodgkinson to attempt a massacre of Congressional Republicans in Alexandria, Virginia. Targeting conservative radio host Bob Romanik, who runs a show on KQQZ 1190 AM in Belleville, Illinois, Holley insinuated that it was inflammatory pro-Trump rhetoric, not Hodgkinson's anti-Trump derangement, that caused the unapologetic Bernie Sanders supporter to short-circuit. Here is how Holley began the article:

It’s not yet 11 a.m., and Bob Romanik, sitting behind the microphone at his radio station in a rundown strip mall in the middle of America, already has said the “n-word” out loud — and on air — at least a dozen times. Romanik is a surly 68-year-old former East St. Louis street cop. He hates Black Lives Matter and talks proudly about his Caucasian heritage to anyone who will listen. And do they listen. His controversy-courting radio program — he’s the self-styled “Grim Reaper of Radio” on KQQZ 1190 AM — reaches across this region, in and around Belleville, Ill. The suburban community about 20 miles east of St. Louis drew attention in recent weeks because it was the hometown of James T. Hodgkinson, the out-of-work politically frustrated home inspector who up and left, drove a van to the Washington area, and then shot four people at a congressional baseball practice in Alexandria.

Holley continued to discuss how Romanik's commentary had caught the attention of disgruntled Democrats. He said that Romanik used the n-word on a handful occasions and quoted several individuals who described him as a bigot. While Holley quoted members of a Seventh-Day Adventist church who believed it was unfair to link Romanik's words with Hodgkinson's actions, Holley continued to push the radio show host's controversial image and rhetoric without contemplating the possibility that the left-wing terrorist was responsible for his own actions.

This is not the first time that a mainstream media source like The Washington Post has flirted with the idea that those on the Right were responsible for violent actions by deranged individuals. Sarah Palin is currently suing The New York Times for defaming her as the inspiration for Jared Lee Loughner's attempted assassination of then-Democratic Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords. Instead of addressing Hodgkinson's actual political beliefs and attributing his attempted massacre to them, the mainstream media seems more interested in pointing fingers at others to keep a conversation aflame about left-wing violence.

In the words of The Daily Wire's Andrew Klavan, that would constitute fake news.

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