You have to hand it to our old friends at Westboro for never missing an opportunity to put their demented religion on display:
Members of the Westboro Baptist Church appear to be on their way to protest a prayer vigil for victims of the Aurora massacre, according to tweets from members posted by Examiner.com.
Using the hashtag #ThankGodForTheShooter, Examiner.com reports members tweeted out their plans to "super picket" the candle lit prayer service, saying "God is at work in Colorado."
Such nutjobs create conflicting emotions in many journalists. They do what they do very publicly, so it's hard not to report on them, but it's galling to give them the publicity they crave. Speaking of which:
Obama and White House press secretary Jay Carney both made assurances that they would not use Holmes’s name to avoid drawing more attention to the shooter, the brother of aspiring sports reporter Jessica Ghawi said on Twitter. Carney confirmed that he’d agreed not to use the shooter’s name.
I think that's the right decision. I almost wish we could write newspaper stories just calling him the Auroa shooter and not naming him.
And here's Victor Davis Hanson:
I wish to know nothing about him other than the information necessary to try, convict, and punish him—and any data that might provide some sort of deterrence in preventing another such rampage.
[. . .]
I don’t care a whit whether the Aurora killer was a loner. I don’t care if he was unhappy or if he was on medication.
