Typical right-winger blog analysis:
The brutal murder of a family of Coptic Christians in Jersey City, New Jersey may have been carried out by Muslim fanatics in retaliation for the expression of "anti-Muslim" views on the internet….
As we’ve said many times before, these fanatics cannot be reasoned with or deterred. They can only be hunted down and killed, and the more of them that are killed in countries other than this one (Iraq, for example), the better.
—"Hindrocket" on January 16, 2005, at Power Line (Time magazine’s Blog of the Year)
Fact:
Robbery, not religion, was the motive behind the savage slaying of a family of four in January, prosecutors said Friday.
Two paroled drug dealers who were deeply in debt were charged with four counts of murder and held on $10 million bail in the Jan. 11 killing of the Armanious family, Coptic Christians from Egypt who emigrated to the United States in 1997….
"I’d like to make one thing perfectly clear: The motive for these murders was robbery. This was a crime based on greed, the desperate need of money," Hudson County Prosecutor Edward DeFazio said.
Edward McDonald, 25, who rented a second-floor apartment above the Armanious family, and an acquaintance, Hamilton Sanchez, 30, pleaded not guilty….
(Hat tip: No More Mr. Nice Blog)
So, apparently, no Muslim involvement at all. But that didn’t stop the wingnuts from spreading the idea that Muslims are killing Christians in America. And Powerline wasn’t the only one — there was Michelle Malkin (who posted a multi-part series entitled "HATE CRIME IN JERSEY CITY HEIGHTS"), Adam Yoshida (or a reasonable facsimile thereof), Charles Bird, Junkyardblog, Silent Running, and more fringily (and scarily), American Jihad.
So quick to spread fear. So slow to apologize and retract . . . if they ever do. Ladies and gents, the right-wing blogosphere.