What will Krugman say now?

Several years ago, Paul Krugman wrote an idiotic column published by the New York Times in which he blamed the shooting of Arizona Congresswoman Gabby Giffords not on the demented lunatic Jared Loughner, but on a "climate of hate" supposedly created by right-wing politicians:

When you heard the terrible news from Arizona, were you completely surprised? Or were you, at some level, expecting something like this atrocity to happen?

Put me in the latter category. I’ve had a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach ever since the final stages of the 2008 campaign. I remembered the upsurge in political hatred after Bill Clinton’s election in 1992 — an upsurge that culminated in the Oklahoma City bombing. And you could see, just by watching the crowds at McCain-Palin rallies, that it was ready to happen again. The Department of Homeland Security reached the same conclusion: in April 2009 an internal report warned that right-wing extremism was on the rise, with a growing potential for violence.

Conservatives denounced that report. But there has, in fact, been a rising tide of threats and vandalism aimed at elected officials, including both Judge John Roll, who was killed Saturday, and Representative Gabrielle Giffords. One of these days, someone was bound to take it to the next level. And now someone has.
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As Clarence Dupnik, the sheriff responsible for dealing with the Arizona shootings, put it, it’s “the vitriolic rhetoric that we hear day in and day out from people in the radio business and some people in the TV business.” The vast majority of those who listen to that toxic rhetoric stop short of actual violence, but some, inevitably, cross that line.
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Where’s that toxic rhetoric coming from? Let’s not make a false pretense of balance: it’s coming, overwhelmingly, from the right.

It turned out, of course, that there was absolutely no connection whatsoever between Mr Loughner and right-wing politicians, but Mr Krugman never retracted his vile, unfounded accusations.

It was laughable to assert that right-wing politicians had anything whatsoever to do with Jared Loughner's shooting of Congresswoman Giffords. Over the last several months, on the other hand, President Obama, Attorney General Holder, and New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio have actively encouraged blacks to believe that they are justly aggrieved at the supposedly unfair treatment they have received at the hands of supposedly racist police departments and grand juries across the nation. Obama and Holder have spoken of a breakdown in trust between the police and communities of color and implied that the frustration and disappointment that blacks feel at the behavior of the police and the grand juries in the Garner and Brown cases are understandable. Mayor de Blasio has spoken of his personal experience instructing his biracial son, Dante, to “take special care” during any police encounters, presumably, because racist police officers might gun him down.

But, if blacks were, in fact, justly aggrieved, then, it was reasonable to assume that eventually they would retaliate. Well, today, two New York City police officers were gunned down as they sat innocently in their squad car. The shooter was a black man, Ismaaiyl Brinsley, who, according to the New York Times, was motivated by anger at the refusal of grand juries to indict police officers in the Eric Garner and Michael Brown cases:

[Brinsley] had made statements on social media suggesting that he planned to kill police officers and was angered about the Eric Garner and Michael Brown cases.

In other words, unlike Sarah Palin, Obama, Holder, and de Blasio have indeed created a climate of hatred, namely, against police officers and, as Krugman wrote, "someone was bound to take it to the next level. And now someone has."

One wonders if Krugman will feel a need to exhibit a sense of "balance" and be man enough to condemn Obama, Holder, and de Blasio with the same visceral sneers with which he condemned Sarah Palin. Of course he won't.