You can make a convincing case (I think I'd disagree, but could be convinced) that the murder of a prominent doctor is indeed *more* newsworthy than the murder of a uniformed servicemember at a military installation (well, recruiting centers are probably leased, but you get the point), since nobody had ever heard of the soldier before. You could use the same argument, though, to say that since nobody had ever heard of Matthew Shepard prior to his murder, that also wasn't newsworthy. In any case, yes, murder of a well-known-ish doctor who is only 1 of 3 to perform an important and controversial medical procedure is a big news item, no doubt.

My complaint is that Tiller's murder is not *so much more* newsworthy that it should get overwhelming coverage in Salon--not only the act itself, but articles about what other people (Bill O'Reilly) has said in the past about the guy; reactions by various groups; reactions to the reactions, etc--while I still hav eseen literally *nothing* about the attack on the recruiting center. A terrorist attack on a military recruiting center in the US is a big news item, too.

And, yes, I would unhesitatingly describe George Tiller as the victim of Christian terrorrism in exactly the same sense that I would describe William Long as a victim of Islamic terorrism: both were slain by disturbed, extremist adherents of faiths shared by hundreds of millions of people. Neither murder, to the best of our knowledge at this point, was the result of planned action by formal organizations; yet both were fueled by extremist rhetoric and hateful speech. Tiller's murder was met with tepid, inadequate response by many Christian anti-abortion zealots; and, I suspect, Muslim denunciation of Bledsoe's actions have been somewhat tepid as well--since, just like many Christians, Muslims don't feel the need to apologize or explain away any action ever taken by their co-religionists. Of course, since media coverage of the recruiting center shooting has been so limited, I don't know either way.

Wow...so the murder of an American soldier by a Muslim extremist has still gotten 0 coverage, while this incident, WHICH DIDN'T EVEN RESULT IN ANY DEATHS, immediately becomes Salon's front-page banner headline?

I can understand why the Tiller murder got more coverage--as I said in one of the threads about that article, you can make the case that since Tiller was well-known beforehand, his murder was more newsworthy than that of the unknown PVT William Long (or the wounding of PVT Ezeagwula). However, the victims here are also "ordinary people," so that explanation doesn't hold water this time. Sadly, the explanation seems to be "Salon doesn't deem political violence in the US newsworthy unless it's perpetrated by right-wingers." (The effect of this can be seen in the letter-writer who commented that this was the second act of domestic terrorism in 10 days. Wrong: third.)

Can someone come up with a less savory explanation with equal or greater explanatory power?

One further point--I find it moderately unlikely, although not impossible, that the perpetrator of this most recent act of domestic terrorism was a registered Republican. Given the GOP's generally enthusiastic support for the Israeli state, anyone with this big a bee in his bonnet about Israel is unlikely to be a GOP fan. People like this are so far removed from the American mainstrem that the two major parties look more or less identical (i.e. Zionist tools blah blah),

The *dumbest* right-wing-talking point? Dumber than "Obama is a socialist!"? Or "Obama is the anti-christ," for crying out loud? And I'm not asking for identical column space, I just find it astonishing that Salon has done no reporting on the soldier-killing, at all. None. (Also, definitely not a right-winger, as I blame the policies of the preceding 8 years, and the ideology that birthed them, for the deaths of many of my friends, the degradation of my profession and country, and all manner of other failings)

NewFauve--yes, the relatively small amount of politically-motivated violence that has occurred in the US over the last 10 years (with one major exception in September 2001) has been carried out by right-wing extremists. That doesn't mean that non-right-wing violence should go entirely unreported or uncommented-upon, right?

Hm, excellent point. I definitely wouldn't say AQ and ilk are *left-wing* organizations...more that they exist pretty orthogonally to the political spectrum in the US/western world. I think you can make a real case that "right-wing," in the US, has specifically *Christian* theocratic implications.

In any case, that only makes Salon's editorial decision-making more puzzling. We have had 3 casualty-producing, politically (by broad definitions thereof)-motivated act of violence in the US in the last 10 days or so--and, one can (one just did) argue that all were perpetrated by right-wingers of various stripes. Salon spends volumes of ink on the one perperted by a right-wing Christian, and has immediately drawn focus to the latest atrocity. Yet nothing on the one perpetrated by a right-wing Muslim. Why?