At first the question was whether he was a lone wolf or a Tea Party operative, or at least influenced by the Tea Party, or perhaps just by our culture of hate, the vitriolic rhetoric of our culture of hate, for which either the former vice presidential candidate-turned-reality-television-star or people on “both sides” are to blame. It mattered what we called him because the shooting was rapidly becoming “a tale of two moralities,” or even “a tale of two Americas,” in which the shooting’s heroes and victims were our “best,” and the killer was supposed to be our “worst.” So what was our “worst,” exactly? Like everyone, I went to the internet to find out.

from “Notes on a News Cycle” by Kristin Dombek