Media watch: ‘Malicious’ Portrait of Shooter

Media accusations that “Buffalo barbarian” Payton Gendron, who shot 13 people Saturday, is “some sort of Tucker Carlson acolyte would be baffling” if not so “transparently malicious,” fumes the Washington Examiner’s Tiana Lowe. His 180-page manifesto doesn’t “mention Carlson once”; instead, he denounces Fox hosts as Jewish, Rupert Murdoch (who owns Post parent company News Corp) as a “Christian Zionist” and conservative Ben Shapiro as the “rat” phenotype of Jewish people. He declares himself an “ethno-nationalist eco-fascist national socialist” who loathes conservatism. “The shooter wasn’t radicalized” by Fox or Shapiro; he was “enraptured” by the “dregs of the internet” during the COVID lockdown, a “poison” that proved “as addictive as any opioid” — and for the victims, “far more dangerous.”

Libertarian: Republicans’ School-Choice Chance

“It’s telling that school choice has risen to the very top of the GOP agenda,” notes Robby Soave at Reason: “The public education system’s pandemic-era failures drove many . . . into the arms of the GOP in 2021.” “The right policy approach is well known:” allow “charter schools to grow and experiment” and let “students claim the public funds invested into the system in their name.” But Republicans may lose “clarity of purpose,” since “curriculum controversies” can “draw Republican attention away from school choice” toward “micromanag[ing] what gets taught.” Yet “independents and moderate Democrats would reward” any politico “for making school choice a top priority,” as “a majority of Democratic voters support school choice.”

Russia beat: Don’t Get Wobbly on Putin

Some Western leaders still don’t admit “that isolating Mr. Putin and responding to him with strength is the only way to make lasting progress,” thunders Garry Kasparov at The Wall Street Journal. While “Putin’s war on Ukraine has again been scaled back amid courageous Ukrainian resistance and international support,” the “West needs to stop helping him. Every phone call that legitimizes his authority, every cubic meter of gas and every barrel of oil imported from Russia is a lifeline to a dictatorship that is shaking for the first time.” “If the goal is to save Ukrainian lives, as Western leaders say, then the only way to do it is to arm Ukraine with every weapon President Volodymyr Zelensky wants as quickly as possible.”

Liberal: My Late Friend From Across the Aisle

At The Hill, former Rep. Steve Israel (D-L.I.) recalls his friend ex-Sen. Tim Johnson (R-SD), who died last week, as “an unheralded hero to anyone who believes that Republicans and Democrats should attempt compromise when possible.” After striking up an unlikely friendship, Johnson and Israel formed the Center Aisle Caucus, a bipartisan group that met weekly over dinner to pick “a politically contentious issue” and focus “on areas of consensus.” In the Obama era, the caucus was attacked by the far right and the far left, with GOP members “portrayed as RINOs” and “traitors” rather than “combatants.” Johnson “was a proud conservative whose heresy was believing that he could fight for his values while respecting” the views of Democrats.

Education desk: COVID’s Villains

Pandemic school closures “were arguably the most significant episode of government-sponsored child abuse in American history,” charges Stephen Moore at Creators. But politicians aren’t the only ones responsible. “The teachers unions were probably the most shameful player, the worm in the education apple. Even after months of evidence that in-class instruction posed virtually no danger to children or teachers, they wouldn’t teach.” And: “Let’s not forget about the inexcusable role of the American Academy of Pediatrics. This group of children’s doctors originally called for entire school openings for the 2020-21 school year. That was based on science.” But “politics intervened. Two weeks later,” the group reversed itself “and joined in solidarity with the teachers unions.” It’s “chilling and unforgivable” that teachers and pediatricians “selfishly put politics and paychecks ahead of child welfare.”

— Compiled by The Post Editorial Board