Liberal publications are blaming anti-jihadist websites for the massacre of at least 76 Norwegians, saying that they influenced the killer, Anders Behring Breivik. The New York Times ’s Scott Shane published a piece that said the murderer was “deeply influenced by a small group of American bloggers and writers who have warned for years about the threat from Islam, lacing his 1,500-page manifesto with quotations from them.” It named blogs Jihad Watch , Gates of Vienna and Atlas Shrugs among others. Jihad Watch ’s owner, Robert Spencer, wrote on his site that “the blame game” had begun, “as if killing a lot of children aids the defense against the global jihad and Islamic supremacism, or has anything remotely to do with anything we have ever advocated.” The NYT said that Breivik quoted Jihad Watch 64 times in his manifesto. As for Gates of Vienna – its operator, who uses the pseudonym “Baron Bodissey,” wrote on the site Sunday that “at no time has any part of the Counterjihad advocated violence.” Pamela Geller of Atlas Shrugs wrote on her blog Sunday that any attempt to blame her or other anti-jihad writers for Breivik’s actions was “ridiculous.” “If anyone incited him to violence, it was Islamic supremacists,” she wrote. An influential liberal blogger who was once one of the leading anti-jihad bloggers, Charles Johnson of LittleGreenFootballs , also blamed his anti-Islamist colleagues. “[T]he chain of responsibility in this case is much clearer than it was in the Gabrielle Giffords shooting,” he blogged. “There’s no doubt whatsoever that Anders Behring Breivik was seriously influenced by these people, and they know it. Their guilty consciences are showing.” "People like Fjordman [another blogger cited by Breivik -- Ed.] and Pamela Geller and the right wing blogosphere who spew apocalyptic rhetoric and refuse to denounce the extremists among them now have the very real blood of children on their hands," Johnson wrote. Johnson – who went from liberal to hawkish after 9/11 but left the anti-jihadist camp when he felt it became racist – was featured in an Arutz Sheva interview in 2004.
