Ann Althouse wishes to emphasize that, while Glenn Reynolds based his assumption that Amy Bishop is a left-wing radical on a single RateMyProfessor comment, her own evidence is absolutely airtight:
LGM expends much effort trying to make it look as though the only source for Bishop's politics was some student review on RateMyProfessors. But — I've already linked to this — here's the Boston Herald:
A family source said Bishop... was a far-left political extremist who was “obsessed” with President Obama to the point of being off-putting
Well, I can understand why Althouse is proud of citing two whole pieces of what can charitably be called "evidence." After all, she once wrote an op-ed asserting that Sam Alito was a moderate who deserved liberal support that had
no evidence at all. But it should be obvious that this anonymous quote is scarcely better evidence of Bishop's politics than
isolated RateMyProfesors comments. I know "family sources" who consider my partner a radical leftist because she eats vegetables other than iceberg lettuce and drives a Subaru; without knowing who the family source is or how well he/she knows Bishop the quote isn't reliable evidence of anything. Moreover, the quote is self-refuting -- a radical leftist obsessed with Barack Obama? It's better evidence that the "family source" considers anybody to the left of Jim DeMint a "far-left political extremist" than that Bishop had radical politics.
Of course, even if this highly unconvincing "evidence" was accurate, it doesn't really matter, as Althouse leaves the other Scott's central point untouched. Scott Roeder's murder was
explicitly and admittedly political in purpose, while Bishop's homicides seem to have resulted from an apolitical personal grievance. To argue that the MSM is biased because they're not treating these cases the same way is idiotic.
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