I have been watching and reading, as I am sure you have, a great deal of the coverage and discussion about the mass murder at VaTech. Other than the quick politicization of the affair, as I wrote about in a previous blog, I have been struck by the quickness of the blame game that is being played here. It started almost as quickly as the politicization did, and it is no less unseemly in my eyes.

First, there were the cries of  "Where were the police?", and "Why didn't they lock down the campus?", followed quickly by calls for the resignation of the campus police Chief W.R. Flinchum and University President Charles Steger. While I understand that this is an upsetting incident, to say the least, I am left feeling a bit outraged by all this outrage at these two men.

Chief Flinchum did the best he could do under the circumstances, in my opinion. He had to deal with a double murder in a dorm that seemed like a domestic violence situation, and he followed the best lead he had; believing that the killer was the boyfriend of the victim, the police left campus to get him. Their lead was wrong, but that is the way that things sometims go in a police investigation. Going after the person he thought was the killer does not, in my opinon, make Chief Flinchum the bad guy in this scenario...and it did not allow the later events to take place.

And how does a police force lock down a 2600 acre campus? It's not exactly like locking down the local high school that may have 3-4 buildings on it; this is 2600 acres we're talking about here! And think of this, if the campus had been locked down, the killer would have probably simply killed the people he was confined with. This man was on a mission to kill, and a lock down was not going to deter him from completing his mission.

As for the President, what good does it do to force him out? I'm pretty sure that he did not have in his day-planner "Allow student massacre" circled for the day! In our rush to blame someone else for the actions of one deranged individual, we are willing to sacrifice a man that has done, by most accounts, a fine job of running that university.

Then came the hand wringing over the fact that Cho Seung-Hui had written some disturbing plays and poems, and that some felt he was dangerous. At these revelations, the mob began to howl that he should have been institutionalized or at the very least kicked out of school. Populist-in-Chief Bill O'Reilly said on his show that Seung-Hui should have been expelled from the university for allegedly stalking a female student and for his disturbing writings; he later amended that to a suspension, but you get the drift. It was all about the university being held responsible for the actions of this one man, not the man himself.

But someone please tell me this, what grounds would he school have expelled him on? The fact that he was an alleged stalker? Or that he was feared by some classmates, even though he had not even made any threats towards them? Or because he wrote some plays that disturbed his professors? If writing disturbing stuff is grounds for institutionalization then we had better go get the people who wrote the SAW movies, and Stephen King too. The SAW movies were definitely disturbing, and Mr. King has written some things that kept me awake at night! But this is so strange to me, especially coming from conservatives, because we are usually the first to complain when some lib gets the vapors because something disturbs him. Remember how we mocked Tom Daschle for always being disturbed, but now that this happens the teacher being disturbed should be grounds for committment to a mental institution?

Now there is the uproar about ABC news airing Seun-Hui's "Manifesto" and video footage. "Why, ABC should be ashamed of itself for airing that footage! It is disrespectful and hurtful to the families to show this, and may inspire copycats!", splutters the right. But, even though you may find it distasteful, it is news. And even if you fnd them distasteful, ABC is still a news organization...and they had an obligation to show that footage. You are free to watch or not watch, that is your choice; but as a news organization ABC News was duty bound to air that tape. Besides which, after all of the whining we have done about the refusal of the news media to air the images of 9/11, doesn't it seem a bit hypocritical of us to now catch the vapors over this, and claim that it is too traumatic to air? Isn't that the exact argument that the left uses to protest the airing of the 9/11 footage? See the hypocrisy there, folks? I do.

Also, there is the talk about what the students should have done during the shooting. Some are acting as though it was the responsibility or duty of the students to run towards the gunfire in order to stop the carnage. But you know what, all of those people saying that would have probably done exactly what those scared kids did on that campus: Get the hell away ASAP! They wouldn't have gone running towards the gunfire, just like I wouldn't have. Heck, the only people I know who run towards gunfire are cops and soldiers...and they have the means to fight back! What good would it have done for a group of unarmed studentsto go rushing into a free fire zone, trying to be heroes? They may have gotten him eventually, but I can just about guran-damn-tee you that there would have been more than 33 victims if they had tried that, and we would be seeing even more families in mourning today. So all the armchair heroes, who get to talk about what should have been done from the safety of their homes should just stick the proverbial sock in it. The next time you are in a situation where you're unarmed and someone starts firing on people, you can tell me all about how you rushed the gunman...if you survive the encounter.

But the thing that bothers me most is how, in laying blame all around, the one person that is to blame is almost overlooked. We are so busy blaming Chief Flinchum and his campus police force, President Steger for a slow response, the other students for not rushing towards gunfire, and ABC News for airing a newsworthy video that we are forgetting one person: Cho Seung-Hui.

It was Cho Seung-Hui who murdered two people in a dormitory, it was Cho Seung-Hui who purchased those guns...legally...for the purpose of committing these murders, and it was Cho Seung-Hui who committed the largest mass murder in American history. Not those scared students, not Chief Flinchum, not President Steger, not ABC News....CHO SEUNG-HUI!!!!!

And the sooner we stop playing blame games, and start looking at the real culprit, the better off we will all be.