Conservatives can't handle Roof's racism

Having failed to come up with any other explanation for Dylann Roof's assault, they still failed to address his expressed motives:

HuffPost BlackVoices ‏@blackvoices
Fox News twists itself in knots to find an explanation other than racism for the #CharlestonShooting http://huff.to/1H24kHk

Wall Street Journal: Please ignore the Confederate flag on the South Carolina capitol — institutionalized racism “no longer exists” in the South

Dylann Roof murdered nine black people not because of racism, but some "problem that defies explanation"

Why Conservatives Still Won't Admit That Charleston Was A Racist Crime

The GOP’s staggering Charleston cowardice: Why are so many Republicans so scared of admitting the truth?

When it comes to the Republican Party, terrorism in South Carolina will never, ever be described as such

Short answer: Because many of their followers share Roof's views.

‘I know where he got his news': Bill Maher links Charleston terrorist to right-wing media

By Arturo GarciaLewis again tried to argue for religion as a motivation for Roof, only to be cut off by Maher and Reid.

“If you look even at the three flags that this young man adhered to, the Confederate flag emblem on his car, the Rhodesian flag and the South African flag from Apartheid[-era] South Africa, all three of those purported to be Christian governments,” Reid said. “The white Christian government in South Africa, which ruled over the majority-black population; in Rhodesia, the violent white government that ruled over that population considered themselves quite Christian. [Roof] could’ve been completely embraced in what those governments stood for.”The proof is in

As if we didn't have enough evidence of Roof's beliefs, someone found this:

Dylann Roof Photos and a Manifesto Are Posted on Website

Conservatives immediately announced they're still not sure why Roof acted. "It's senseless, unthinkable, and unfathomable," they said in unison, reading from their white supremacist talking points.

Here's a great summary of conservative confusion and cowardice:

Fox News Goes to Insane Lengths to Underplay Gun Violence

For years, Fox News and conservatives have routinely tried to underplay gun violence and even horrific bouts of mass murders.

By Eric BoehlertLike frantic shoppers running down a last-minute list, Fox News talkers last week desperately tried to cobble together an inventory of reasons why racist gunman Dylann Roof may not have been primarily motivated by racism.

As the conservative media anxiously and collectively searched for political cover, Fox News hosts and guests offered up an array of illogical explanations: Maybe the Charleston, S.C. church killing was an attack on Christians. Maybe it was an attack on South Carolina. Maybe political correctness was to blame. Or "diversity." Maybe pastors should be armed. (In any case, Fox Newsers agreed, President Obama was being very, very "divisive" regarding the matter.)

On and on, the alternative explanations were offered up in the face of overwhelming evidence that Roof allegedly had set out to kill as many black people as possible because he wanted to start a "race war." Period. And the way Roof allegedly chose to do that was to open fire, and then reload, in the basement of the historic Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, killing the pastor and eight parishioners.

Like so many Americans, Fox News has been reeling in the wake of the massacre, except reeling in a different way. While Americans recoiled from the raw hate behind the gun rampage, Fox News wrestled with bouts of pathological denial.

Indeed, for Fox News and much of the conservative media, the horrific killings in South Carolina represented a political challenge because the act of mass murder revolved around two topics Fox News has long insisted don't really afflict America, or don't require pressing action: Racism and gun violence. That denial has made it nearly impossible for Fox to address the shooting in any coherent way.For more on the subject, see Were Charleston Shootings "Unfathomable"? and Initial Reactions to Charleston Shootings.