It’s been decades since a single picture managed to leave a million media stories stillborn. Somewhere in the data archeology of the New York Times, the Washington Post and a thousand other papers are the first scribblings of stories and editorials connecting President Trump’s rhetoric about migration and the stabbings at Boise refugee housing.

It seemed promising initially.

The stabbing suspect was named Timmy Earl Kinner. That sounds like a Trump supporter. Doesn’t it?

Timmy Kinner was exactly what you expect, a drifter with a criminal record, taking revenge for being kicked out. There are the dreadlocks, the tattoos and everything else that killed all the Trump-bashing memes that the left had already begun deploying.

That doesn’t mean that they’ll completely stop. We’re talking about a media that recently tried to blame Sarah Palin, once again, for the Loughner shootings (yet gets outraged when it’s referred to as ‘fake news’). And even if they can’t make the MAGA Timmy thing they were planning work, they will still use this as an example of a culture of intolerance for refugees. Roll it in a month later with a dozen other incidents (none remotely as serious), real or fake, especially anything that can be called Islamophobic, connect them to Trump’s rhetoric and it’ll become part of the narrative.

If you think it can’t happen, when an illegal alien raped and killed a Muslim teenage girl, the media never stopped blaming Islamophobia. It’s still at it.

For now they’re playing it safe. An outpouring of general sympathy for refugees. Vaguely decrying hate. Fake news is hard to kill. Even with the truth.

Police: 9 REFUGEES stabbed in Idaho apartment attack

Suspect is a 30-year old man – Translation: He’s white.@CNN https://t.co/3k2Qg0gR8z

— CelesteHolmes~BelleCityLightBrigade (@Dallas4Bernie) July 1, 2018