They may night out and out call him a tool, but it's there, right between the lines.

In a surprising bit of mainstream journalism, Winda Benedetti wrote a piece for MSNBC titled "Were video games to blame for massacre?" in which she essentially chides the media for being so willing to jump to conclusions and for so willingly listening to Jack Thompson.

The shooting on the Virginia Tech campus was only hours old, police hadn't even identified the gunman, and yet already the perpetrator had been fingered and was in the midst of being skewered in the media.

Video games. They were to blame for the dozens dead and wounded. They were behind the bloodiest massacre in U.S. history.

Or so Jack Thompson told Fox News and, in the days that followed, would continue to tell anyone who'd listen.

This excellent lede was followed up with two pages that spells out a point Heather Chaplin made on our site earlier today: Video games are this generation's boogie man.

It also seems to faintly echo our own analysis of Thompson's bold-faced malarkey.

But on with the grade-A Thompson bashing.

When Jack Thompson gets worked up, he refers to gamers as "knuckleheads." He calls video games "mental masturbation."

When he's talking about himself and his crusade against violent games, he calls himself an "educator." He likes to use the word "pioneer."

Certainly Thompson has made a name for himself. After all, he knows a thing or two about publicity. He's spent no small bit of time in front of a camera.

On those rare occasions when a student opens fire on a school campus, Thompson is frequently the first and the loudest to declare games responsible. In recent years he's blamed games such as "Counter-Strike," "Doom" and "Grand Theft Auto III" for school shootings in Littleton, Colo., Red Lake, Minn. and Paducah, Ky.

He's blamed them for shootings beyond school grounds as well. In an attempt to hold game developers and publishers responsible for these spasms of violence, Thompson has launched several unsuccessful lawsuits.

The story is a must read, something you should print out and enjoy over a beer while sitting in your favorite chair as you unwind for the day.

While I appreciate MSNBC finally seeing the light, it would have been nice if they had realized their mistake prior to putting Thompson in front of a live national audience in a time of fear and sadness to regurgitate his FUD.

Lets hope they and those like them have learned their lessons. Brian Crecente

Were video games to blame for massacre? [MSNBC]

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