I am sorry.  When I heard that a moderate Democratic member of Congress had been shot by a white male, I had all kinds of suspicions.  It is not clear to me, even now, to what extent those suspicions were reasonable and to what extent they were fueled by a set of personally-held cultural bigotries that I am only now beginning to recognize.  In any case, I should have kept those suspicions to myself until facts came out substantiating any link (whether personal or ideological) between the shooter and yourself and a broad movement of citizen activists.  I am embarrassed at my confidence at the "odds" that the shooting was "political."  By "political" I meant that the shooter was directly inspired by your rhetoric and ideology rather than the shooter having a combination of personal and political (though deranged) motives that I could not have guessed at given my perfect ignorance of his personal situation.  I now recognize that my confidence was really a manifestation of my desire to wound my enemies at every opportunity.

I am especially sorry that, as the facts came out, I did not admit that I had been wrong in my assumptions and that I instead retreated into a politicized pseudo-meteorology about the "national climate" in order to continue my campaign of linking you and other organizations and people I disagree with to the Arizona attack.  I still don't know to what degree I was motivated by pride, hatefulness, a desire to see my policy preferences prevail or some combination of the above. 

There has been much talk of a need to increase the amount of civility in public discourse.  I have come to agree with that sentiment.  I will start with myself.

My apologies.

Sincerely,

Paul Krugman