I haven’t blogged about this morning’s awful shooting at a “Congress on Your Corner” event in Tucson, in which a gunman of unknown motive and mental state attacked American democracy, critically injured a congresswoman, killed a federal judge, and killed or injured various others. But I’ve been tweeting up a storm about it, as you can see over on the LRT Live page. And I suspect Becky and I may discuss it on our next podcast, which, hint hint, we’ll be starting up again very soon after a long hiatus.
Anyway, I just wanted to post a thread here so folks can comment on the tragedy if they wish. R.I.P. to the victims, prayers for them and their families, and God help us all.
Sarah Palin, Glen Beck, and the Tea Party to be blamed in 3, 2, 1,…
Too late, Cartman. It was off and running from the outset. I lost a little more faith in my country today.
What happened today was a tragedy. Although the congresswoman may survive, others were killed including a nine-year old girl. Out of respect for these losses I will refrain from posting political thoughts on it this weekend, I think we should all consider doing the same.
Just for the record..Kos had her targeted as well….in two ways (of course both have since been removed from his site):
1) First of all Kos himself put her name on a “bullseye list” in 2008
http://patterico.com/files/2011/01/Markos-2.jpg
2) Secondly, just a couple of days ago one of the diaries on Kos talked repeatedly about Giffords “being dead to me”. It will be interesting to see if we ever discover who boyblue is.
http://atlasshrugs2000.typepad.com/.a/6a00d8341c60bf53ef0148c76d84e5970c-pi
Gahrie, you are absolutely pathetic.
Kos should never have used crosshairs on political officers/candidates. Ever.
Joe, perhaps so, but I believe gahrie was responding to the Kossacks repeatedly asserting that Palin is to blame for putting Giffords in the crosshairs. This is probably a good example where both sides can take a step back and contemplate toning down the symbolism of their rhetoric and imagery.
AML, I was just mocking David in this thread by restating his tweet (substituting Kos for Palin).
I’m of course not stupid enough to believe that either Palin’s or the Demcratic Congressional Campaign Committee’s use of cross-hairs, bulls-eyes, etc. is/was actually meant to incite violence in any way, shape or form.
I was not attempting to blame Kos for the attack, merely pointing out his despicable hypocrisy in attempting to blame Palin and the Right.
So David..how do you feel about all your fellow Lefties who immediately tried to blame this on Palin and the Right?
Now was I. To be clear, I meant to include Kos in the list of people whose off-handed use of “militant” campaign terminology is in no way, shape or form responsible for such violent acts.
Everyone take a deep breath.
I don’t know why the shooter did what he did. Or even if he did what he did for any identifiable or understandable reason at all.
A number of people have been killed or seriously injured and may still die do to the shooting.
All the political back and forth seems to be looping around what it looks like the motivations might have been. Some of these observations have been perspicacious others petulant and some defying credulity.
We do seem to have a highly toxic political climate, it would be nice if the events of this weekend show us a reason to get past that toxicity, regardless of the killers actual motivation. But given the commentary, that seems naive.
Anyway, lets all try and take a deep breath, and try and take things down a notch.
Not really sure where I’m going with this, other than lets calm down, have some dip and try and keep things in perspective.
1) The shooter is mentally disturbed. Crazy needs no motivation.
2) The professional Left immediately seized on this crime to attack the Right. I challenge anyone to find anyone on the Right attempting to blame this on the Left, except in responding to those attacking the Right.
3) Sports and politics are rife with violent metaphors, and always have been. The term campaign itself has it origins in warfare.
I’m with you, dcl. (deep breath 🙂
And I agree with Andrew’s recommendation that “…both sides can take a step back and contemplate toning down the symbolism of their rhetoric and imagery.”
But as dcl indicates, this should be done — should long Since have been done — just on its own, Obvious, merits. In order to commence such downratcheting it ought NOT be necessary to presumptively attribute the Tuscon atrocity to extremist/violent rhetoric/imagery prior to the public revelation of ANY comprehensible evidence that such radicalized discourse played a role in prompting the murderous rampage.
Of course IF it did, then it did — and we’ll know soon enough. But if it didn’t — if the onslaught was simply the product of a diseased mind which had no actual grasp of Politics whatsoever & Wasn’t pushed over the Edge by Anybody’s political oratory or tweeting or postermaking — then we STILL need to stand down from the rhetorical ramparts: because Demonization & Hatred & the implicit-or-explicit threat of Violence are not merely dangerous, but also intinsically evil.
You Kids Today 😉 are too young to remember but I’m not: a variant of the rush to Collective political judgement occurred beginning well before midnight on November 22, 1963. Almost immediately after President Kennedy’s assassination, the media (print & broadcast) were delivering the verdict: that it was the Climate of Extremist Hate (translation, the then-nascent Conservative Movement) which had murdered our President.
Societal conditions, and political geography, made this Plausible. It may be hard for you to believe now but JFK was indeed thoroughly Hated by a substantial minority of white Amercans — and in the segregationist South, a substantial Majority. And Dallas, TX was in fact a Hotbed of rightwing activism. (Dallas & Orange County CA [hi Andrew :] were the unofficial co-capitals of American ultraConservatism.) So it was Logical to presume that the Birchers had whacked the President on their Dallas home turf.
Don’t underestimate what a Big Deal the climate-of-hate theory was in the Media back then. It really was. Learned essays in Time magazine. Stentorian NYTimes editorials. Etc.
Turned out, of course, that Kennedy’s assassin, in addition to having psychological issues & personality deficits, was indeed a political extremist. But of the Communist variety. Kennedy hater, yes. Goldwater man, not so Much. Big Fidelista. Wrong Climate altogether. (I believe this ideological disappointment, echoing down the generations, accounts In Part for the permanent Resistance to the long-proven sole guilt of Oswald. )
So: history teaches that it’s a good idea to wait ’til the Facts are In. / When they are, they may show that yeah, the Tuscon massacre was politically motivated. Or — Not. / Either way, it’s an Excellent idea to dial back the rhetorical Heat, of which No good can come.
The shooter was not a rational actor. It is clear from his writings that he was a nutjob. You can’t draw lines of culpability from someone like this to any motivating discourse. You need a rational actor to create such lines. Guys like the shooter are as likely to be motivated by Captain Crunch as Sarah Palin. And it makes about as much sense to blame either of them for his actions.
There’s been a lot of people giving warnings about the right-wing talk shows the last 2 years, and as much as I despise the content of Glenn Beck and Sean Hannity, I could not ask to censor it, however, things like this will continue and/or escalate as a result of continued programming like Beck or Hannity. If I believed the things that are depicted on this programs were true, like Obama is a socialist, Democrats are equivalent to nazis, Democrats are solely to blame for the economic woes, Obama is on the side of terrorists, Democrats want to open internment camps/”Fema Camps”, Democrats want to create death panels to off the elderly, quite frankly I would pick up a gun and kill the people and politicians aligned with that movement, because that’s anti-american, that’s what Americans have died fighting against, and why wouldn’t Americans fight against it today?
Of course, I know Beck and Hannity (and others) are fictional characters presenting fictional stories, however they appear on what too many believe is a news network, and the audience of these programs don’t get out of the echo-chamber of these kinds of fictional storylines.
Was this guy mentally disturbed? Probably, but not too much more than the 30%+ Americans who believe Obama wasn’t born in America or Obama is a Muslim, or Obama is anti-american. This guy just happens to have the guts to stand up for what he believes is best for his country. He won’t be the last.
“however, things like this will continue and/or escalate as a result of continued programming like Beck or Hannity.” …
Good to know that the rational leftist viewpoint is being expressed here …
(sigh)
Venerable Loy #13 – I have every confidence that the Climate of Extremist Hate folk will, yet again, start by blaming Beck and Hannity – and will continue to do so whether or not the man guilty of the atrocity was for or against beck and Hannity … sad, isn’t it ?
Joe Mama, I told you I wasn’t going to make political comments here this weekend, I had hoped you would respect that, you are, instead an ass, just like gahrie.
David K:
Did you post a tweet about Sarah Palin after the murders?
If so, you are at best a hypocrite. (which frankly wouldn’t surprise me)
If you did write a tweet blaming Palin, and then write post 3, 5 and 17 on this thread you are contemptible.
LOL … that depends on what you mean by “here.” From Brendan’s LRT Live page I could see that you tweeted* the words that I threw back in your face above, so you are obviously and openly using the shooting in AZ to criticize Palin’s “rhetoric.” One would logically assume therefore that you believe there’s a connection between Palin’s “rhetoric” and the shooting, which is — to borrow a phrase from your trollish comments — absolutely pathetic, at least based on the facts as we currently know them. Moreover, you are making precisely the kind of claim that gahrie and others elsewhere have so clearly disproved thus far.
* Perhaps your tweets don’t count as making a political comment “here” on this blog, but that is a distinction without a difference, since Twitter is a public forum just like Brendan’s blog. You are quite obviously posting political thoughts on the shooting in public when you said (or at least gave the clear impression) that you weren’t. Don’t cry now that you’ve been called out on it.
Joe Mama and Gahrie FTW!
“Guys like the shooter are as likely to be motivated by Captain Crunch as Sarah Palin.”
(LOL) Well, yeah, Casey #14; but then so am I, and I’m a very peaceful man, so let us not Cast too wide a Net, here ;> (nor Stroke too Brushy a Broad, for that matter. 🙂
“…the Climate of Extremist Hate folk will, yet again, start by blaming Beck and Hannity… sad, isn’t it ?”
Esteemed Alasdair #16, they already Have & yes it Is. // Then again, I do seem to recall that when I applied for membership in the Connecticut Regiment of Barry’s Boys back in the Bright ’61, among other Queries the official Questionnaire inQuired, “Are you prepared to support a national campaign based on an appeal to voters’ hate or fear?” I put down, “Fear.” / They let me in. (Deeply ashamed apologies to Dick Cavett. 🙂
The Right-leaning posters here think Bush and Republicans are as blameless for the economic situation of the country today as the Right-media is blameless for the escalation of violent and aggressive discourse in our political debate today. It’s safe to live in a bubble, but you’re still allowed to use your brains.
Maybe the gunman did it because the Crunchberries told him to, but Hannity, Beck, Limbaugh (David and Rush), Laura Ingraham, Ann Coulter, Sarah Palin, Michelle Malkin, Michelle Bachman, Leo Berman, Brit Hume, nearly all of AM talk radio, most of Fox News, Washington Times, New York Post, Breitbart, and so many other sources don’t present an angle or spin on topics anymore, they manipulate and edit stories to change their meanings completely. You couldn’t have a legitimate debate about healthcare because the opposition side listened to these miscreants and believed Obamacare would create “death panels” for terminal illnesses, that medicare would be taken away, that it would bankrupt the country, raise our taxes, that Americans would stand in lines for healthcare, that we couldn’t chose our physicians, and that it would all happen over night and would alter the country from a Democracy to Socialist Nation (it’s always been a Republic, but don’t bother).
Now, O’reilly and the spinmeisters say that Obamacare has already caused our insurance rates to go up, but fail to mention that Obama wanted to do away with insurance companies altogether and the only reason insurance companies still exist (and will continue to) is because the Republicans forced Dems to keep insurance companies rather than allowing Americans a choice for a single-payer option which would have shut down Insurance Companies obsolete, unneccesary, greedy, price-gouging asses down forever. But Americans want a middle man to determine their fate (no they don’t), but that’s what we ended up with.
Alasdair, Giffords opponent in the last election ran an ad that said, “Get on target for victory in November. Help remove Gabrielle Giffords from office, shoot a fully automatic M-16 with Jesse Kelly”
http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2011/01/flashback-giffords-opponent-had-m16-shooting-event-help-remove-gabrielle-giffords-from-office.php
If that’s not the closest thing to asking a nut to act out with aggression and/or violence, I don’t know how much closer you can get. I know little-dick Republicans like guns, but keep them in your pants and out of politics.
No, “the Right-leaning posters here” just think you’re a douche.
Hopefully, the sane Left-leaning p[osters think he’s a douche also.
Brit Hume?
Okay, apparently I need to say it again. Everyone breathe…
The shooter, we shall assume, is possessed of individual agency and thus responsible for his actions regardless of what may or may not have encouraged those actions. For all we know the dude was trying to impress Jodie Foster.
That said, the right seems to be protesting awful loud about it not being their fault. If they felt blameless, while all the protest? And why purge websites, facebook pages and twitter feeds?
So, at this point what really bothers me6 is the utter crassness with which some on the right are trying to play the victim because they are taking heat for their utterly crass, classless, hateful, and toxic rhetoric. It would be far more becoming if they would just eat their clam chowder and get it over with. They made their bed they get to lye in it (just to mix my metaphors).
That said, the right seems to be protesting awful loud about it not being their fault. If they felt blameless, while all the protest?
Could it perhaps be all the attacks on them from the Left? You know, the ones that started barely an hour after the shooting? You know the ones that are identical to every other time the Left has done this?
And why purge websites, facebook pages and twitter feeds?
I don’t know..maybe we can ask Markos?
Wow..you start the post saying as deep breath, and end by repeating precisely the type of tasteless, ignorant attack we are upset about.
The Right doth protest too much is your argument? Seriously?
Take a breathe, indeed.
Gahrie, it’s not a tasteless ignorant attack. It’s a question. You seem to have a paranoid persecution complex, you may want to see someone about that. As much as you may want it to be an attack. But seriously, take a deep breath and let it go. There is no win on this. That you would even be looking for a win out of this is sick, there is no win for anyone out of this.
I don’t know AZ politics that well, so when I first heard the news my thought was, shit someone just murdered a member of congress that’s horrible (through and through shots to the brain being almost 100% fatal and early news reports were saying she had died). I didn’t know if she was a Democrat or a Republican, it was just horrible. Then it turns out a federal judge, a 9 year old girl and four others were also dead, and that was horrible.
And then the first thing I hear after that is the Right out there saying it’s not their fault. To wit, of course it’s not. But they are out there bitching about people blaming them and purging their sites and playing like they are the victim in all of this. And that’s what’s really pissed me off. This effort to re-write history and say anyone that would say anything about our crass over-the-top rhetoric is is tastelessly using a tragedy. Really? You are really going to go there?
My opinion, there is a lot to be embarrassed about in the Right’s rhetoric, Sara’s map, that was tasteless. Her then trying to pass them off as surveyors marks? Crass and tasteless. Sharron Angle calling for a “second amendment” solution to Harry Reid should she loose the election? Tasteless and inciting violence. You can’t magic that stuff away. It happened. It was said, it was done.
Those that used such tactics and language are getting called on the carpet. What is actually sick tasteless and ignorant is that it takes a tragedy like this for people to think that perhaps we should not actually call for the assassination of our political foes. Perhaps that’s taking things a bit far. Perhaps there is actually a line beyond which real constructive political discourse dies. And that perhaps we shouldn’t cross that line.
But seriously, you are not the victim, Republicans are not the Victim. GET OVER IT and stop playing like you are. It’s un-becoming, annoying and a little sick. Everyone, including me, needs to calm the F* down.
For those that said stuff they shouldn’t have, HTFU and take your lumps. For those that would jump to judgments realize the shooter had his own agency and his own agenda. And if you are going to denounce toxic hateful political rhetoric denounce all of it, and in the words of John Stewart, lets all try and take it down a notch.
And then the first thing I hear after that is the Right out there saying it’s not their fault.
Funny, the first thing I heard was the left blaming the attack on the Right. Like they have always done, going back at least as far as the murder of JFK.
and say anyone that would say anything about our crass over-the-top rhetoric is is tastelessly using a tragedy.
If that is truly what you were doing that would be one thing, but that is not what you are doing. You are attacking the Right.
Where is the condemnation of a single Leftie?
http://michellemalkin.com/2011/01/10/the-progressive-climate-of-hate-an-illustrated-primer-2000-2010/
dcl, I believe you are politicizing the politicization of the politicization of this tragedy.
This sort of thing spirals out of control so quickly. On Twitter on Saturday, I denounced and unfollowed several liberals, including Kos, who were making comments like “Mission Accomplished, Sarah Palin.” Of course, some on the Right, like my friend Melissa Clouthier, were quick to view comments by the Kosses of the world as reflective of the entire Left, and so of course then they feel victimized, because OMG the entire Left is saying it’s their fault!!! Except that wasn’t happening. But what was happening was some, in my view, irresponsibly premature commentary by folks like Matt Yglesias, not blaming the Right like Kos did, but wondering aloud about the possible impact of hateful rhetoric. That’s a reasonable thing to talk about, if the discussion is handled very delicately… but NOT mere minutes or hours after the shooting. That should NOT be an immediate topic of discussion; it should wait until more information is known. It’s not “off limits,” nor is it contradicted by the knowledge that the shooter was off his nut, because, frankly, the whole point of the concern about vitrolic rhetoric (from whichever “side”) is precisely that it may help push deranged nutbags over the edge. It’s not like anyone is worried that Sarah Palin’s “target” map will cause SANE people to go out and kill congresspeople (!!!). The concern is precisely that it might have the unintended consequence of taking someone who’s already deranged, quite possibly with an incoherent or unidentifiable political ideology, and most certainly with a severe mental illness, and giving them the spark they need to inspire them to do something terrible. And that’s a legitimate topic to discuss — although I personally think the “target” map is not that big a deal; Sharron Angle’s “2nd Amendment solutions” is far more problematic, as Nate Silver tweeted this morning…but the discussion is fine, even if I disagree with some of the points people would make in that discussion — again, provided it is discussed in the right way, which is difficult because it’s very delicate. But you just CAN’T be talking about that immediately after the shooting — it’s way too soon and too raw and too insensitive and too much like “blaming,” even when that’s not the intent. And so, yes, that feeds a cycle whereby folks on the Right take legitimate offense, and soon that legitimate offense morphs into a politicized outrage, whereby distinctions between Kos (total asshole and acting like it) and Yglesias (insensitively and ham-handedly trying to bring up a legitimate topic) are collapsed, and all discussion of the possible impact of violent rhetoric, no matter how carefully couched and well-reasoned, becomes verboten as a “blame game,” and anyone who engages in it is an Evil Evil Liberal, proving just how evil all liberals inherently are. That’s the politicization of the politicization. And then of course the conservatives who say these things are themselves proving a flaw in their own character — the politicization of the politicization of the politicization. And on and on. I instantly knew all of this would happen the moment I heard a congresswoman had been shot, and it’s all terribly annoying and depressing, as if the horror of the actual incident itself wasn’t bad enough.
God daaaaamn humanity?
By the way, “______ doth protest too much” is almost always a stupid argument, IMHO. I often protest a lot, usually because I fervently believe that I’m right, not because I secretly believe I’m wrong. An impassioned defense of one’s position doesn’t somehow imply guilt. And particularly here, where conservatives really were being subjected to an almost instantaneous blame game (combined, as I said, with more legitimate but poorly-timed discussion of something quite a bit more subtle than “blame,” but which could easily be mistaken for blame given the circumstances), it’s asinine to claim that they somehow concede the point by rebutting it.
Gahrie, I’m not attacking the right, beyond my point that I’m deeply disappointed in those that are out there acting like they are somehow the victim of something. They aren’t. Just take your lumps for the stuff you actually said. (I’m using you rhetorically as in the “you” that made such and such a comment, not you to refer to gahrie in this case. Who while deeply adversarial at times, and flat out vexing in his ignoring of what I think the be rather salient details has never been, at least in my estimation and memory, actually hateful or even particularly mean spirited in his comments here.)
So yes, the rhetoric on both sides has gone too far… Way too far. Way way way way too far. And yes, the stuff on the malkin link is indeed utterly despicable you will get no argument from me there.
Those that preach hate on both sides certainly need to be taking their lumps for what happened on Saturday–it is the type of thing that a political climate of hate can bring. Given what we know so far about the shooter what actually drove him to do what he did may never be known. So it is impossible to directly blame the political climate for the shooting. But I hope we can all agree that it doesn’t help.
And I think you are probably right that the Right is taking disproportionally more heat for their rhetoric than the Left because the victims were from the Left. I have little doubt the situation would be reversed were the facts the other way round. That’s life… as it were. Perhaps / hopefully, the realization that hate filled rhetoric can come back to bite you in the ass might help us all take things down a notch. Though sadly I doubt that.
In politics the stakes are high, we get angry and we fight for what we think is right. But we all need to remember that that “fight” should never actually come to fisticuffs. After all, we are all, at the end of the day, on the same side.
And what I mean by take your lumps, to a certain extent, is that yes there are people saying things that don’t really add up. Just let it go. Getting worked up about it does two things, it leads people to think there really is something to it (and in some cases there is, hence “thou doth protest too much”), and it keeps it going.
Lets all try and ignore the screaming… as it were… I know it’s hard… It’s very very hard. And it’s really easy to get drawn in and start screaming yourself.
So, at least to me, the death of Christina Green seems the most horrible, perhaps too tragically horrible to even really contemplate, born on 9-11-2001 it just seems so very very tragically wrong that she would die at the hands of an assassin.
the death of Christina Green seems the most horrible, perhaps too tragically horrible to even really contemplate
As the father of two daughters, let me just say: Yes.
Sandy Underpants, your comments regarding the shooting fundraiser just shows your cultural ignorance and bias. People in that part of the country like to shoot guns. If you’re a candidate in NYC, you probably hold a fundraiser with Barbara Streisand or at the Met, because that’s what people in that part of the country like to do. If you’re in rural AZ, you go to the target range, because that’s what people in that part of the country like to do.
Brendan, the problem with the toughtful “hateful rhetoric” line is that it always seems to be the left using it as a tool against the right. Barak Obama can talk about Latinos “punishing” their “enemies”, Loretta Sanchez can tell Latinos that the Vietnamese are trying to steal “our” (meaning Latino’s) seat, Jesse and Al can go around chaning “no justice no peace”, and the AARP can produce “Get Old People” signs but we all know that this is NOT what Matt Yglesias is talking about when he says “hateful rhetoric.” The hateful rhetoric meme only comes to the forefront when conservatives yell “socialist!” and “from my cold dead hands” but never when there are shouts “Bushitler” and “Bush lied, people died.” I will give you a quasi pass because to your credit, you were critical of the left and their hateful rhetoric during the Bush years. But don’t kid yourself into thinking that the rise of this meme in recent years represents anything other than the left’s attempt to silence and shame the right, and the MSM’s general world view that the left is nice, and the right is mean and violent. So no, I do not grant that the “hateful rhetoric” discussion is legitimate, because it only comes up when it’s being used against the right. It is nothing more than a political tool. Perhaps not to you, Brendan Loy, but to 99% of the other fools on TV and in the newspapers, it is. Paul Krugman is no more interested in civilized, nice, rational debate than is Rush Limbaugh.
And I think you are probably right that the Right is taking disproportionally more heat for their rhetoric than the Left because the victims were from the Left. I have little doubt the situation would be reversed were the facts the other way round.
Giffords was a moderate Dem and was heavily targeted by the Kossacks in the primaries. Her alleged killer was a druggie who liked both Mein Kampf as well as The Communist Manifesto, so make of that whatever you will, but he certainly was no tea partier. JFK was a moderate Dem who cut taxes, shot and killed by an avowed communist, as Joe points out at #13. RFK was pretty dang liberal, but Sirhan Sirhan (aside from being a nutcase himself) was largely motivated by RFK’s support for Israel. Cogressman Leo Ryan — again, an avowed liberal — lost his life at Jonestown, not because of his politics, but because of his opposition to Jim Jones’ cult.
In sum, the victims of political assassination in the modern era have not met their fate at the hands of the Right (unless you want to head to Israel and discuss the Rabin assassination, which occurred at the hands of a radical, pro-settlement Zionist Jew opposed to the Oslo Agreement), nor were they targeted due to their politics. The Right takes more heat for these types of situations, despite all evidence to the contrary, because shouting down the opposition and shutting down free speech is how the Left likes to operate. Especially if they can score cheap political points in the process.
“The Right takes more heat for these types of situations, despite all evidence to the contrary, because shouting down the opposition and shutting down free speech is how the Left likes to operate. Especially if they can score cheap political points in the process.”
Score cheap political points? Like what you’re trying to do right now? People have died and this is somehow all about the flaws of the left? What is so hard about recognizing this as a horrible, depressing tragedy outside of any partisan interest? Some us are just shutting up because we don’t give a shit about the politics or how it fits into our precious political framework. You’re pathetic.
True, and impassioned defense of one’s position doesn’t mean you secretly hold the opposite. Excessive protests of one’s innocence in a matter like this, well, that’s a little different. The actions of those on the Vitriolic Right imply guilt to me more then they imply staunch defense of their position.
And perhaps I and or Brendan am (are, is) conflating something that should not be. That is the legitimate defense against being blamed for something that is not your fault (the vast majority of the Right) and coming up with asinine explanations for your hateful rhetoric and trying to purge it out of existence and bitching that it isn’t your fault. When you clearly said what you said. And whatever heat comes from that is yours to bear.
That is the legit response to the initial politicizing of the tragedy by those like Kos. Versus the politicizing response to the legitimate question of hateful rhetoric.
My beef is with those that have a beef with those that would ask the legitimate questions about what this clearly hateful rhetoric doing to the political atmosphere in this country. And I apologize if it came of like I was saying STFU to those that would protest being unfairly blamed for something that is clearly not their fault. A point upon which they clearly have a right to defend themselves. But also a group I do not mean impugn in any way shape or form.
This entire conversation is starting to get way to meta for me.
@JoeMama
Twitter is a place where people follow me, this blog is different. I made my thoughts known on Twitter because I don’t have to deal with people like gahrie and Alasdair there who can’t have an adult discussion about such topics like this. I knew that on this forum the conversation would go the way it did and I didn’t want any part of that.
David @ #40, really, is that your defense? Pretty sad. If refraining from political discussion is the right thing to do on this blog right now, it’s the right thing to do universally.
kcatnd @ #38, you were making a lot more sense when you were simply shutting up.
AML, I think it is fair to say that anyone that would actually assassinate anyone is well outside the main stream right or left regardless of their political affiliation or that of their target.
In short the politics of post political killers is generally non-sensacl and incoherent.
John Wilkes Booth probably had the most coherent agenda and position, as he thought he was acting as a soldier in a war. Charles J. Guiteau was a calmed Republican who shot another Republican for a perceived slight. Leon Czolgosz was an anarchist… Little more need be said there. James Earl Ray was a career criminal, but I can’t find much on his politics, there do appear to be quite a few conspiracy theories though.
There were two attempts on Ford, one by the Manson Family the other by Sara Jane Moore, who’s reasoning appears equally incoherent. And John Henkley Jr. was trying to impress Jodi Foster…
So I would not expect the logic of the AZ shooter to make any kind of rational sense or fir within any political reasoning.
@AMLTrojan – What happened was a tragedy, and due respect should be paid to the fact that people lost lives and loved ones.
I also believe that such situations shouldn’t be off limits for discussing the larger implications of what happens, but I choose not to do so in a forum like this one because I don’t think the discussion will be done in a respectful, productive manner by most involved and I didn’t want to be a part of that.
I don’t think the discussion will be done in a respectful, productive manner by most involved and I didn’t want to be a part of that.
How the hell do you characterize post #5 and #7 as “respectful” or “productive”?
I challenge any fair minded person to read this thread and decide just who has been the most disrespectful and non-productive in their posts.
David, since when have you ever been interested in respectful and thoughful discussions? Most of your posts contain some sort of snarky rhetorical personal attack against either Gharie, Alasdair, or conservatives in general. You have every right to chose where and when to comment (or not comment) on issues like this, but please spare us the sanctimonious attitude.
When it comes to being sanctimonious, I don’t think any of us really have a leg to stand on… So perhaps we let that one go…
gahrie @ #44, I think you meant posts #5 and #17.
dcl @ #42, I don’t disagree that political assassins have typically been more of the deranged type than the politically astute / involved caste. I was taking exception to your assertion that “the Right is taking disproportionally more heat for their rhetoric than the Left because the victims were from the Left” and that “the situation would be reversed were the facts the other way round.” The facts do not support these conclusions. Therefore, we must make other conclusions about why the Right is unfairly targeted during times like these.
Over the past 2 years, tons of “liberals” predict Democratic politicians will be killed as a result of the outrageous violent rhetoric from the Right/Tea Party and a Democratic congresswoman is killed, I guess it’s just coincidence. The first Congress time a member of congress has been shot by another American in America, in history, and it has absolutely nothing to do with the extreme rhetoric going on, on a daily basis. Confounding.
Joe Mama, Alasdair, AML, and Gahrie are totally disgraceful in their defense of this type of rhetoric. Just as one might ask fellow muslims to condemn the outrageous comments by terrorists or muslim extremists (who at least have the decency to ignore the issue completely) these “people” (and I use that term loosely) defend the rhetoric because I have to understand that people in Arizona love guns and Republicans love guns and rhetoric about using guns against political opposition?; Because the Liberals say the same thing?
I was thinking back through history at all the political assassinations and assassination attempts on Americans and come up with Martin Luther King, Malcom X, Ronald Reagan, Gabrielle Giffords, Leo Ryan, JFK, RFK, George wallace, Abraham Lincoln, Harvey Milk, and George Moscone. If anyone can add to the list let me know. The score is 7 dead/ 2 maimed for the Democrats and 1 dead/ 1 maimed for the Republicans. Fans, it’s not even close, and nobody was blaming Republican rhetoric for the other murders, despite what Gahrie heard on the radio today.
In echo of my previous comment and as a partial, more serious response to kcatnd, I’m merely going to quote Joe Loy:
Then in 1995, the Left tried to blame Oklahoma City on Rush Limbaugh, and here in 2011, the Kossacks are blaming Palin for the Giffords attack.
There is a recurring pattern here, and if kcatnd, dcl, David K and others have a better explanation for why the Left and the media are so quick to rush into judgment and blame the Right and its supposed nascent-yet-perpetual hostility and anger (recall Peter Jennings likening the 1994 election results to children throwing a tantrum) than out of a desire to shut down and opportunistically delegitimize their political opponents, I’m all ears.
From brendan, #31:
Wait, so we should all worry about how our words might encourage the insane? That’s problematic as a general premise. Must Captain Crunch tone down his rhetoric as well? Instead of “crunchtastic crunchberries”, will we have “carbohydrate spherules”?
I think we will see the rhetoric tone down a bit after this, but only because it would be offensive and unpopular, not because of general acceptance of the principle that the insane must not be inspired. As a long term experimental test of this hypothesis, I predict that violent rhetoric will make its triumphant return after public memory of this event has faded, say sometime next week.
@Cartman – You are right, I take gahrie and Alasdair to task on a regular basis, but thats because I got sick of trying to take the high road when they weren’t. I tried to have respectful discussion with both of them initially but they didn’t respond in kind. I’ll admit it is not the most mature thing to do to stoop to their level, but its what I did. I’m not particularly proud of it, which is why I made my initial comment in this thread. I was trying to take a new tack in the New Year and this particular post seemed as good a place as any to start.
“nobody was blaming Republican rhetoric for the other murders, despite what Gahrie heard on the radio today.”
Sandy Underpants, do you realize that you just demonstrated a total ignorance of history with this statement? People were blaming right wingers in Dallas for JFK being assassinated by a disgrunted Communist (or as we all now know, a conspiracy between the mafia, anti-Castro Cuban dissidents, some rich, gay guy from New Orleans, and Cancer Man).
And it’s not just Republicans who use warline or violent imagry for politics. How often have you read in the media about so-and-so freshman Congressman/Senator is the top “target” of the Democrats/Republicans. You always hear about how the Democrats and Republicans are hoping to “knock-off” this or that official. What do they call Ohio and other regions that are closely divided politically? BATTLEground states!
Sandy, you forgot Cleveland and Garfield, both Republicans. There were substantive attempts made on Reagan and Ford. There were also attempts made on LBJ, Nixon, George H. W. Bush, Bill Clinton, and George W. Bush. Though to my understanding in those cases they were never in any significant danger. Obama has received, at least according to Wikipedia, a preponderance of death threats.
Also Arron Burr shot and killed Alexander Hamilton, who was Sec. Treasury at the time. I would argue Hamilton would count as a conservative. Also Democrat Preston Brooks caned Republican Charles Summner on the floor of the Senate. Brooks also challenged Rep. Anson Burlingame to a duel for calling him a coward on the floor of the house. Burlingame accepted the challenge and Sen. Brooks filched.
I’m sure I’m forgetting a fair few other incidents. But those are the ones that stick out in my mind.
Of course if we leave US borders there’s a lot more to deal with. Caesar, Alexander the II, Lousi the XVI, etc.
Anyway, that’s not what I wanted to comment about…
This is just inexplicable:
http://obamalondon.blogspot.com/2011/01/inexplicable-edits-on-sarah-palins.html
Casey @ #50 FTW!
Yes, Casey @ #50 FTW. Letting nutbags hold political speech hostage (OMG! HE SAID “HOSTAGE”) and targeting (OMG! OMG!) all remotely caustic metaphors for eradication (AAAHHH!!!) “just in case” it might set off some crackpot listening too closely for instructions from the nearest table leg is craptacular advice indeed.
I think John Stewarts comments on this are the best so far. If you haven’t yet, head on over to the daily show site and have a listen.
Cartman, Kennedy was killed many years before I was born, and I presume before you were born. I don’t know what news reports were back then, other than what I’ve seen and read, and have never heard or seen reports assigning blame to Republicans or the opposition party. I know Kennedy was one of the most popular US presidents of all time, with approval polls at 85% at times. His disapproval rating at the time he was shot was below 30%, so it’s hard for me to consider that anyone said or believed that his assassination was based on political discourse, especially considering that the Republicans and Democrats were very close on most issues of the day. Again, don’t believe what you hear on AM radio.
The Secret Service says that Obama has recieved 300-400% more death threats than any other president in history. Must be those darn Commies again. Somebody on talk radio ought to tell them he’s on their side.
Sandy:
So, your position is that you know nothing about the Kennedy assassination, but you do know that people who do know something about the assassination are wrong?
Sandy, it’s called a history book. If books aren’t your things, there’s something called a documentary. Also, Kennedy has been viewed much more favorably by history, probably because he was shot, than by his contemporaries. The 1964 election was supposed to be a close one. Kennedy gave tepid legislative support, (but strong verbal support) for civil rights, thus he was viewed with suspician by the South. Remember, he was campaigning in Texas, home of his Vice President. The Bay of Pigs was a visible major league f*ck up of the 10th degree, but people at the time didn’t know the full truth of the Cuban Missle Crisis, which is what historians use to offset the Bay of Pigs. So yes, people did blame right wingers in a knee jerk fashion, with facts and logic definate afterthoughts. The same is true here.
Gahrie, I’ve seen dozens of documentaries and studied the Kennedy assassination. Give me any link suggesting that people blamed republicans for his assassination. Not that I so much don’t believe you, but I’m interested to read abou it because of everything I’ve read and studied that was never touched on. Based on your comments, it shouldn’t take you long. I’m waiting.
Cartman, you can post links to back up your comments as well. Please don’t use stuff from Rush Limbaughs webpage from this week, though.
Here is a link to JFK’s approval ratings:
http://www.ropercenter.uconn.edu/data_access/tag/kennedy_approval.html
There’s nothing there to suggest a major schism within the country, while you can look at today’s polls and see a Congress in single digit approval and the President in the 30%’s. Whereas JFK’s disapproval rating wasn’t even in the 30s.
Again just post a couple links. I’m intersted. I can’t find any on my own. Although I do remember Republicans blaming Bill Clinton for 9/11 because the first 9 months don’t count, unless you’re Obama.
I don’t have a link to my HS history book, nor do I have a link to the 90s era CD-ROM that I bought specifically on the JFK assassination because when I was in my teens, I was interested in history and found the debates over JFK conspiracies interesting. Sorry.
In 1963, the American right (and by implication then-rising conservative star Senator Barry Goldwater) was blamed for JFK’s assassination — which, of course, was done by Oswald the pro-Communist who once tried to defect to the Soviet Union
http://spectator.org/archives/2011/01/10/federal-judge-liberal-sheriff/print
Here’s a link to a JFK conspiratist:
http://karws.gso.uri.edu/jfk/the_critics/griffith/suspects.html
In a typo-riddled Media Matters post entitled “A President was killed the last time right-wing hatred ran wild like this,” Eric Boehlert bemoans the “increasingly violent rhetorical attacks on Obama,” and the “unvarnished hate and name-calling [sic] passed for health care ‘debate’ this summer.”
Boehlert writes:
The radical right, aided by a GOP Noise Machine that positively dwarfs what existed in 1963, has turned demonizing Obama –making him into a vile object of disgust–into a crusade. It’s a demented national jihad, the likes of which this country has not seen in modern times.
But I’ve been thinking about Dallas in 1963 because I’ve been recalling the history and how that city stood as an outpost for the radical right, which never tried to hide its contempt for the New England Democrat.
Now, Boehlert’s depiction of the hostile atmosphere in pre-assassination Dallas matches those of primary sources I’ve read before: there were indeed “WANTED” posters of JFK and “Impeach [Supreme Court Justice] Earl Warren” billboards around the city. Kennedy really did mutter to his wife that fateful morning, “We’re heading into nut country today…”
Depressing, sobering stuff.
More depressing, however, is what Boehlert leaves out of his post.
For instance, large, friendly crowds lined the President’s motorcade route for miles, as now-familiar film footage attests. So much for the notion of an entire city gripped by palpable, murderous “right wing” rage.
So it’s no wonder Boehlert leaves out the identity of Kennedy’s assassin, too. For instead of being gunned down by a “Bircher” or a Klansman or even a garden-variety Republican, history records that President John Fitzgerald Kennedy was in fact murdered by… “a silly little communist.”
That’s how the President’s widow described Lee Harvey Oswald, the young man charged with killing Kennedy. Oswald had defected to the Soviet Union, married a Russian girl, then moved back to America. He took part in pro-Castro leafleting and “street agitation” (to use his words) and even described himself matter of factly as a “Marxist” on a local tv panel show.
In fact, Oswald had previously tried to murder Major General Edwin Walker, one of the most notorious of all the rabid “right wingers” Boehlert blames for stoking local anti-Kennedy feeling.
There are still those who don’t believe Oswald killed Kennedy. But Oswald’s Communist sympathies, defection to the Soviet Union and pro-Castro activism are all matters of public record.
Even if Boehlert is a conspiracy nut who thinks Oswald wasn’t the killer, even the craziest “buffs” feel obliged to mention the fellow’s name in their screeds, if only to declare his innocence. Not this Media Matters scribe.
And why should he? Last year, James Piereson penned a fine book called Camelot and the Cultural Revolution: How the Assassination of John F. Kennedy Shattered American Liberalism. His thesis: liberals were so traumatized by the idea that JFK’s assassin was a man of the left like themselves, that they literally wrote Oswald out of the story by concocting conspiracy theories surrounding the crime.
http://www.examiner.com/conservative-politics-in-national/media-matters-jfk-assassination-metaphor-misses-the-mark
That’s after a quick and dirty Google search that took less than a minute…..