While I agree that Palin mostly uses hate speech and hateful imagery to make her points, today's shooting can't be blamed on her, especially since the people who have their pitchforks raised are the people who constantly repeat what she says on Facebook and Twitter. If we ignored her, she wouldn't be relevant. She wouldn't be in our face all the time. But people love to hate on Sarah Palin. I'm convinced that the only reason Palin is still around is because so many like to hate her. The more people that hate her the more people she draws to her side the more hate she spews. Same goes for Glenn Beck, who's discussed daily as if he was a serious person.
We let these people become part of our political discourse. The media has also been irresponsible in elevating people who shouldn't be elevated.
Meanwhile, the left is trying to pin the killer as a right winger and the right is trying to pin the killer as a left winger. Funny how people interpret the writings of a highly irrational and mentally disturbed person into whatever they want it to be. I can't make any sense of his videos, nor can I glean anything from his reading list.
At least six people are dead, including a child, and others wounded, Congresswoman Gabby Giffords gravely so.
Jared Loughner will never have a rational reason for doing what he did.
But we do know that Loughner's killing spree happened within the context of an uncivil and nasty political environment where people such as Palin, Beck, Bachmann, Limbaugh reign, and that it only seems to be getting worse.
Here is the smartest analysis of today's shooting:
That's the further political ramification here. We don't know why the Tucson killer did what he did. If he is like Sirhan, we'll never "understand." But we know that it has been a time of extreme, implicitly violent political rhetoric and imagery, including SarahPac's famous bulls-eye map of 20 Congressional targets to be removed -- including Rep. Giffords. It is legitimate to discuss whether there is a connection between that tone and actual outbursts of violence, whatever the motivations of this killer turn out to be. At a minimum, it will be harder for anyone to talk -- on rallies, on cable TV, in ads -- about "eliminating" opponents, or to bring rifles to political meetings, or to say "don't retreat, reload." Read the whole thing by James Fallows at The Atlantic
