Many questions, few answers left in Tucson’s wake

By Nicholas Wilbur 

What is government if words have no meaning?

That was the question Jared Lee Loughner posed to Rep. Gabrielle Giffords in their first meeting. In their second meeting, he shot her in the head.

The round-the-clock media circus has taken a swipe at every minute detail of Loughner's life in an attempt to understand his motivations for killing six and wounding 14 others in the attempted assassination of a congresswoman.

Unfortunately, the 24-hour-a-day speculation-based coverage of every non-development and irrelevant insight into the life of the accused has taken center-stage in a nation-wide theater production that continues to say a lot but reveal almost nothing.

Loughner has remained silent. The 250 federal officials tasked with investigating the horrific shooting have failed to deliver a motive. And so the media is left chasing its tail in an attempt to assemble a puzzle that has no pieces.

We know he's male. We know he's white. We know he was kicked out of community college for saying weird shit. Based on the videos he posted on YouTube, we know he has a severe distrust of the government, a fascination with the gold standard, and an obsession with currencies, new languages, and grammar.

Are we to believe, as some have claimed, that Loughner was so disgruntled about Giffords' failure to adequately answer the "what is government" question that he decided to try and assassinate her? Was his passion for the gold standard so strong that it drove him to murder, that he thought Giffords was an inadequate leader because she hadn't created her own language, or that his plot to kill the Arizona Democrat was retribution for her not electing him as her campaign treasurer, where he would be in charge of creating a new currency?

Maybe.

Or maybe Loughner had a girlfriend in the Farmtown game on Facebook who dumped him because his land wasn't well kept, and in a fit of rage he took a semi-automatic pistol to a political event. Maybe he read a violent comic book or played violent video games. Maybe he wasn't breastfed as a baby. Maybe he didn't eat his Wheaties. These aren't the actual hypotheses the media have concocted to fill news pages and clog up the airwaves, but they're just as useful in understanding Loughner's motive.

The truth is, we still know almost nothing about his real motivations, and the media's continuous attempts to make sense of his gibberish have become vexing.

I'm not one to delve too deeply into conspiracies theories (mainly because any good conspiracy is unprovable and therefore a gargantuan waste of time), but as the media begin their second week of continuous coverage of this tragedy, my hopes for an explanation – other than insanity – are dwindling.

It's entirely possible that nothing will ever be revealed that adequately explains this tragedy, that there will never be closure for the families who lost loved ones and the victims who are left wondering, "Why me?"

Such an unsatisfying and unresolved ending to the Tucson tragedy wouldn't be unprecedented. The many unanswered questions surrounding the assassination of JFK, the Oklahoma City bombing, and 9/11 – even Roswell, the alleged plot to kill Princess Diana, and the moon landing "hoax" – continue to plague many Americans who struggle with the frustration of the unknown with every anniversary.

It's unlikely that even Loughner himself could provide us with a satisfying answer to the nonsensical question he posed to Giffords, or to the shooting itself. In tragedy, there is no satisfaction.

But it would be better than nothing, which is what we have now.

 

(Cross-posted from Muddy Politics.)

Giffords opens eyes, but conservatives accuse Obama of lying

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Media Matters:

In one of the most cynical displays in recent memory,following the lead of Gateway Pundit Jim Hoft, several conservativewebsites -- including FoxNation and MRC arm CNSNews -- suggested that President Obama lied last night when he saidthat Rep. Giffords had openedher eyes for the first time shortly after his Wednesday night visit to thehospital.

In a recently-completed press conference, Giffords'doctor Peter Rhee explained that what Obama said last night about Giffordsopening her eyes was "true." 

As if we needed yet more evidence that many conservatives have zero credibility. They just attack Obama (and any other opponent) no matter what, regardless of the facts.

In this case, Giffords opening her eyes should be cause for celebration. It's wonderful news, and yet another sign of an amazing recovery. It certainly should not be turned into partisan fodder -- which is precisely what these conservatives were doing in claiming, without any evidence at all, that Obama was lying.

As Steve Benen writes:

The "lie" the right had uncovered wasn't a lie at all.

But stepping back, it's worth realizing how truly ridiculous the criticism from the right is even at face value. Obama had heartening news about a congresswoman who very nearly died, and that news happened to be true. For some conservatives, however, this was not only an opportunity to catch the president in some kind of "gotcha" moment -- an effort that proved wrong anyway -- but also to parse the meaning of the word "open."

Is the right really this desperate? Do they hang on the president's every word, wondering how to manipulate his every remark into some kind of cheap attack?

Good lord, these guys really need to grow up. This is just pathetic.

Yup. Pathetic -- and revealing of what they're all about.

The amazing recovery of Gabrielle Giffords

By Michael J.W. Stickings

We've been focusing a great deal on the shooting and on what was behind it, that is, the larger socio-political context, but, lest we forget, the most amazing part of the story is happening at a hospital in Tuscon:

Rep. Gabrielle Giffords is able to breathe on her own, doctors said Tuesday.

Giffords remains on a ventilator to help her recovery, said neurosurgeon G. Michael Lemole Jr.

Giffords now has a "101 percent chance" of surviving Saturday's shot to the head, said trauma surgeon Peter Rhee.

"She will not die—she does not have that permission from me," he said.

Monday, Rhee said the congresswoman's chances of survival were 100 percent.

Giffords remains in critical condition in the intensive care unit, they said.

"It's going to happen on her timeline, not ours," Lemole said.

"She has no right to look as good as she does, but we all have to be patient," said Lemole, noting that recovery from a shot through the brain can take a long time.

"She's on her own schedule," he said. "It's a week to week, month to month" healing process."

Doctors have been able to "back off" the sedation the congresswoman is receiving, Lemole said.

Giffords is responding to commands by moving on both sides of her body, Rhee said.

Some tests involve testing responses to pain, he said.

"We do a test called a sternal rub," he said, by pushing down hard on the breastbone to cause a response.

"We say, 'Gabby, show me your thumb' and push down," he said.

She now responds to the request by giving a thumbs up to avoid the push, he said. "She's doing it on her own."

Truly amazing. And wonderful news.

Of course, Giffords is receiving excellent medical care, including from two military doctors (who were brought in because her husband, an astronaut, is in the Navy.

All Americans should have access to such care, and the vote Giffords cast for health-care reform helped last year helped move the country towards a fairer and more just system for all. Consider what she herself wrote in August 2009:

We are as great nation. We deserve the best health care in the world. How we get it is the real question.

We need reform that puts patients first. It is not right and not fair that insurance companies can deny coverage because of pre-existing conditions, or impose lifetime limits on service.

I support reform that allows Americans to keep their current health care program, keep their doctors and keep their hospitals.

I support reform that creates competition through a strong public option that lowers everyone's costs and competes with private insurers.

I support reform that allows Arizonans who lose their jobs to afford insurance so they can get back on their feet without fear of getting sick without medical care.

I support reform that will slow the growth of health care costs and does not impose new taxes or burdens on our nation's most valuable economic contributors, small businesses.

Last month, this nation observed the 40th anniversary of our arrival on the moon – one of the most awesome accomplishments in the history of mankind. Now our generation has our own opportunity to make history.

A nation that can leave footprints on another celestial body is up to this challenge.

Providing Americans with health care that gives them lifetime security and peace of mind must be America's next great accomplishment.

And there is still work to be done -- at the moment, to reject Republican attempts to repeal the Affordable Care Act.

Of course, we must remember that Giffords wasn't the only victim of Saturday's shooting. Six people died and 14 others, including Giffords, were wounded -- six of the wounded are still at University Medical Center, and, two, including Giffords, are still in critical condition.

We wish them all the best health care available. And we wish them all well.

"You can't outsmart crazy"

By Edward Copeland

With those words, Jon Stewart gave another eloquent speech at the beginning of Monday night's Daily Show, dispensing with humor to address Saturday's horrific events in Tucson.

With each passing hour and day since alleged gunman Jared Lee Loughner opened fire on Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, critically injuring her, killing six and wounding 14 others, it becomes clearer that this 22-year-old man was not a political partisan but someone who was severely mentally ill. With Arizona government offices finally open Monday, The Washington Post finally was able to answer one simple question that's not open to debate: his voter registration. The answer turns out to be that he was a registered independent but was considered inactive because he hadn't bothered to vote in such a long time, including in November. Hardly indicative of a Tea Party participant.

I am guilty of jumping to conclusions. With the precursors without body counts such as smashed windows, threats, cut gas lines, it was an easy assumption to make. However, in my horror of the moment I forgot the old line about what happens when you assume: it makes an ass out of u and me. Subconsciously, there probably was part of me as there consciously was in many others who wanted this tragedy to turn out to be that way for political advantage. I may disagree with the Tea Party, believe them to be terribly misinformed and inflamed by the likes of Glenn Beck, but they aren't all homicidal lunatics.

When so many on the left criticized Jon Stewart's rally, claiming he was trying to make both sides equivalent, in the wake of Saturday's events, now he seems more right than ever. Keith Olbermann's Saturday special comment didn't say so explicitly, but if you read between the lines, it was a bit of a mea culpa for his own role. As Sarah Palin rushed to delete her graphic with the gunsight over Giffords' district, Daily Kos also had to delete a post where one of Giffords' constituents said that Giffords was "dead to me" because she voted against Nancy Pelosi for House minority leader.

Already, both sides are starting to revert to old habits. Because we on the left rushed to link the act of a madman to the politics of those we oppose, now those on the right revert to defensive mode and attack us. Hopefully, someone can stop this quickly. This is an opportunity for everyone to step back, take a breath and restore civility to the political process. I'm not saying compromise your principles, but it's long past time where both sides stop treating political opponents as the enemy. As it's been said many times, you can disagree without being disagreeable. The political climate probably didn't set Loughner off, but both parties need to look at themselves critically and seriously.

I hope that people take Pima County, Ariz., Sheriff Clarence Gupnik to heart and start rejecting the Becks and Limbaughs, but the only way that happens is when they get hit where it really hurts: the wallet. Beck has shown those signs with the loss of lots of sponsors, being taken off a big New York radio station and even dropping numbers on Fox News. I wish their listeners realized they were in it for the money, but oh well.

What really needs to be addressed seriously is the fact that this country has a gun problem and it's had a gun problem for a long time. A man rejected by the military, kicked out of college and who worried others around him was still allowed to legally purchase his Glock and, more importantly, his high-volume ammunition clips. He had three clips which had 33 rounds each. These sorts of clips were illegal under the assault weapons ban which was allowed to expire during the Bush Administration. If that law were still in place, he could only have purchased clips that held 10 rounds, meaning he would have to reload more frequently and the bloodshed would have been less. I hope the NRA and their friends in Congress are proud. Right now, Arizona is considering allowing faculty and college students to carry concealed weapons without a permit.

We also have to improve our ability to treat the mentally ill. In a rare moment of a television newsperson saying something profound, Lester Holt did the other day when he said that in the end, the motive doesn't matter. Six people are still dead, including a 9-year-old student council president born on 9/11.

Palin e-mails Beck claiming to hate violence, war

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Politico:

Sarah Palin reached out to Glenn Beck over the weekend, and Beck read some of their email exchange on his radio show this morning.

"Sarah, as you know, peace is always the answer. I know you are felling the same heat, if not much more on this," Beck wrote.

Beck expressed concern about Palin's safety, and urged her to hire the same Los Angeles-based security firm that he uses.

The rhetoric of both Beck and Palin has been cited by both liberals and some of the mainstream media as examples of the kind of overheated political discourse that, if not directly connected to the Tucson shooting, has created an environment in which a similar thing might happen again.

"I hate violence," Palin wrote back. "I hate war. Our children will not have peace if politicos just capitalize on this to succeed in portraying anyone as inciting terror and violence."

Let me be clear about something. Speaking just for myself -- and certainly not for others who have spoken out against Palin, Beck, and other right-wing demagogues the past few days, though I suspect they would agree with me -- I do not believe that Palin directly incited violence or was directly behind the Arizona shooting. I wrote this in my first post on the shooting Saturday evening.

My point, and the point many of us have made, is that many on the right, including Palin and other extremely influential conservatives / Republicans, need at long last to be held responsible both for their rhetoric of violence, often eliminationist, and for promoting an extremist ideology that provides the dark background context -- indirectly, perhaps -- for Saturday's incident. As I wrote on Sunday, it isn't so much the rhetoric as the rhetoric combined with the ideology. Therein lies the problem, and it was a cauldron that was bound to overflow.

Is Palin a woman of peace? Maybe, in some way, and yet her views hardly reflect that. She supports war as the answer to some of America's problems, or as the answer to advancing America's interests, she promotes the Bush-Cheney national security state, and she advocates the use of torture. And of course her rhetoric, as we heard in her rabble-rousing speeches during the '08 campaign, as well as last year, is hardly "peaceful."

Does Beck really believe that "peace is always the answer"? Well, he may believe that he does, but obviously he doesn't. He may be less of a military interventionist / fetishist than others on the right, including Palin, but he, too, uses the rhetoric of violence against his perceived foes, whom he trumps us as enemies of America, as traitors and heretics to be destroyed. And of course his paranoid conspiracy theorizing, along with his rabid fearmongering, as we hear day after day, night after night, on his radio and TV shows, is hardly "peaceful."

Look, I admit, they're saying the right things -- even if Palin's minions are scrubbing her website clean of any and all evidence of violent propagandizing (including against Rep. Giffords). And maybe their followers, and specifically some of their more unhinged followers, will take their current peace-loving claims seriously. If so, that would be a very good thing, something we need a lot more of on the right.

But I just don't believe them, either of them. Palin has been professing her innocence, but she is not about to change. And neither, of course, is Beck.

They may claim to love peace and hate war, but their ideology of terror will continue to be their foundation, will continue to find an eager and receptive audience among conservatives, and within the Republican Party, and will continue to wreak havoc on America and the world.

The pattern takes hold

By Mustang Bobby

The pattern is sadly the same. A horrible incident occurs with people being killed by a single person. The media coverage saturates everything, spreading out like rising flood waters. In the initial minutes and hours no one really knows any answers so they grab the slightest bit of speculation and put it on the air to fill the space between the re-running of the initial reports and endless video loops of flashing lights at the scene to cautious -- and often wrong -- rumors, including false reports of deaths of the victims.

As the situation begins to solidify and the facts become known, the hastily-called press conferences begin with updates from the hospital and the police and new names are added to the American lexicon. The cable news networks have come up with a concise title for the incident and even put up somber music and graphics to go with it. Special broadcasts are scheduled for later that evening, giving the producers time to call in their analysts so the first round of speculation, navel-gazing, and finger-pointing can begin.

Meanwhile, the news media is trying hard to fill the time, so they are interviewing everybody, even themselves. If the suspect has been caught, the police are leaking information about the person, apparently in the hopes of shaking something loose, such as background or motive; the public can always be counted on to come forward and tell what they know if it gets them on TV. The friends and neighbors invariably report that the suspect was a kind of quiet person, always kept to themselves, never gave much of a hint of trouble, but they always knew there was something a little "off" about him. Thanks to the social networks, the suspect will have posted subtle warning signs about his plans; it is hard to resist the need to let the world know, however cryptically, that they were planning this for some time. And the sketchy and incoherent image of a tortured soul comes forward. But for now, he is as quiet as the dead; it won't be until a trial that we hear anything from him again... assuming he did not turn the gun on himself.

The political framing is already taking shape. Each side has pronounced their horror and outrage -- on that they are equally firm -- but already the posturing is being framed for the inevitable contest of soundbites that blame one side or the other, or, most maddeningly of all, both sides equally. The political parties will instantly search their databases to determine if there was any connection between themselves and the suspect, and the one that comes closest will immediately gulp and then issue a defiant statement condemning the action and, at the same time, disavow any connection, knowing full well their opponents are focusing on them. (Meanwhile the conspiracy theorists are seeing a vast connection between both sides and the CIA.) Within 24 hours all the resources have been mustered to air a special round-table broadcast of all the best pundits, including the fringe types just to keep in interesting, and the inevitable spokesperson for the gun lobby will confidently report that guns don't kill people; people kill people. With guns.

Everyone will scratch their chins, shake their jowls, nod their heads at the profound prepared off-the-cuff remarks, and then, after they have all decided what the incident portends for everyone involved -- the president, the political parties, and anyone that happens to be there, including the heroic people who got their moments in the spotlight -- the networks and the blogs, including this one, will return to the status quo, and the regularly scheduled programming already in progress will be rejoined.

Within a surprisingly short time, most of the details of the incident will be forgotten. By the time the seasons change, the names of the dead will have faded from our short-term memory; the only reminders will be the trial of the suspect, but that will be the fourth or fifth story on the news, just ahead of the update on a celebrity in rehab. And the only people who will remember this with the clarity and pain are the victims; the families of the dead and the survivors who, even if they recover from the physical trauma, will never be truly healed.

Worst of all, we will immediately seek to absolve ourselves of any culpability. One person did this; one "lone wolf," with serious mental problems, we're told, as if that is a way of comforting ourselves that we are not to blame. It wasn't anything we did; maybe it was the other guys, and when the other guys are confronted, they turn back and say, well, you had something to do with it. And then everyone agrees that if we all had something to do with it, then nothing can be done about it.

As I said, the pattern is always the same; Dallas 1963, Memphis and Los Angeles 1968, and, more recently, Oklahoma City, Columbine, Virginia Tech, Fort Hood, and on and on. It devolves to a single name to cue the recollection; this past weekend will be known as "Tucson." We follow the script because that's the way we process the information, and we try to put it behind us and move on because to dwell on it would not make it any better; the healing -- such as it is -- could not happen. But it rarely changes us. No profound shift will come to our national psyche; no deep assessment and re-evaluation of our social make-up will occur; it didn't after the murder of a president or the countless number of other rampages since then. It is both the blessing and the curse of our collective mind that we have the ability to move on; it is a sign of optimism, but it also means we give up much of a chance of learning anything. The pattern takes hold.

(Cross-posted from Bark Bark Woof Woof.)

Not even bloodshed is cause for pause

By Nicholas Wilbur

Hope died this weekend, at least one of the faces of hope – that of Christina Green, whose life was taken by a gunman at a political event in Tucson Saturday morning.

The 9-year-old Christina, who studied ballet and had just been elected to student council, according to news reports, was one of the children featured in a book titled, Faces of Hope: Babies Born on 9/11.

The gunman, Jared Lee Loughner, took the lives of at least six people and injured 14 others in an attempted assassination of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-Ariz.). Giffords, a known foe of the Tea Party, was shot point blank in the head. Miraculously, she is in critical condition but recovering from surgery.

If I am guilty of heartlessly "politicizing" a tragedy by commenting on the attempted assassination of a politician, then so be it. Loughner shot a politician. It doesn't get more political.

We do not yet know the motives of the shooter. We know only that he was obsessed with the gold standard, a regular Glenn Beck talking point; that despite his attempts he was denied from serving in the Army; and that he was regarded by neighbors and former classmates as rather odd.

We also know that the past several years have been some of the craziest, politically, in decades.

After the shooting, Pima County Sheriff Clarence Dupnik said this: "When you look at unbalanced people, how they respond to the vitriol that comes out of certain mouths about tearing down the government... The anger, the hatred, the bigotry that goes on in this country is getting to be outrageous, and unfortunately Arizona has become sort of the capital. We have become the Mecca for prejudice and bigotry."

Dupnik is correct, but he's wrong to fault Arizona. This is not Gov. Jan Brewer's fault, just as it is not the fault of Beck or Sarah Palin. Putting Congresswoman Giffords in the political "crosshairs" during a heated election campaign was thoughtless and irresponsible. But it has not been cited as Loughner's motivation for murder. Neither is there any indication that Loughner killed simply because Palin advised "commonsense Americans" to "RELOAD."

He killed because, in his mind, killing was the logical next step to all of the radical talk of revolution that is now commonplace in the media. He was putting rhetoric into action. 

No, television didn't kill Christina Green, and it is not solely responsible for the moral decay of one man, just as guns are not solely responsible for violence in general. But no one can deny the conscious and subconscious influence of the images we absorb on a daily basis, the violence, the hatred, the scandals, the anger, the pointed political rhetoric and the accusations of treason, of domestic terrorism, of socialism, of Marxism against anyone who thinks differently, believes differently, and lives differently than the media celebrities we tune into throughout the day.

If we are still wondering how such hatred is allowed, we need not look any further than our own bathroom mirrors. The programs and media celebrities who spread this hatred are given airtime because we tune in, blindly, faithfully, daily.

We have devolved into a nation of TV-obsessed spectators, where the average American spends two months of every year tuned in to a box of lights and wires, as Edward Murrow once put it, that seeks no longer to educate and enlighten the people of a great nation, but to polarize it.

And it has succeeded, again.

Earlier this year, a New Yorker slashed the throat of a Muslim cab driver at the political peak of a weeks-long media blitz surrounding the "Ground Zero Mosque." Every day, the news talked about the "terror dollars" funding the "terror mosque," how Sharia law was taking over the American judicial system, how the president of the United States was a Muslim, a Kenya-born colonialist, a racist!

We tuned in and drank it down without pausing to reflect on the effects of this political passion and the influence such lunacy could have on the morally malleable among us. And then a man nearly died. Not five months later, a 9-year-old face of hope did die.

Have we learned nothing? Will we learn anything from this tragedy? Will we tone down our political discourse even a notch? Will the murder of a child make it clear just how sick we have become?

It does not appear so.

Here is a small sampling of comments made on several major news networks covering the Tucson shooting:

Unfortunately people lose their lives violently every day in our country. The root cause of most of this evil is liberalism.

There’s a reason behind all this. Maybe (Giffords) pissed Reid off.

GOOD RIDDANCE!!!

Was this a “second amendment solution” to a political problem?

THIS IS A GREAT DAY IN NATIONAL POLITICS. TEH BIMBO SHOULD HAVE BEEN IN THE KITCHEN, BAREFOOT AND PREGNANT. THAT’S WHAT WOMEN WERE MADE FOR.

And this, from a blogger by the name of Andrea Rouda in a post titled "Speaking of Target Practice": 

Caligula. JFK. Anwar Sadat. Martin Luther King, Jr. Medgar Evers. Benazir Bhutto. John Lennon. Bobby Kennedy. Sam Cooke. Abraham Lincoln. Marvin Gaye. Indira Gandhi. George Tiller. Malcolm X. All killed by a crazy person.

What a waste, especially since there are so many good targets still out there. Take Keith Olbermann. In the wake of yesterday’s horrific shooting of a young congresswoman, the Devil himself who walks among us in the form of a TV "journalist" has decided that Sarah Palin and the Tea Party are responsible and is spreading his usual vitriol.

Please, won't somebody stop him? 

UPDATE: I have just discovered that the Rouda blog post has just been deleted. Fortunately, it is preserved here and at at least one other site (Mediaite), if for no other reason than to serve as a reminder of just how inhumane humanity sometimes is.

Political rhetoric and political violence: Are conservatives like Palin to blame for the Arizona shooting?

By Michael J.W. Stickings

In the wake of yesterday's deadly shooting in Arizona, the assassination attempt on Democratic Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, with fingers being pointed (justifiably, I think) at the likes of Sarah Palin (and the Tea Party, as well as much of the Republican Party), much of the talk today is about political speech:

Do Palin and others deserve any of the blame for what happened yesterday? More broadly, what is appropriate and what isn't?

At Slate, Jack Shafer defends "inflammatory rhetoric and violent imagery," criticizing those, like Keith Olbermann, who are calling for American political rhetoric to change. Shafer writes:

Only the tiniest handful of people -- most of whom are already behind bars, in psychiatric institutions, or on psycho-meds -- can be driven to kill by political whispers or shouts. Asking us to forever hold our tongues lest we awake their deeper demons infantilizes and neuters us and makes politicians no safer.

At The Daily Beast, Howard Kurtz, another media-focused pundit/apologist, takes a somewhat more balanced approach, noting that such violent rhetoric, while "highly unfortunate," is hardly new. He writes:

Let's be honest: Journalists often use military terminology in describing campaigns. We talk about the air war, the bombshells, targeting politicians, knocking them off, candidates returning fire or being out of ammunition. So we shouldn't act shocked when politicians do the same thing. Obviously, Palin should have used dots or asterisks on her map. But does anyone seriously believe she was trying to incite violence?

To a certain extent, Kurtz is right. And it isn't just in politics. How often do we hear military terminology used in sports? Take the NFL, where winning the war in the trenches is part of every game. But to a certain extent, he is also deeply naive. Palin may not explicitly have been trying to incite violence, but the reality is that words have consequences. This is hardly a new observation, but it bears repeating.

(Update: I realize I'm being way too nice to Kurtz here. His piece, like Shafer's, is appallingly smug. For a sound critique, see Sullivan.)

When you whip up a frenzy and try to mobilize the mobs who follow you unthinkingly, as Palin did during the '08 campaign and again last year, you plant seeds in the minds of those who may not quite get what you're doing, who may not appreciate all the various nuances of political speech. Even if we give Palin and others on the right the benefit of the doubt and allow that all they were doing was trying to rally their "troops" to vote, the possibility, if not the likelihood, remained that one or more of those "troops" would misinterpret the message.

Palin may not have been talking about killing Giffords when she put her in the crosshairs, but it's hardly a stretch to think that others might take her literally. And when you add to that the obsession with guns that animates so much of the right, including both the Tea Party and the Republican Party -- think back to the guns that showed up at health-care town halls a couple of years ago -- what you end up with is a cauldron of potential violence just waiting to explode.

In a perfect world, or at least in a world of universal rationality, Shafer may well be right. We should all be mature enough to understand the context of political speech, including that which is inflammatory and violent. But we don't live in such a world, and the fact remains that all is takes is one person with a gun, or whatever other weapon, to turn whispers or shouts into a bloodbath.

What's more, this isn't just about speech but about ideology as well. It's not just that Palin put Giffords and others in the crosshairs, targeting them, or that military terminology is prevalent specifically on the right, but that conservatism today, as reflected in both the Tea Party and the Republican Party, is exceedingly violent. It isn't just about limited government, it's about conspiracy theories rooted in anti-government, and specifically anti-federal government paranoia. It isn't just about the right to bear arms, it's about owing guns en masse, carrying them in public (whether concealed or right out in the open), and flaunting them (and also using them) as political protest.

All of this, too, is in that cauldron, and it's threatening to bubble over for years. From time to time it has, and what happened yesterday was just the most dramatic incident so far. It could very well get even worse.

As I do not in theory disagree with Shafer and Kurtz, I do not necessarily disagree with Olbermann (see his comment below) and others who are calling for political speech to be more responsible. I certainly do not want this to be yet another Janet Jackson moment, with a single incident (however tragic, in this case, unlike the mere exposure of a nipple) leading to gross over-reaction. Remember when 9/11 was supposed to have been the end of irony? Of course it wasn't. People moved on. And there will continue to be violent political rhetoric even after this.

No, what I worry about is not so much political speech itself but that speech, when violent, combined with a similarly violent political ideology, as we find on the right today. That's when it gets dangerous, and when, as we have seen in the past, long before yesterday, it can get literally violent.

No, let's not over-react, but let's not just dismiss what happened yesterday as merely the violent outburst of an insane individual acting alone, haunted by demons disconnected from political reality. The context and the discussion need to be broader, absorbing not just political speech on its own, which can usually be justified, but the context of that speech, the ideology behind it and the climate in which it is expressed.

It may still be far too early to pin the blame on anyone or anything in particular, but it's pretty clear, I think, if we do consider speech alongside ideology, that our fingers ought to be pointing at Palin and all those like her on the right, which is to say, at much of American conservatism today, including the Tea Party and the GOP.

We must not allow them to get away with what they're doing. And they should not be allowed to get away with claiming that they had nothing to do with it.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

The rush to judgment in Arizona?

By Distributorcap

The narrative has already taken hold -- due to the lightning speed of the Internet, Twitter, Facebook, and non-stop cable coverage with opinions spouted from so-called journalists -- the sides are already set on the causes of the incident in Tucson.  From the perspective of the nation's political psyche -- there are some similarities to the rush to judgment on 11/22/63 -- the day we lost a president, our innocence, and belief in leadership. Are we rushing to judgment on 1/8/11?

We did lose six people today -- and another notch in the beltway tightens around the leaders of the country. As for innocence -- no matter what the shooter's motivations were (random act, voices in his head, political message, attention, etc.) -- the political process of this country again is forever changed, and changed away from being the open democracy (did we even have one?) the documents of the 1700s set out to pursue.

The shooting of Rep. Giffords is a tipping point -- and, yes, both sides are going to take every opportunity to politicize this to their advantage, without any proof of motivation from Loughner or from his alleged companion, the speculation will become the narrative. Whichever side (wanna take a bet on which side it is?) is more persuasive in arguing its case, that will end up being the truth in bizarro America. 

I will go with the statement from Sheriff Dupnik of Pima County, a man on the front line:

When you look at unbalanced people, how they respond to the vitriol that comes out of certain mouths about tearing down the government. The anger, the hatred, the bigotry that goes on in this country is getting to be outrageous. And, unfortunately, Arizona I think has become sort of the Capital. We have become the Mecca for prejudice and bigotry.

How fast before the right labels him a "liberal sheriff"?

Should we rush to judgment on the cause of Loughner's action? Of course not. Even I am guilty of that. What is very apparent to any sane person is the amount of vitriol coming from supposed leaders and people who can influence the narrative is really poisoning this country. Even if this is a "lone nut" (apparently the sheriff says they are looking for a white man in his 50s, a companion to Loughner), the hate speech that comes from the right in the form of Beck, Limbaugh, Palin, and Bachmann ("armed and loaded") can easily tip over a "lone nut." Can anyone name one person on the left that espouses the same violent rhetoric as Beck or Palin? If it it sounds like I am contracting myself -- about rushing to judgment -- I am. This country needs to carefully examine the limits of crying fire in a crowded theater, even if there is NO direct relationship between today's horrific incident and Palin's crosshairs.

The headlines on the talk shows tomorrow -- "everyone does it." The spin on this will make Linda Blair's head from The Exorcist (which was on today) look like a slow walk in the park. Any references to hate speech from the likes of Beck and Palin will of course be whitewashed by the media, as they direct all thinking towards the "lone nut."

There will be no learning from this experience, no examination of how or why it happened, only ways to prevent it from happening. Hopefully Giffords does recover, though six others for sure will not. The sad part is that America will probably never recover. If we thought in 2011 America that Congressmen were removed from their constituents now, well, wait till you see what the connection will be post-Tucson. NONE of them will be allowed to have these open forums or public gatherings, and they will become more and more isolated and more and more removed from common folks. This will mean they are more and more vulnerable to the influence of those than can get to them -- lobbyists, for example.

This is a watershed day in American politics, but sadly the media will spin it away from America looking at itself and into the "lone nut" theory. Call it the Warren Commission redux: much easier to blame one lunatic than examine society as a whole.

We have a lethal cocktail running around this country, a cocktail combining the lack of adequate care for the mentally ill with Constitutional protection of "First Amendment" hate speech from Beck and Palin and "second amendment" remedies, tossed in with weakened gun laws. And this concoction is a recipe for total disaster. If we don't examine and admit this is more than a "lone nut," this will be just become more cancerous. We know the NRA will somehow spin away the fact that a mentally ill person can carry a concealed weapon to a political rally or that the rhetoric from people like Palin actually encourages more violence. Are we willing to let that go on because it is too painful or too politically difficult to talk about? You betcha.

None of this will be talked about by politicians or the media.

P.S.: Of all the sights and sounds on the tube today, NONE was more disgusting than watching Jan Brewer, who as governor has drastically axed medical coverage in Arizona, to the point of denying transplants, AND encouraged hatred to be the norm in her state with the passage of the draconian immigration bill, shed those crocodile tears. As sure as anything, she will be portrayed her as the caring governor. I refer the good governor to Sheriff Dupnik: "vitriol might be free speech, but it's not without consequences."

Arizona killing: Thoughts on the Gabrielle Giffords assassination attempt

By Michael J.W. Stickings

UPDATED.

I was out and about this afternoon when I heard a brief report on a local radio station about a shooting in Arizona.

My first thought: Great, another shooting in the U.S. Another sad story from a violent, gun-crazy country.

I pulled out my BlackBerry and quickly discovered what had happened -- and who the target was.

My second thought: Well, we sort of knew this was coming, right, this sort of political violence, likely by someone steeped in right-wing ideology? It was only a matter of time.

This is when Twitter is such a useful tool, and I used it gather as much information as I could from the many reliable sources I follow.

My third thought: Okay, we don't yet know all the details, and we do need to be careful not to jump to conclusions, but the circumstantial evidence is already piling up.

Giffords is an enemy of the Tea Party. She narrowly beat a Tea Party GOP opponent in November. She's a Blue Dog, a moderate Democrat, but she voted for health-care reform and supported DADT repeal. She's apparently extremely well-liked.

But her office had been vandalized and there are reports she had to cancel a recent event because of the threat of right-wing violence.

Sarah Palin and others had targeted her specifically, using the rhetoric of violence in their campaign literature and propaganda. Palin specifically had put her "in the crosshairs."

Yes, it was only a matter of time that something like this was going to happen.

I retweeted a great deal and tweeted a great deal of my own this afternoon. You can find all that, should you be interested, @mjwstickings.

My fourth thought: Perhaps this will be a turning point, a tipping point. Perhaps now the media and others will start paying attention to the rhetoric of violence that animates American conservatism today. You don't have to go far to find it. Just listen to the Tea Party, to Beck, to Palin. They need to be held accountable.

To be fair, not all conservatives are like this, even if so many of them either partake of it in some way or at the very least enable it by not speaking out against it.

Boehner, Bachmann, McCain -- these three and others quickly condemned the shooting, and I suppose I take them at their word, even if their hands are not entirely clean, particularly Bachmann's, who is the spinner of many a right-wing conspiracy theory, among other craziness.

(Update: Not surprisingly, Fox News is protecting Palin.

(Update 2: Remarkably, Pima County Sheriff Clarence Dupnik provided some much-needed perspective, pointing the blame in the right direction: "When you look at unbalanced people, how they respond to the vitriol that comes out of certain mouths about tearing down the government. The anger, the hatred, the bigotry that goes on this country is getting to be outrageous and unfortunately Arizona has become sort of the capital. We have become the Mecca for prejudice and bigotry.")

My fifth thought: Let's not get ahead of ourselves. As Rachel Maddow tweeted: "There is nothing to be gained from speculating on the motives and affiliations of AZ shooter w/o facts."

True, but, again, the evidence is piling up. See the many tweets I retweeted, including:

-- Digby: "The shooter sounds nuts, but he also sounds like he's influenced by fringy wingnut politics.

-- Peter Daou: "A shooter like this may be mentally ill, but that doesn't mean a stream of rightwing hate has no effect."

And a thought throughout: How horrible.

In all, so far, the shooting left six dead the 12 wounded. The dead include a federal judge (John Roll, who has faced right-wing threats before), a Giffords staffer, and a nine-year-old girl.

Yes, a child.

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The shooting took place outside a Safeway grocery store in Tucson, Arizona, where Giffords was holding a constituency meeting.

The killer is Jared Lee Loughner. He is in custody.

Giffords was shot once in the head. She made it through surgery and is in critical condition. Doctors are "optimistic" about her chances for recovery.

**********

As FDL's Jane Hamsher reports, Giffords's Tea Party opponent, Jesse Kelly, held an event in June described as such: "Get on Target for Victory in November Help remove Gabrielle Giffords from office Shoot a fully automatic M15 with Jesse Kelly."

As Politico's Ben Smith reports, Loughner "left social media hints," including a YouTube clip:

The police have named a suspect in the shooting of Gabrielle Giffords, Jared Loughner. A person under that name has a YouTube account that includes suggestions of anti-government political views.

"You don't have to accept the federalist laws," the video above says; It also insists on the gold and silver standard, talks of revolution, and suggests that the government is imposing "mind control and brainwash on the people by controlling grammar."

His linked MySpace page, no longer available, included statements about the gold standard and about SWAT teams paying for their equipment with illegal currency.

Among his long list of favorite books in his YouTube profile are Mein Kampf, The Communist Manifesto, Siddhartha.

Loughner also "favorited" just one video on YouTube, which shows the burning of an American flag and is accompanied by an anti-government screed.

No, this isn't just pure Republican extremism, and so I think it's wrong to label him so simply. If this is indeed Loughner, he's an anti-government wacko who is generally on the far right but who is obviously outside of the broad political spectrum of establishment politics.

So, again, we shouldn't get ahead of ourselves. But it's pretty easy to see how the rhetoric of the right, including of the Tea Party and Republican Party right, could have had a great deal of influence on him.

Again, just listen to Beck, listen to the Teabaggers, listen even to Palin and Bachmann, among many others. They may all claim to by hyper-patriotic, but they're all deeply anti-government and especially anti-Washington.

Palin has called the shooting a "tragedy," and of course she's right, but she needs to be held to account for what she has done.

And what is that? FDL's TBogg quotes Palin herself:

Commonsense Conservatives & lovers of America: “Don’t Retreat, Instead – RELOAD!” Pls see my Facebook page.

And also the right-wing Townhall.com (bolding the key parts):

Twenty House Dems from districts that McCain carried in 2008 voted for the health care bill, and Sarah Palin has a target on every single one.

The targets were released on the six month anniversary of Obamacare, and include a lot of familiar names such as John Boccieri (OH), Chris Carney (P N) Gabrielle Giffords (AZ) and Ann Kirpatrick (AZ). The site invites donations, social networking, and the unbeatable Sarah love that has led to a 26:11 win/loss record of candidates in GOP primaries. Granted, some of those were in safe districts, but she’s also pulled off massive upsets that probably outshadow her less successful picks.

Regardless, this site should go a long way towards knocking off the politicians who put their party affiliation ahead of their constituent’s demands. It was announced via a tweet from SarahPalinUSA: "Lies, Damned Lies – Obamacare 6 Months Later; It’s Time to Take Back the 20!"

Here's Palin's map:

Seriously, is it any wonder this has happened?

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I'll conclude this post with a comment from Andrew Sullivan:

Giffords was one of twenty members of Congress placed within metaphorical "gun-sights" in SarahPac's graphic. That is not the same thing as placing a gun-sight over someone's face or person. No one can possibly believe -- or should -- that Sarah Palin is anything but horrified by what has taken place. But it remains the kind of rhetorical excess which was warned about at the time, and which loners can use to dreadful purposes. 

We'll have more on this, so stay tuned.

BREAKING: Arizona congresswoman shot

By Edward Copeland

A congresswoman from Arizona was shot on Saturday along with several others during at public event at a grocery store in Tuscon, according to her spokesman, C.J. Karamargin. The Tucson Citizen reported that Ms. Giffords had been shot at close range in the head.

The condition of the congresswoman, Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, a Democrat, remained unclear. She was taken to University Medical Center in Tucson, the trauma center for the area, about 10 miles away.

CNN quoted a public information officer as saying that 12 people had been injured in all.

What The New York Times has so far.