And the misinformation starts

Rhetorical Reality
In “A Few Words in Defense of Our Country,” Randy Newman’s wistful, Bush-era song about the end of the American empire, there is a line about “the leaders we have/are the worst we’ve ever had/but they’re not the worst this poor world has ever seen.” Words to take to heart as we debate whether or not Hate Speech on the right—above all, on Fox News, in the blogosphere, and on Talk Radio—has made events like the attempted Assassination of Congr...

On the tragedy in Arizona, political rhetoric and fingerpointing
Since Saturday’s shooting in Arizona, my comments on the tragedy have been limited because there are a lot of things being said from all sides and I felt that I should wait until more information was discovered before making any comments. Unfortunately, others have felt the need to be reactionary, rush to judgment and blame the most convenient figure(s) or movement to take advantage of the situation in hopes to score cheap political points. Jared Loughner is mentally disturbed, it’s ...

Manufacturing false equivalencies in the wake of the Giffords assassination attempt
Remember how liberals are anti-abortion, spew Paulist Rhetoric on the gold standard, hate government, and stash guns and ammo so they can fight back against an evil government? They're not? Well, that's why Conservatives are desperate to create a climate of false equivalencies, where "both sides do it". And the media, of course, is always happy to play along. So on one side, we have this: Not to mention this stuff, from Gabby Gifford's opponent in 2010: That's all about peace and love and not v...

Tucson Shooting Update
With some 350 comments on the weekend post of the Tucson shootings, you've all clearly got a lot to say. So here's the latest: The Arizona gunman alleged to have pulled the trigger planned to assassinate Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, according to his own words. From The Slatest blog: When the FBI raided Arizona gunman Jared Loughner's parent's home, they found an envelope in a safe that had the words "I planned ahead," "My Assassination" and "Giffords" written on it. That evidence bostered the case...

It's not Sarah Palin's Fault
Are we to now cleanse the language of all references to Firearms and their use, “lock, stock and barrel”? Should we “take aim” at all such word usage? Should we “keep our powder dry” to be ready for the next whacko’s atrocity?  Should we "set our sights" on passing the ridiculous proposed Legislation being introduced in Congress to outlaw the using of certain words when discussing members of that body?  Another terrible episode of violence...

TPM Guide to the Perplexed
In the aftermath of the Giffords shooting there's been a lot of talk about political Speech, politicians and whether there's a climate of violent political Rhetoric. And it's been clear that a lot of politicians weren't clear that certain phrases and statements -- like calling for armed revolution or target practice at Fundraisers -- might lead to misunderstandings. So in the spirit of ettiquette manuals, I thought I'd start putting together a list of things it's probably best not to say simpl...

Libertarian Crybabies and Other Social Pathologies
Among the dumber reactions to the Saturday massacre in Tuscon is the outrage that anyone dare suggest that people tone down their Rhetoric!. For example, see Libertarian Jack Shafer’s childish Temper Tantrum at Slate. Some background — you might have heard that Pima County Sheriff Clarence Dupnik spoke out against inflammatory political rhetoric after the shooting - “When you look at unbalanced people, how they respond to the vitriol that comes out of certain mouths ab...

Difference of opinion is what makes the world go round
Posted by Guest Blogger Locutisprime. According to the Pima County sheriff, differences of opinion are what makes the world go round. Except of course when your opinion differs from his or other Liberal Democrats or the political talking points and politicians that he and they support. I have to agree. There are consequences to 'this type of behavior.' Of course, the type of behavior that this sheriff is alluding to, is any behavior (specifically Speech) that is contrary to the best wish...

Two Wannabe Political Pundits in One
Roger Ebert on Sarah Palin, August 19, 2010: By implying Dr. Laura was silenced by “Constitutional obstructionists,” [Palin] employs the methodology of the Big Lie, defined in Mein Kampf as an untruth so colossal that “no one would believe that others could have the impudence to distort the truth so infamously.” Roger Ebert on Sarah Palin, January 8th, 2011: Sarah Palin rummages online frantically erasing her rabble-rousing Tweets like a Stalinist trimming non-persons out of photos

The Politics of Assassination
On Saturday morning, the Nation took a collective gasp as it was reported that an attempted Assassination had taken place in Tuscan, Arizona.  The target, Democrat Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords was shot by a lone gunman.  The Congresswoman survived, miraculously, because the bullet which entered her brain passed through completely and did not enter the other lobe.  As the gunman, 22-year-old Jared Lee Loughner, tried to reload his weapon a woman rose and hit the gun and clip fr...

Manufacturing false equivalencies
Remember how liberals are anti-abortion, spew Paulist Rhetoric on the gold standard, hate government, and stash guns and ammo so they can fight back against an evil government? They're not? Well, that's why Conservatives are desperate to create a climate of false equivalencies, where "both sides do it". And the media, of course, is always happy to play along. So on one side, we have this: Not to mention this stuff, from Gabby Gifford's opponent in 2010: That's all about peace and love and not v...

Don't Blame the Gabrielle Giffords Attack on Overheated Rhetoric
A lunatic opens fire in public, and even before the cable-news air-fillers do their thing, a sort of involuntary political reflex occurs. The right worries: “I hope he wasn’t one of ours.” And the left chomps: “I bet he was one of theirs.” As now seems abundantly clear, Jared Loughner, the alleged shooter, was not on anyone’s “team.” Aside from revealing Conservatives’ newfound oversensitivity and defensiveness, as well as liberals’ s...

Palin Responds Via Beck
With what appears to me to be a renewed threat of violence: I hate violence. 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. It's barely literate, but what can it mean that Children "will not have peace" if people are held morally responsible for consequences of their violent Rhetoric? How can asking people to turn the volume down lead to an absence of peace? Then this: According to...

alicublog
WON'T SOMEBODY PLEASE THINK OF THE WingnutS? Since I wrote about it at the Voice, it's just gotten worse: The entire Right Wing is in mourning over the recent Assassination of their reputations. (I hear some Democratic Congresswoman got shot, too, but they don't have much to say about that.) The Corner is one long blubber-fest. Brian Bolduc repurposes a Glenn Beck Press Release "decrying" -- get this -- "political opportunism of all stripes." Yeah, let's get past these sideshows and fight the re...

What Riverdaughter said
There seem to be two major camps regarding this tragedy: Sarah Palin is a monster and the Tea Partiers must be blamed. Or, Sarah Palin is the scapegoat and her picture had nothing to do with this tragic incident. I prefer the third way. .... In the past 18 years, starting with the advent of Rush Limbaugh, we saw a ratcheting up of Right Wing Extremism. ... And it is into this environment that Sarah Palin steps as the champion of a new set of people. A group that even the Right Wing Republicans ...

Blaming Cannabis, Ctd
A reader writes: Frum's suggestion that pot is the true culprit in the Tucson massacre is ridiculous on its face. My daughter has been hospitalized three times due to psychotic breaks, so I know that many things can trigger such an episode. Copious amounts of marijuana, sure. Alcohol even more so, and with much more moderate usage. Any mind-altering substance used recreationally is dangerous for the mentally ill, but fasting or having one's sleep disrupted can also trigger psychotic br...

'McCarthyism' it isn't
'McCarthyism' IT ISN'T.... I expect conservative to circle the wagons during a tense time, but Bill Kristol is throwing around some odd Rhetoric. A conservative pundit on Monday ripped liberals who have suggested that Sarah Palin is to blame for the shooting tragedy in Arizona. During an appearance on C-SPAN's "Washington Journal," Bill Kristol of the conservative-leaning Weekly Standard magazine called the criticism of the former Alaska Governor "a disgrace." He said there is no proof that J...

Rush Bails Water In Wake Of Arizona Shooting
WASHINGTON -- Rush Limbaugh lashed out Monday at critics who linked the Tucson shootings to the confrontational, gun-themed Rhetoric of Conservatives such as Sarah Palin and the Tea Party. Limbaugh's talking points are a guide to the ways in which the political right -- from establishment Republicans in Washington to the Tea Party at the Grassroots level -- will fight back against attempts to tie them to Jared Lee Loughner. The political coverage of the Loughner story is "childish and immature...

Massacre in Tucson A Sad Day for America: Salzburger Nachrichten, Austria
How responsible is right-wing Rhetoric for the Assassination attempt against Democratic Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords? According to columnist Thomas Spang of Austria’s Salzburger Nachrichten, where to pin the blame couldn’t be clearer. For the Salzburger Nachrichten, Thomas Spang writes in part: For months, the political right has been turning up the heat in the United States. In this poisoned atmosphere, a young man reaches for his gun. In the political discourse of the United ...

Report from the Hill
REPORT FROM THE HILL.... I traded emails today with a Capitol Hill Staffer with whom I speak regularly, and I think the aide's perspective is worth passing along. (I'm republishing the staffer's note in its entirety with permission.) To say hill staff is shook up after the weekend's events would be an understatement. We are family up here and I know I'm not the only who has already gotten requests from family to find another line of work. We have had this in the back of our minds for quite som...

After Tucson
The "debate" over the alleged connection between right-wing Rhetoric and the Shooting Spree in Tucson this weekend isn't turning into much of a debate at all. As evidence mounts about the scrambled thinking of mass murderer Jared Loughner, the few liberal voices willing to draw a direct connection between right-wing demonization of target Gabrielle Giffords and the shootings have grown even more sparse. This hasn't, of course, kept Conservatives from seizing on such talk to play the Victim, bi...

Is al Qaeda the Greater Assassination Threat?
I'm with Joe in thinking that the tragic Tucson shootings are being over-politicized, and likewise Jon Chait has wise words on the subject. (I think Jon understates the influence that inflammatory Rhetoric can have on the mentally unstable, but then I'm no psychologist.) That said, the most explicit political talk of things like "Second Amendment remedies" is wildly irresponsible and hopefully this tragedy can serve as an opportunity to stamp out that sort of conversation, whether or not there's...

Eric Boehlert: The Right's Rising Tide of Violent Rhetoric
Rep. Gabrielle Giffords appears be the latest Victim of anti-government violence that has taken hold in America since 2009. It's a wave of violence that's cresting along with a tide of hateful, insurrectionist Rhetoric that far too many Conservatives refuse to condemn. Instead, the toxic talk is routinely defended as being nothing more than spirited debate. It's not. It's deadly. And until those in positions of power say so, the dangerous Rhetoric is likely to continue. Whether that Rhetoric ...

Jared Lee Loughner, mental illness, and fringe politics
As appalled as I've been over the past couple of years by ads like this, veiled allusions to insurrection, and the otherizing of the president, I've found arguments drawing connections between a "climate of hate" and Loughner unpersausive. Simply put, the case that far-right Rhetoric contributed or caused this Killing Spree strikes me as squishy, and, at the moment, unprovable. In The Times and Post this morning, there are some of the calling-cards of the conspiratorial right. But more relevant,...

The rapid slide of Palin
Since the Right Wing, and especially the Tea Party, have been the Epicenter of political anger, they can expect much tougher coverage--even though Loughner had no apparent connection to the Tea Party and had a reading list (Communist Manifesto, Mein Kampf [my bad, wrote that pre-coffee]) as far to the left as other of his positions (gold standard, hatred of government) were to the right. And of course it's pointless to try and read too much into a lunatic's politics, anyway. It will b...