John Wellington Ennis: It's Not Sarah Palin's Fault

In They Are Who We Thought They Were News..
I had put this in the replies in yesterday’s Afternoon Open Thread, but I thought about it, and decided to FP it. In an apparent effort to distance themselves from the Mass Shootings in Arizona over the weekend, the Tea Party Express sent out an email to supporters proclaiming that they “won’t be silenced” — and asking for contributions. Earlier today, TPE leader Sal Russo went on Fox News and lamented how “revolting and disgusting the left is for trying to as...

On Jared Loughner: The politicized mind
Before he allegedly went off on his shooting rampage in Tucson, Jared Loughner listed some of his favorite books on his YouTube page. These included: “Animal Farm,” “Brave New World,” “Alice in Wonderland,” “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest,” “Through the Looking Glass” and “The Communist Manifesto.” Many of these books share a common theme: individuals trying to control their own thoughts and government or some other f...

Glenn Beck Defends Sarah Palin With New Pledge Scam
It was a no-brainer that Glenn Beck would jump on the hastily gerrymandered “FOX ‘News’ Protect Palin” bandwagon after the Tucson massacre. Beck has a lot invested emotionally in the Half-Governor. Not only is she his BFF—she was his first guest on Fox “News”—but he is also knew that an attack on Sarah Palin for her “target maps” would quickly spread to the Beckinator himself. As offensive as the bulls eyes might have been—and the...

Twitter roundup
BrendanNyhan Jan 11, 2011 at 2:37pm Matthew Dowd: "If the jobs #s don't improve... the president could locate his HQ on Mars & it wouldn't make a difference" https://j.mp/fpEz8S The Over/Under for 2012 - Matthew Dowd - Politics - The Atlantic Obama will need better numbers to win BrendanNyhan Jan 11, 2011 at 2:21pm Much credit to @ezraklein for retracting his attack on Joe Lieberman's motives https://j.mp/dE7rmx (original post on it: https://j.mp/gp9Qpa) Ezra Klein - A good...

Most Americans don't see link between Arizona shootings, political rhetoric, poll finds
A sizable majority of Americans said they did not believe that harsh political Rhetoric was the reason a gunman opened fire over the weekend in Tucson, killing six and wounding 14, including Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, according to a CBS News poll released Tuesday. The finding comes as Republicans and Democrats have sparred over whether recent heated political Rhetoric may have been a factor in the shootings. Giffords was among 20 lawmakers targeted in campaign literature by Sarah Palin, the conse...

Brave Woman Who Grabbed Clip from Shooter Blames Right-Wing Media and Rhetoric In Fox News Interview
Patricia Maisch, 61, was the brave woman who kept alleged shooter Jared Loughner from unloading a second clip into a Tuscon crowd on Saturday. Wounded herself from a bullet, she saw him attempting to equip his gun with another magazine, grabbed him and knelt on his ankle, delaying the reload and potentially saving many more lives.  So when Fox News interviewed her on Sunday, they clearly wanted to know if her strength could translate to psychic healing as Americans grappled with the tragedy...

Does Beck Think Americans Are Weak?
Tue Jan. 11, 2011 8:37 AM PST Why doesn't Glenn Beck have confidence in America? During his Monday Radio Show—when the subject was the Tucson tragedy—Beck came to the rescue of his friend Sarah Palin, who had come under criticism for a map her political action group had created last year that placed cross-hairs over the districts of 20 Democratic legislators it had targeted—including the one represented by Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-Ariz.). Beck read to his audience an email f...

Arizona sheriff condemns Limbaughs irresponsible rhetoric
Stumble This! An Arizona sheriff responsible for investigating the shooting of Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords (D-AZ) confronted conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh Tuesday for the "irresponsible" Rhetoric he uses on his Radio Show. "The kind of Rhetoric that flows from people like Rush Limbaugh, in my judgment he is irresponsible, uses partial information, sometimes wrong information," Pima County Sheriff Clarence Dupnik told ABC News. "[Limbaugh] attacks people, angers them against governm...

U.S. public says Giffords shooting, rhetoric unrelated
Most Americans see no relation between the attempted Assassination of congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords and the political tactic of lacing vitriolic Rhetoric with Firearms analogies. That’s the conclusion of a CBS News poll that found most Republicans (69 pct), most Independents (56 pct) and even a plurality of Democrats (49 pct) believe the two phenomena unrelated. Those numbers add up to 57 percent of Americans overall — a true majority though not quite big enough to break a Se...

Poll: Most Say Rhetoric, Killings Unrelated
From a deeply saddened CBS News: Poll: Most Americans Feel Rhetoric, Tucson Shooting Unrelated Posted by Daniel Carty January 11, 2011 Nearly six in 10 Americans say the country’s heated political rhetoric is not to blame for the Tucson shooting rampage that left six dead and critically wounded U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, according to a CBS News poll. So either our media master has better ratchet up their efforts or move on to their fall back position - Gun Control. In the wake ...

Poll: Rhetoric, Arizona Shooting Unrelated
Almost 60 percent of the public believes that heated political Rhetoric has nothing to do with an Arizona Shooting Spree that gravely wounded Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D) and killed a Federal Judge. Fifty-seven percent of respondents in a new CBS News poll said Rhetoric is unrelated to the shooting, while 32 percent said they believe the two are connected. You must login to comment. The Fox Nation is for those opposed to intolerance, excessive government control of our lives, and attempts to mono...

Majority doesn't blame rhetoric for Giffords shooting
Since the Saturday incident in which Arizona Representative Gabrielle Giffords was shot at point-blank range, various politicians and commentators have said a climate in which strong language and ideological polarization is common may have contributed to the attack. Some of the analysts cited anti-government statements from the man arrested in the shooting, Jared Lee Loughner, as support for that view. But CBS said its nationwide telephone poll found that, "57 percent of respondents said the ha...

Only 32% of Americans Feel Political Rhetoric is to Blame for Jared Loughner Tucson Shooting Massacre
Once again Liberals, Democrats and yhe MSM find themselves on the wrong side with the American People … 57% of Americans believe that political Rhetoric was not to blame for the murderous acts on Saturday by gunman Jared Loughner. Only 32% believe Rhetoric was to blame as many jumped to conclusions and fueled their political agenda like Pima County Sheriff Clarence Dupnik. Many Democrats, Liberals and their complicit liberal mouth pieces in the media were quick to exploit the Tucson

Majority doesn't blame rhetoric for Giffords shooting
WASHINGTON | Tue Jan 11, 2011 11:46am EST WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A majority of Americans reject the view that heated political Rhetoric was a factor in the weekend shootings in Arizona which killed six and critically wounded a congresswoman, a CBS News said on Tuesday. Since the Saturday incident in which Arizona Representative Gabrielle Giffords was shot at point-blank range, various politicians and commentators have said a climate in which strong language and ideological polarization is com...

In Wake of Tucson Shooting, Joe Manchin Says He'd Reconsider Gun Ad
(Credit: CBS/AP) In the wake of Saturday's tragic shooting in Tucson, many have been quick to lay blame on Sarah Palin for using the image of crosshairs during Midterm Elections to "target" lawmakers. Plenty of other politicians, however, used gun imagery during the 2010 midterms, including West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin (D). The new senator said Monday that, in light of the Tucson shooting, he doubts his future campaigns would use such imagery again. "I can't say that we would, I really ca...

Right-Wings Dupnik Pile-On Continues
After calling for politicians and political commentators to tone down violent and hateful political Rhetoric, Sheriff Clarence Dupnik is now experiencing himself the force of right-wing hostility and rancor. Dupnik never suggested that the deeply disturbed shooter was directly influenced by political debate, but called into question the use of vicious rhetoric and violent imagery that has become all too commonplace in political discourse today. “The anger, the hatred, the Bigotry that goes...

Right Wingers Defend Hate Speech While Tea Party Takes Advantage of Arizona Shooting To Raise Money
While Jared Loughner’s Extremist views differ from those of the Tea Party, many have raised concerns that the anti-government and hate-filled Rhetoric coming from the Tea Party movement, along with leaders such as Sarah Palin and Glenn Beck, contribute to an atmosphere of hate which promotes violence among disturbed individuals such as Loughner. There is a fine line between extremists on both ends of the political spectrum, and I was not at all surprised to see that Loughner’s view...

Hate Speech the Rights Magic Bullet (Guest Voice)
Hate Speech the Right’s Magic Bullet by Michael Winship The Russian playwright Anton Chekhov had a rule: if you show a gun in the first act, by the time the curtain falls, it has to go off. For weeks and months, that gun, the weapon of angry Rhetoric and intemperate rabblerousing, has been cocked and loaded in plain view on the American stage; Saturday morning outside a Shopping Mall in Tucson, Arizona, it went off again and again and again. The target, Gabrielle Giffords, a member of the Un...

'Loughner was crazy' argument misses the point in the Arizona shootings case
Last Saturday Jared Lee Loughner alleged shot and  killed six people and injured another fourteen at public event hosted by Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords (D-AZ).  Since that time some have claimed that Loughner behavior was caused, at least in part, by the heated political of the past two years.  Others have essentially argued that Loughner was a "nutjob" or "a crazed Lone Wolf", that society had no control over.  Bill O'Reilly and Glenn Beck both argued that Lougher was s...

Media whitewashes ultra-right in Arizona massacre
Here the central role was played by the ultra-right media campaign mounted by Fox News, Talk Show hosts like Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh, and the Tea Party wing of the Republican Party, including one Republican Senate Candidate who called for a "Second Amendment solution" to political issues -- i.e., the use of Firearms. As the World Socialist Web Site explained yesterday (See "Arizona Assassination spree tied to political right"), the political conceptions in Loughner's Internet postings are...

"Sarah Palin made him do it!" means Narrative failure
"Sarah Palin made him do it!" means Narrative failure While it's still too early to say this conclusively, I think that people who want to read their various political narratives into Jared Lee Loughner are ultimately in for a disappointment. The man's mind is so messed up that he's the political equivalent of schizophrenic word salad (schizophasia): Judging from Mr. Loughner's own website, his mind was a mess of Conspiracy theories, influenced by tracts like "Mein Kampf" and the "Communist Ma...

Palin's ups and downs
The New York Times zeroes in on Sarah Palin's communications, absence of significant communication, and political future. Under criticism that her political Rhetoric had helped create a climate for political violence, Sarah Palin addressed the issue in Trademark Fashion: via e-mail to the conservative commentator Glenn Beck. “Our Children will not have peace if politicos just capitalize on this to succeed in portraying anyone as inciting terror and violence,” Ms. Palin wrote to Mr. B...

Lone nuts and convenient definitions of "terrorism"
"Columbine" author Dave Cullen wrote yesterday that most media figures compulsively -- and incorrectly -- assign all killers to one of two binaries: Crazy or political. Right-wing commentators do the same thing, for the most part, though they tend to say killers are either crazy or Terrorists. And while they'll usually freely admit that Tim McVeigh counted as a terrorist, for the most part they reserve that term for Muslims who kill. There is, for example, Charles Krauthammer's classic column on...

Gentlemen, You Cant Blog Here, This is the War Room!
Jim Geraghty spots this howler: “I understand the idea that, even if Loughner had no idea who Sharron Angle is and even if he never saw Palin’s infamous cross-hairs map, it still makes sense to encourage political leaders to ditch violent Rhetoric,” writes Salon news editor Steve Kornacki at the site’s War Room blog. The first step in encouraging political leaders to ditch violent rhetoric? Stop calling your blog the WAR ROOM. “Oh, the sweet sweet irony…” Bryan Pr

Halperin: Hey, why did conservatives defend themselves from being smeared?
Say, isn’t the phrase “war stations” a use of violent imagery?  I’m just sayin’ …. “I think the media and the politicians have behaved pretty well so far”? The normally sensible Mark Halperin from Time runs off the rails in this segment from today’s Morning Joe, and that was hardly the worst of it. He blamed the “anger of the right-wing commentariat,” including George Will, for the Controversy started when CNN and other media o...