On Violent Metaphors

After the Arizona Murders, Politics As Usual
I thought the shootings in Arizona might cause a brief moment of unity. Twenty shot; six dead, including a little girl; an attempted political Assassination, an attack on Democracy itself. Was I naive to think that the instant reaction might be an uncomplicated desire to unite--in sympathy for the Victims and in deploring a crime against us all? Of course I was. It takes more than this to bridge the divide in American politics. One strand of commentary implicated the political right in the cri...

Why the Left Hates Debate (and Always Has!)
Many leftist Journalists, Bloggers, and talking heads are shamelessly exploiting this weekend’s tragedy in Tucson, Arizona. To them, there is a lesson to be learned in this senseless act of violence by an undeniably troubled man. The New York Times Paul Krugman says he was even “at some level, expecting something like this atrocity” to happen. Krugman concludes: “If Arizona promotes some real soul-searching, it could prove a turning point. If it doesn’t, Saturday’s atro

The Ailes Edict
Forgive me if I’m highly doubtful that Roger Ailes will change anything on Fox News Channel. But the interview with Russell Simmons sure is great PR and is getting a lot of attention. Former Pres. Clinton spoke to the BBC saying politics shouldn’t “degenerate into demonisation” and that the rhetoric “falls on the unhinged and the hinged alike.” He certainly knows this first hand. Less surprising was that Ailes used the platform to scoff at the notion that angr...

Paul Krugman, Buffoon
Posted by John at 6:32 PM Within hours after Jared Loughner's Killing Spree, New York Times columnist Paul Krugman went straight for the gutter, proclaiming, with no evidence whatsoever, that Loughner's act was in all likelihood "political," and going on to blame Republicans for the Murders. I denounced Krugman's vile blog post here. We now know that Loughner's murders were not political. He was deranged and had no coherent political philosophy. To the extent that he had any political beliefs a...

Sensibility and Sociopathy: Jon Stewart, Howard Fineman, and Others React to the Safeway Massacre
Buckle up, because this is a long one. First we will start with Jon Stewart.  This segment should be a warning to anyone on the left who thinks this blood Libel is going to work: not even Jon Stewart is buying it. Now earlier Patterico asked which was worse: inflamed, honest Rhetoric or calm, “civil” smears.  Jon Stewart decides he will take door number three: calm, civil honest rhetoric. So his view is that we can’t really blame overheated Rhetoric for the massacre, ...

Family of Arizona shooting suspect expresses sorrow
TUCSON, Arizona (Reuters) - The family of the accused gunman in the Arizona shooting spree expressed sorrow on Tuesday over the "heinous events" while the congresswoman shot in the head showed signs of improvement. In their first public statement, relatives of Jared Lee Loughner, 22, said it was a "very difficult time" and asked for Privacy. "There are no words that can possibly express how we feel. We wish there were, so we could make you feel better," read the statement, attributed to "The Lo...

Egalitarianism in a Globalized World
A Paul Krugman post gives me an excellent excuse to make a point I’ve been sitting on since Saturday. He says his approach is broadly Rawlsian in nature: My vision of economic Morality is more or less Rawlsian : we should try to create the society each of us would want if we didn’t know in advance who we’d be. And I believe that this vision leads, in practice, to something like the kind of society Western democracies have constructed since World War II — societies in which the hard

Bill Kristol Compares Paul Krugman to McCarthy
Project much Bill? He said there is no proof that Jared Loughner, the suspect, was a fan of Palin or went to her website, which had labeled Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-Ariz.) and other Democrats a political target last year; it was illustrated with a graphic of crosshairs that has triggered a political debate. Federal authorities on Sunday filed Murder charges against Loughner. Kristol said those who are blaming Palin, such as Paul Krugman of The New York Times, are practicing "McCarthyism." "Th...

Reminder: Obama Told Supporters, If They Bring a Knife, We Bring a Gun
(June 14, 2008- WSJ)- Mobster wisdom tells us never to bring a knife to a gun fight. But what does political wisdom say about bringing a gun to a knife fight? That’s exactly what Barack Obama said he would do to counter Republican attacks “If they bring a knife to the fight, we bring a gun,” Obama said at a Philadelphia Fundraiser Friday night. “Because from what I understand folks in Philly like a good brawl. I’ve seen Eagles fans.” Click here to ca...

Allen West Ready for the Offensive
From Bare Naked Islam Allen West is da man! Says he has NO plans to tone down his “strong Rhetoric”  Within hours of the shooting that killed six and critically injured Giffords, some commentators placed the massacre in the context of the nation’s heated political climate and blamed the Tea Party movement, Sarah Palin and other Conservatives although no public evidence has suggested accused gunman Jared Lee Loughner was associated with or sympathetic to any of them. Some critics poi

Could Sheriff's Political Rhetoric Prejudice a Potential Loughner Jury?
Pima County Sheriff Clarence Dupnik may have done considerable harm to the case against accused Tucson gunman Jared Lee Loughner when he announced moments after the rampage, "I think it's time that this country take a little introspective look at the ... crap that comes out on radio and TV." Dupnik stepped up the Rhetoric in the days following the attack on Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, which put Giffords in intensive care, wounded many more and killed six. Calling it his "opinion" and invok...

Setting The Record Straight
Setting The Record Straight by digby There's a Right Wing trope out there that says Daily Kos put a "bullseye" on Giffords, just as Palin did. For the record from Media Matters: Original Daily Kos Post Did Not Contain A Picture Of Giffords Or A Bull's Eye. In a January 10 Daily Kos post, blogger Jed Lewison wrote that the Tea Party Express Fundraising letter "actually goes so far as to suggest that a 2008 post written by Markos was somehow equivalent to Sarah Palin's use of the gunsight image...

Disarm the Mundanes!
New York Republican Congressman Peter King, Chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee and long-time Fundraiser for the so-called Irish Republican Army, reportedly plans to introduce Legislation making it a federal crime for Mundanes to carry Firearms within 1000 feet of a federal official. That proscription wouldn’t apply to the armed goons employed to protect such sanctified personages, of course. ...

Citing shootings, Sen. Sanders solicits campaign donations
Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders (I) issued a Fundraising plea Tuesday in which he cited the Tucson shooting and accused "right-wing reactionaries" of contributing to a threatening political climate. "Given the recent tragedy in Arizona, as well as the start of the new Congress, I wanted to take this opportunity to share a few words with political friends in Vermont and throughout the country," he wrote at the opening of the lengthy plea for campaign donations. Sanders, who is up for Reelection i...

Rubio Puts the Lid on VP Speculation
CNN reports: Washington (CNN) - There are many reasons to place Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Florida, at the top of any 2012 vice presidential shortlist. He’s young, telegenic, a talented Fundraiser, and appealing to the Conservative Base. And perhaps most importantly, he’s a Hispanic hailing from the nation’s largest Battleground state. But Rubio, who has yet to take a vote as a U.S. Senator, was eager to shoot down the speculation in a Radio Interview Monday. “Are you at...

Politico Polishes Boehners Knob
The shooting and Boehner’s handling of the response has served to underscore just how tightly run the GOP House operation has been so far. 2. Both took the oath “via the teevee machine” while attending a Fundraiser at the Capitol Visitors Center organized by the campaign of one of them, a location with a mission that expressly forbids political events. 4. The constitution reading the GOP leaders were so proud of, done at the behest of their Teabagger base, skipped entire pages ...

Jennifer Hudson headlines Emanuel fundraiser
Jennifer Hudson headlined a Fundraising concert for Mayoral Candidate Rahm Emanuel tonight at the House of Blues. He introduced the Chicago native, Academy Award winner and new face of Weight Watchers, but Emanuel did not appear on stage with Hudson. She wore a svelte black dress and opened the brief show with her hit single "Spotlight." Read more in Clout Street. ...

GOP Donors Prepare For A Rowdy Sensenbender
When it comes to the art of the rager in Washington, D.C., no one throws down harder than Rep. James Sensenbrenner (R-Wis.). At least that's what Carole Goeas & Associates would have you believe judging from the title of a planned Fundraiser benefiting the 67-year-old former House Judiciary Committee chairman. An e-mail titled "Martinis & Mayhem with Rep. Sensenbrenner Jan. 25th" went out Tuesday Morning to potential guests for the get-together slated at the Grill 75 Room of the Capitol ...

Unemployment: the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly
I’ve been working on this post for some time, trying to identify a good way to introduce the subject. The graphic above, kindly furnished by The Big Picture, is as good a place to start as any. The Unemployment situation is different in this Recession than in other post-war economic downturns. Jobs are simply not returning at the rate that would have been expected. That Unemployment remains a significant story is borne out by President Obama’s Thursday remarks on the subject: Presi...

The Extreme Rhetoric about Extreme Rhetoric (With Bonus Fake Sinclair Lewis Fascism Quote!)
I’ve yet to see any of those pundits and Bloggers that wished, hoped, prayed that they could wring political points out of the awful crime in Tucson concede that their immediate suggestions (because the smart ones always include a smattering of weasel words and phrases; “probably,” “could be”) that the gunman was a disgruntled Tea Partier were spectacularly wrong. Alas, no one has admitted that they jumped the gun, that political considerations dictated their response to the M

American banks dropping UN mission accounts
Several American banks are closing the accounts of U.N. diplomatic missions in an apparent response to more rigorous U.S. federal reporting rules, U.N. and American officials confirm. A Jan. 7 diplomatic note from the U.S. Mission to the United Nations says ambassadors and mission chiefs will be briefed at U.N. headquarters Thursday about "recent developments concerning the Bank Accounts of diplomatic missions." An announcement of the briefing also appears in the Journal of the United Nations. U...

Doubting Ourselves Through the AZ Shooting
I’ve spent two days thinking about how to comment on the broad-based cultural implications of the recent violence in Arizona and not participate in the very “lack of civility” that we all know is a problem. I can cite all kinds of troubling ways in which the people with whom I disagree invoke violent metaphors. The problem is, that those people with whom I disagree often honestly believe that that’s what people on “my side” do too. To make it worse, even when ...

Scurrilous
That is the word Dr. Charles Krauthammer used to describe the attempt by the left to blame Sarah Palin and the Tea Party for the horrible tragedy in Tucson, an action carried out by a mad man. It seems rather an appropriate term, not just for their unfounded claims, but for some of the claims that have followed by those in the media. Here is the All Star Panel discussing this very issue, and how the media is continuing to ratchet up antagonism against the right under the guise of moderating our...

NYT: Obamas speech tomorrow to focus on public service, avoid rhetoric debate
Smart, but under the circumstances, not surprising. President Obama will focus his Speech at a memorial service in Tucson on Wednesday evening on the Victims of the attack and on the idea of service to the country, avoiding any overt commentary on the debate over violence and the nation’s political culture. Instead, Mr. Obama, who was still working with his Speechwriters on his remarks on Tuesday, will call for unity among Americans, while trying to honor the victims, including their service...

In a country that's been tooled for violence, why does violence surprise us?
]Don't forget to click to enlarge.] "[W]hat is amazing about American political violence isn’t that there is so much of it, but that there is as little as there is." -- Ian Welsh, in his blogpost yesterday,  "The Right Wing isn’t going to stop violent Rhetoric" by Ken I'm still trying to sort out some thoughts on the larger problems flagged by the Tucson shootings and the national response to them, including that of the Compulsive Liars of the Right. (Today, naturally, George "I Lie Becau