The Arizona Shootings and Personal Responsibility

CBS Poll: Nearly Six In Ten Say Heated Rhetoric Unrelated To AZ Shooting
In a CBS poll released this morning, almost 60% of Americans said they don't think strong political Rhetoric is to blame for Saturday's shooting rampage in Tucson, Arizona that left six dead and wounded over a dozen others, including Democratic Rep. Gabrielle Giffords. In the poll, 57% of respondents said that intense political discourse had nothing to do with the attack, versus 32% who said that it was a contributing factor to the shooting. By political demographics, Republicans were less inc...

Most Americans Reject Tie Between Political Rhetoric, Arizona Shootings
While the Arizona shootings have triggered a national debate about whether the vitriol in political Rhetoric has gone over the top, 57 percent of Americans do not believe the heated partisan tone of public debate had anything to do with the gun rampage in Tucson, according to a CBS News poll released Tuesday. The connection between the state of political discourse and the shootings that critically wounded Arizon Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, killed six and injured 13 others had perhaps been put most ...

Last word on culpability | Michael Tomasky
I think the conflict here is the difference between the standard of legal culpability and the standard concerned with a more general societal responsibility. When people say there's absolutely no evidence that Jared Loughner's alleged action had anything to do with violent right-wing Rhetoric, they are largely thinking of legal culpability. Well, some are just Conservatives whose devotion to Republican power and hatred of liberals means they'll find a way to say that no matter what. But for tha...

First Read Scolds
Playing the Victim card when you’re not really the victim: What was particularly striking to us is how Activists, especially on the right, were playing the Victim when there are so many actual victims — the deceased, the wounded, the grieving — in Arizona. And here’s our point from yesterday: Although it appears that Jared Lee Loughner had nothing to do with mainstream Conservatism or Liberalism, can’t we all agree to condemn violent, de-humanizing, or de-legitimizi...

You're Damn Right that America's Macho Gun Culture Played a Role in Arizona Shootings
It's not about Gun Control; it's about the devastating impact of our gun culture. As an advocate of gun control, I believe in the strong Regulation of lethal weapons. It's just common sense. But until we start changing the gun worship of far too many American males, we are going to have a difficult time stopping the ravaging of our society by bullets. More than 10,000 Americans die in gun homicides each year, a figure that far surpasses any Western nation. In Arizona, obtaining a gun is about as...

Hate, violence, extremism: Krugman on the Arizona shooting
By Michael J.W. Stickings Just to drive the point home, allow me to quote Paul Krugman, who yesterday made the case that many of us have been making the past few days: When you heard the terrible news from Arizona, were you completely surprised? Or were you, at some level, expecting something like this atrocity to happen? Put me in the latter category. I've had a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach ever since the fina...

ARIZONA REPUBLIC blasts Sheriff Dupnik...
On Saturday afternoon, with his friend Gabby Giffords in surgery fighting for her life, Pima County Sheriff Clarence Dupnik railed against the tense partisan politics - "the anger, the hatred, the Bigotry" - that prompted the mass Murders outside Tucson, in his view. And, jarring as such claims may be, we understood. Or tried to understand, despite the spectacle of a lawman - an official whose very job it is to dispassionately gather facts and to maintain order and calm - tying the attack on Rep...

Arizona Shootings: When Speculation Is Acceptable
Not a Veteran. NOT a Veteran. *NOT* a Veteran. How many times must we go through this? I had no clue what he was talking about since, like the rest of male Americana save Demophilius, I was watching football. So, I went to my designated homepage, Drudgereport, to see what was up. Sure enough, right there in one of the links at top was the words I feared: “Military Veteran.” Ah $#!^, I thought. The link took me to a Washington Post article that indeed stated that Law Enforcement offic...

Tomorrow's speech in Arizona is a big test for Barack Obama
We will find out a great deal about Barack Obama’s character tomorrow - or at least about the wisdom of his advisers. If his Speech at the Memorial service for the Victims of the Tucson shooting is spotlessly apolitical - if it manages to avoid any hint of support for the quite astonishing smear campaign which has explicitly attributed responsibility for this crime to his electoral opponents - then it may help to revive his original 

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...

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...

MSNBCs Non Sequitur Marathon
Stacy McCain writes: It is an established fact that the man who killed six people and wounded 12 other people in Tucson was not a Republican. Or a conservative. He didn’t even vote in 2010.Jared Loughner is a psychotic who bore an irrational grudge against Rep. Gabrielle Giffords. Why, then, is MSNBC treating its viewers to hour after hour of discussions today about how Sarah Palin, Michelle Bachmann, Sharron Angle and others engaged in irresponsible Rhetoric that allegedly could incite pe

Sandip Roy: A Tale of Two Assassins
A moderate Centrist politician who had taken some Controversial stances is gunned down in broad daylight. The gunman is caught. The parallels are striking but the similarities end there. In Arizona the assailant is the crazy guy, the loner, the anti-social, the one everyone is quick to disown. The sigh of relief is that he acted alone. In Pakistan, he immediately becomes proof of something systemic. Malik Mumtaz Qadri is just its apocalyptic messenger leaving behind a trail of guns and roses. ...

Neighbor says Ariz. suspect's parents blame selves
A neighbor says the parents of the suspect in Saturday's Shooting Spree in Tucson are devastated and guilt-ridden. Jared Loughner (LAWF'-nuhr) appeared in court Monday on federal charges that he tried to assassinate U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords and killed a Federal Judge. He is also accused of killing five others and wounding or injuring 13 others. Wayne Smith, who lives across the street from the family, said Randy and Amy Loughner blame themselves. Smith said he told the couple they didn't fai...

GOP Rep. Allen West: I Have No Plans to Tone Down My Strong Language in Wake of Giffords Shooting
Stand strong. (Palm Beach Post)-  U.S. Rep. Allen West, R-Plantation, this morning criticized “political opportunism” in the wake of Saturday’s shooting of U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, D-Ariz., and said he has no plans to tone down his own “stronger language.” 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...

U.S. majority doesn't blame rhetoric for Giffords shooting
WASHINGTON | Tue Jan 11, 2011 10:18am 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...

TOP ARIZONA PAPER Blasts Sheriff Dupnik: Get a Grip!
A top Arizona paper today blasted Far Left Sheriff Clarence Dupnik for his continued attacks on the law-abiding people of Arizona. Dupnik was on with Keith Olbermann last night. On Saturday afternoon, with his friend Gabby Giffords in surgery fighting for her life, Pima County Sheriff Clarence Dupnik railed against the tense partisan politics - “the anger, the hatred, the Bigotry” - that prompted the mass Murders outside Tucson, in his view. And, jarring as such claims ma...

Rush Limbaugh: It's 'Insane' to Link Sarah Palin to Tucson Shootings
Don't blame Sarah Palin. Right-wing Talk Show host Rush Limbaugh says media outlets "are unnecessarily stirring up the country" in the wake of the fatal Arizona shootings and attempting to tie the tragedy to the colorful Rhetoric used by him and Sarah Palin, among others. "Reporters are bending over backwards to link this shooting to me, to Sarah Palin, to an entire industry -- Talk Radio," he said Monday on his syndicated program. "Only in these instances is something said in the media, said to...

Arizona Shooter a Marxist-loving, Hitler-loving, Bible-hating Atheist Doper
Bryan Fischer, American Family Association Jared Lee Loughner's idea of great reading The dead bodies hadn’t even been taken to the morgue before CNN invited a Cartoonist - a cartoonist! - on to blame the shootings of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, Federal Judge John Roll, a nine-year-old girl, and numerous others on Conservatives. Winger blogger and Daily Kos founder Markos Moulitsas couldn’t wait to pin the whole thing on the right and Sarah Palin in particular: “Mission acco

MARC THIESSEN: Stop Blaming The Tea Party For The Arizona Tragedy. After the attempted car bombi
Marc Thiessen: Stop Blaming The Tea Party For The Arizona Tragedy. After the attempted car bombing in Times Square last year, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg publicly speculated that the attack had been carried out by “somebody with a political agenda that doesn’t like the health-care bill or something.” At the Nation, columnist Robert Dreyfuss wrote that “a member of some sq...

Stop Blaming the Tea Party for the Arizona Tragedy
After the attempted car bombing in Times Square last year, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg publicly speculated that the attack had been carried out by "somebody with a political agenda that doesn't like the health-care bill or something." At the Nation, columnist Robert Dreyfuss wrote that "a member of some squirrely branch of the Tea Party, anti-government Far Right" was probably behind the bombing. Countless others in the left-wing blogosphere joined the "blame the Tea Party" chorus-unt...

Slippery insinuations about a "climate of hate"
People have been having a hard time holding two ideas in their head at the same time: 1. What Paul Krugman calls "eliminationist Rhetoric" is bad. 2. Contrary to his suggestion, there is no evidence that such rhetoric caused Saturday's events. Even if such evidence is later found, it would not justify the evidence-free claims that have been made in the last 48 hours. For an example of the murky guilt-by-association tactics that have been employed by people on the left since the minutes afte...

Can Breitbart learn to laugh at himself?
Probably not.  Humor is not given much value -- or leg room -- on the right. The Hill reports: Daily Kos founder Markos Moulitsas tweeted this early Saturday: "Mission Accomplished, Sarah Palin." The tweet included a link to Palin's target map. Kos also recycled a clip of Giffords reacting to the map on MSNBC, where she warned Palin of potential consequences to such visuals. "The way that she has it depicted, has the crosshairs of a gun sight over our district,"...

Heritage Foundation whines, "It all started when he hit me back!"
Conservatives never take responsibility for anything: Slavery, segregation, Racism, coddling Hitler, Central American death squads, Pollution, mass Incarceration, three decades of Budget-busting Deficits, 9/11, Katrina, the Iraq War, the Wall Street meltdown & the Great Recession--the list goes on and on. So why would their reaction to the attempted Assassination of Gabrielle Giffords be any different? And it's not, as the Heritage Foundation whines, "It all started when he hit me back!" Libe...

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...