The Other Dodge

The Arizona Tragedy and the American Reaction
The story dominating American conversation this week is the tragedy in Tucson, Arizona. In shock, after a mentally troubled assassin named Jared Lee Loughner shoots a round from his 9mm Glock through the brain of beloved Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords and then turns his weapon on the crowd and kills 6 bystanders while wounding 13 others — America mourns. Giffords is alive today and fighting for her life, the extent of the damage caused by her wound still unknown. There are positive signs...

What Americans Need to Do Now, After the Shooting and Tragedy In Arizona
This week President Obama helped the nation mourn in Tucson. Today let's celebrate American Democracy and the freedoms we enjoy and not let a nut with a gun in any way interfere with a full-throated, passionate dialogue that is as American as apple pie. For in order for Democracy to thrive it's imperative that we resist the impulse to tell opinionated people who are exercising Political Speech that its their fault for inciting deranged people from acting out their darkest fantasies. On the contr...

Civility? Maybe. Maybe not.
James Fallows has been asking his readers to email him their thoughts on civility.  Some excerpts: In the Private Sector people are mostly polite because it's good for business and crucial to getting things done.  The harshness that we find in the public political discourse is the result of self-selection: only the nasty and the really thick-skinned opt to engage in political life.  I and many others are turned off by the nastiness and choose to disengage from the public ...

Top 10 Most Ridiculous Attacks on Conservatives Following the AZ Shootings
This has been a hugely shameful week for sections of the American Left, who have exploited a horrific tragedy that claimed six lives, in order to advance political attacks upon some leading conservative politicians and media commentators, as well as an entire political movement in the form of the Tea Party. The vitriolic and hate-filled attacks have marked a low point for liberal media elites in America in the 21st century, even to the extent that President Obama himself, probably the most liber...

Metaphors Don't Kill People; People Kill People
metaphor: a figure of Speech in which a term or phrase is applied to something to which it is not literally applicable in order to suggest a resemblance, as in “A mighty fortress is our god.” Sticks and stones might break my bones but words will never hurt me. ~Nursery rhyme The recent tragedy in Arizona managed to unleash the pundits on both sides of the aisle. In this world where there must be a root cause for every wrinkle in the landscape and every calamity that befalls us, eve...

The War on Rhetoric
Today marks a week since an American Terrorist went on a murderous rampage in Arizona and so began the American War on Rhetoric.  The lone gunman was apparently fixated on Congresswoman Gabby Giffords. He met her three years prior to the tragedy in Tucson but that hasn’t stopped political pundits from placing blame, pointing fingers and blasting accusations.  The media should be ashamed for wagging their crooked fingers at anyone other than the American Terrorist who pulled the t...

Lessons from a witch hunt
I shouldn’t even feel the need to write this, but alas I must.  Apart from the lessons from the tragedy in Tucson, there needs to be a retrospective of the reactions and the lessons that we can glean from it. A primary lesson is that of media reaction in and around Washington.  CNN in particular is guilty on this one.  They are emblematic of the wider problem.  Within hours of the shooting, CNN reporters began inserting the fact that Rep. Giffords was one of Sarah Palin...

Air Raid (REPOSTED): Why Conservative Talk Radio Succeeds More Than Liberal Talk
EDITOR’s NOTE: This post was mistakenly deleted so it is being reposted. Air Raid by Peter Funt During a recent Radio Interview I was asked why it is that conservative broadcasters are so much more successful than their progressive, or liberal, counterparts. The question was particularly intriguing considering its source: the host of a progressive Radio Show in Central California. In terms of audience size, the canyon between right and left on radio’s political spectrum is huge. Top co...

Sarah Palin got it right
I've stayed out of the argument over whether Sarah Palin's use of the term 'blood Libel' was justified with respect to the accusations against her and other Conservatives of being the cause of the mass Murder and attempted Assassination in Tucson last Saturday. It's not directly an Israel-related topic. But I think that Rabbi Shmuley Boteach has got it right in Friday's Wall Street Journal (Hat Tip: Memeorandum) and that Sarah Palin was entitled to use the term. Despite the strong association ...

A teachable moment (or - civility, what is it good for? Absolutely nothing)
Who bears the guilt of the Tucson shootings? » A teachable moment (or - civility, what is it good for? Absolutely nothing…) Guest posted by tim, The Godless Heathen. In honor of our friends on the Left, who somehow did a remarkable job of  keeping everything in perspective in relationship to the recent incident in Tucson, (where as you know, a young man with a gun, given to him by the NRA and directed by Rush Limbaugh, Sarah Palin and Glenn Beck, decided to act like an Iraqi ...

You think youre so clever, dont you?
From an editorial at the Washington Times: Mrs. Palin is well within her rights to feel persecuted. Since the Saturday bloodbath, members of the liberal commentariat have spoken in a unified voice, charging her and other Conservatives with being indirectly or somehow directly responsible for the lunatic actions of accused gunman Jared Loughner. Typical of blood Libel, the attack against Mrs. Palin is a false charge intended to generate anger made by people with a political agenda. They have made...

Hateful rhetoric may not be illegal but it's not helpful either
I know that people like Rush Limbaugh him think that just because they are free to say whatever they want as an American Citizen, that they always should.  Things like civility, decorum, respect, professionalism always seem to be secondary (if it is part of their consideration at all) to their Constitution-given right whatever they want regardless of whether it's hateful, divisive, incendiary, offensive, etc. I don't believe that people's Speech should be censored but I also wish that peopl...

A Michael Steele thought experiment
A Michael Steele THOUGHT EXPERIMENT.... In June, in an electoral fluke, a man named Alvin Greene somehow managed to win the Democratic primary in South Carolina's U.S. Senate race. When state and national Dems balked, leading far-right voices -- Rush Limbaugh, Laura Ingraham, and others -- insisted it was because the Democratic Party doesn't like African-American Candidates. Five months later, House Democrats were choosing the leadership for the next Congress, and Steny Hoyer, who is white, le...

Remembering Our Fallen Week: The Tragedy In Wasilla
Your Wonkbot kept us safe from terror, before becoming another Victim in the tragedy in Tuscan, Arizona, like fellow cylon Sarah Palin. Starved for attention (her TLC show ended this week), Sister Sarah made a Controversial hate movie (Crash 2), shot on location in her Wasilla meth factory. Jared Lee Loughner should have just gone into gun sales, as he has a clear talent for moving them off the shelves. “Houdini of the Senate,” Joe Manchin, says he would never shoot a man, unless he ...

John Dingell (D-MI) blames Palin, GOP for rhetoric leading to AZ shooting. Flashback: Dingell links tea party to KKK, called rad
Curiously, Dingell said:"I saw the district of Gabrielle Giffords has a crosshairs put on it. As a lifetime rifleman and shooter, I know what crosshairs signify when you put them on somebody and I know what happened.Is he talking about Palin or Daily Kos? The liberal Daily Kos put a bullseye on Giffords in 2008 (via HillBuzz): More from Henry Payne at The Michigan View: Dingell just accused Palin as an accessory to Murder? Yawn.Dingell had previewed his comments Monday when he toured the Detroit...

Analysis: Palin isn't retreating, she's reloading (The Christian Science Monitor)
Say one thing for Sarah Palin: She heeds her own advice. Coming only days after Ms. Palin was drawn into the Arizona shooting drama, news that the former Alaska Governor and potential presidential aspirant will headline a gun-friendly hunting convention Jan. 29 fits her famous stump phrase: "Don't retreat, reload." It is a philosophy that defines Palin as a political figure and also points to how closely her own public persona echoes that of the American gun culture she promotes....

Accuracy, Civility, and the Violent Fantasies of the Progressive Left
The problem here isn't really about "civility" or being nice, it's about accuracy and not treating your audience like you respect them . -- Matthew Yglesias Accuracy? On January 8th Yglesias was among the very first Progressives to allege Sarah Palin's responsibility for the shooting in Tucson. And by now the one thing we know with crystal clarity is that Jared Loughner acted alone, without a shred of incitement from the alleged "heated Rhetoric" of the political right. But read the whole thi...

Views on the News 1/15/2011
The leftist predisposition towards irresponsibly blaming every act of violence with political connotations on the “climate of Bigotry” created by right-wingers speaks volumes about the ideology of Liberalism. After the shooting of Representative Gabrielle Giffords and the Murder and injury of several others, the liberal media commenced their annual “Let’s Silence Conservatives” campaign. The deranged gunman, Jared Loughner, was deeply disturbed, not politically astu...

After Tucson shootings, Sarah Palin isn't retreating, she's reloading (The Christian Science Monitor)
Say one thing for Sarah Palin: She heeds her own advice. Coming only days after Ms. Palin was drawn into the Arizona shooting drama, news that the former Alaska Governor and potential presidential aspirant will headline a gun-friendly hunting convention Jan. 29 fits her famous stump phrase: "Don't retreat, reload." It is a philosophy that defines Palin as a political figure and also points to how closely her own public persona echoes that of the American gun culture she promotes....

The Weekly Wrap
Today on the Dish, we followed Tunisia as its President dissolved the government, and a State of Emergency was declared. Larison stressed the importance of Tunisians deposing an autocrat on their own, without US intervention and Andrew debated Evgeny Morozov on how instrumentalTwitter was. We rounded up reax and reports from the ground in Tunisia here, here, and here, and the role of Wikipedia in the coup here and here. Sarah Palin said sorry seven times (last year), Limbaugh sunk to new lows,...

Daily scoreboard
1. From the Associated Press: “One day after mourning a bubbly 9-year-old slain during the attempted Assassination of a congresswoman, residents and fellow jurists gathered Friday at the same Tucson church to remember a federal judge.” No offense, but if we had had just one of those cops at the Safeway on Saturday, there might not have been a Funeral. GOOD. 2. From the Associated Press: “Pope John Paul II to be beatified May 1.” Oddly that is May Day, a holiday for the ...

Sarah Palin hired to give speech at gun convention
Palin had a map on her website that featured Rep. Giffords named as a target. Giffords state of Arizona was depicted under the crosshairs of a gun sight. Palin was also recently criticized for killing a moose with a rifle on her television show, Sarah Palin’s Alaska. Sarah Palin blamed for Rep. Gabrielle Giffords shooting Dead birds, Oil Spills, Climate Change and Corruption: Prophesy or coincidence? Examiner.com is looking for writers, photographers, and videographers to join the fastest ...

Of Course the Assassination Attempt Was Political
In the Fort Hood shootings of November 2009, the right was quick to link Nidal Malik Hasan to Terrorism, while the left insisted he was merely deranged. The reactions to the attempted Assassination of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords and the Murder of six others this weekend offered a mirror image: Many on the left blamed right-wing political Extremism, while Conservatives insisted that Jared Loughner, the alleged killer, was a lone lunatic, without political motivation. If a whiff of political...

There's a New Sheriff in Politics
The Thread is an in-depth look at how major news and controversies are being debated across the online spectrum. Tags: blogs, Internet, Media, tuscon shooting In his Speech in Tucson Wednesday night, President Obama called on Americans to expand their “moral imaginations” and “remind ourselves of all the ways that our hopes and dreams are bound together.” Well, never hurts to aim high. For now, at least, the president seems to have put an end to the...

A Note To Glenn Beck: I Reserve My Rights
At at one point not too long ago I called Glenn Beck possibly "the great conservative hope”.  But I will freely admit that the man drives me bonkers when he goes off into his own little world of self-reflection.  Not only am I certain that he knows the location of each and every piece of lint in the crevasses of his bellybutton, but I am also convinced he has given each of them names and converses with them regularly. Beck’s hard edges have softened at times over the past s...