The Tucson tragedy: over the line

Glenn Beck seeks Congress members for Giffords letter
Fox News's Glenn Beck is recruiting members of Congress to sign on to his Open Letter denouncing violence and stressing that Jared Lee Loughner's shooting bears no connection to politics. My colleague Jonathan Allen obtained an email from a Fox producer, Virginia Grace, to Congressional offices this morning: From: Grace, Virginia Sent: Tuesday, January 11, 2011 9:45 PM Subject: [LIKELY_SPAM]Glenn Beck// Fox News Request for Rep. .... Dear XXXX, Following the tragedies in Arizona, Glenn Beck ha...

Krauthammer on Tucson, Palin, and Krugman
Get alerts when there is a new article that might interest you. The charge: The Tucson massacre is a consequence of the "climate of hate" created by Sarah Palin, the Tea Party, Glenn Beck, ObamaCare opponents and sundry other liberal betes noires. The verdict: Rarely in American political discourse has there been a charge so reckless, so scurrilous and so unsupported by evidence. As killers go, Jared Loughner is not reticent. Yet among all his writings, postings, videos and other ravings - and i...

Should Tucson Prompt a Discussion About Climate Change?
Some angry e-mails this morning about civility, specifically about my earlier posts asserting that, so far, the Tucson massacre story has more to do with Mental Illness and Gun Control than it has to do with violent Rhetoric in political discourse. Here's one such e-mail: Get your head out of the sand Goldberg. These kinds of shootings wouldn't happen in a country that wasn't ruled by Fox. Wait until your targeted for Death Threats, then you'll see. Put aside that bit about death threats -- I ke...

Palin: Were above the mindless finger-pointing (Daily Caller)
Read more stories from The Daily Caller Face of evil: Mug Shots of famous assassins [SLIDESHOW] Poll of Conservatives shows support for broad cuts to spending, including Military Spending Washington's top five most ridiculous reactions to the Arizona shooting Jared Loughner and the ins and outs of the insanity defense Mark Sanford exits the stage Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin released a video Wednesday of her first long-form statement on Saturday’s Tucson, Ariz. shooting that left six ...

Boehner Stymies Gun Reform
Wed Jan. 12, 2011 7:39 AM PST Gun Control advocates, stand down. That's the message being sent by newly engaveled House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio), who, The Hill reports, plans to reject the gun-control Legislation offered by Rep. Pete King (R-NY) in the wake of the Tucson massacre. King's bill would prevent people from carrying guns within 1,000 feet of members of Congress. A long-time proponent for stricter Gun Laws, King says his bill is meant to protect government officials and the publi...

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...

Beck Stokes Fears Of "A Ban On Guns" Following AZ Shooting
Beck Claims Politicians Are "Pushing" To Ban Guns Following AZ Shooting Beck: Lawmakers Are Pushing "A Ban On Guns." On his Fox News show, Beck claimed that lawmakers are pushing "a ban on guns" in response to the Arizona shooting. Beck stated: BECK: It didn't take long for Washington to come out with their solution to the problem of the alleged violent Rhetoric. The solution, however, comes despite not having a shred of evidence that this crazed gunman was motivated by anything other than his...

Judson Phillips On Tucson Massacre: The Left Benefits From This
Tea Party Nation founder Judson Phillips organized the national Tea Party Convention in 2010 where Keynote Speaker Sarah Palin cried, “America is ready for another revolution!” Phillips now argues that the Tucson massacre is part of the “war” between the left and the Tea Party. Managing the online forum at Tea Party Nation, he has encouraged his members to argue that accused killer Jared Loughner is a “liberal lunatic” in order to fight against “the ma...

Re: Defending the Tea Party
Katrina’s piece on the homepage looks at how Tea Party–backed lawmakers have responded to the whirlwind Rhetoric surrounding the Tucson tragedy. I caught up with Mark Meckler, co-founder and national coordinator for Tea Party Patriots, late last night. He confessed to having been bogged down in a “media frenzy” over of the past few days, and said he wasn’t exactly pleased with what he’d been hearing. “What we saw is an example of the depravity of people ...

The Insanity About the Insanity Defense
Prediction: The same people who today are saying that the Tucson shooting was completely random because Jared Loughner was too crazy to have been influenced by anything other than the moths in his head will, in a few weeks, spin on a dime and claim that Loughner knew what he was doing and is “sane” enough to be tried and executed. Just watch. Spotlight ...

Did Ariz. Suspect Think Shooting was a Dream?
Some friends of Jared Loughner have suggested the Tucson, Ariz. shooting suspect may have thought Saturday's attack was nothing more than a dream. They said Loughner had been deeply interested in a practice known as "lucid dreaming" in which people try to control their own dreams. However, sometimes their dream life becomes more vivid than real life. "Lucid dreaming is when a person has not only very vivid dreams, very clear dreams, but they are consciously aware that they are dreaming, and t...

Suddenly the Media is Concerned About Tone
Last night on John King USA I tried very hard to keep my blood from boiling. Cornell Belcher, a very good guy, tried to claim that the right’s history of Rhetoric is worse than the left’s. I’ll meet you half way on that, just for the sake of argument, and say the left and right can at times be equally vile, but only for the sake of argument. But really, maybe the right’s history of Rhetoric is greater if only because the left goes beyond Rhetoric to outright violence. ...

Bozell Column: Liberal Sickos Exploit a Rampage
Imagine the Saturday morning of congressional aide Mark Kimble. Kimble told of going to a Safeway for a typical meet-and-greet event with his boss, Rep. Gabrielle Giffords. Kimble said he went into the store for coffee, and as he came out, Giffords was talking to a couple about Medicare and reimbursements, and Federal Judge John Roll had just walked up to her and shouted “Hi” – when a gunman opened fire. Nobody in America should greet this scene with any other initial reaction ...

Liberal Sickos Exploit a Rampage
Wednesday, January 12, 2011 By L. Brent Bozell III Imagine the Saturday morning of congressional aide Mark Kimble. Kimble told of going to a Safeway for a typical meet-and-greet event with his boss, Rep. Gabrielle Giffords. Kimble said he went into the store for coffee, and as he came out, Giffords was talking to a couple about Medicare and reimbursements, and Federal Judge John Roll had just walked up to her and shouted “Hi” - when a gunman opened fire. Nobody in America should greet

Westboro Baptist Liberalism
Fred Phelps, crazed leader of the Westboro Baptist Church cult, has become infamous for blaming any bad event on the evils of Homosexuality. Earthquake in Haiti? Blame the gays. Combat troop deaths in Iraq? Ditto. Phelps' Logic Works thusly: God literally hates people who engage in Homosexual conduct and unless societies take the steps to ban and punish such action, God is going to destroy them. Any Natural Disaster or mass Murder is, accordingly, the will of God being carried out on the &qu...;

If you really believed political rhetoric caused Jared Loughner's killing spree, you wouldn't dare to say it.
Some people displayed a crazed Hunger for a vicious murderer who was inspired by the criticism of the government that has been so powerful over the last 2 years. Jared Loughner was not that guy, and, of course, they looked ridiculous and despicable jumping to say that he was. Now, what if it were really true that incendiary political Rhetoric pushed mentally unstable individuals over the edge and caused them to act out murderously? Picture such a mentally unstable person reading and listening t...

Rhetoric and Perceived Status
The Left in the last 48 hours has tried to make the argument that the Tucson shootings were the result of Tea Party angst, health-care furor, Talk Radio, opposition to illegal Immigration — almost any contemporary hot-button hoi polloi issue or any Populist forum. And the more the public refuses to buy any of it, instead seeing Tucson as a madman’s evil attack on the innocent and noble, the more the liberal media seems weirdly intent on promulgating its absurd narrative. Arguments th...

Blood Libel? Dangerous Critics? Palin, Angle Doth Protest Too Much
Sigh. So I guess I have to comment on Sarah Palin’s statement on the Tucson shooting, which was actually a statement about Sarah Palin, of course. First of all, the faux sincerity achieved by shaking her head a little bit from side-to-side is grating. But enough of the theater criticism. Second, you have to love the statement, cribbed from Reagan, that “we have to restore the American precept that each person is accountable for his actions” from the woman who sent out her spo...

Palin breaks silence on Tucson
At 6:52 a.m. EST this morning, former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin posted a 1,141-word Facebook post with an accompanying eight-minute video responding to the Tucson shootings at length on the same day President Obama is scheduled to travel to Tucson to speak. The response comes as a reply to critics who have said that her political action committee’s map, showing Democratic representatives in GOP-leaning districts who voted for the Health Care law in gunsights, contributed to a charged cli...

Kurt Klukowski: Put blame where it belongs in Tucson tragedy
Now in the wake of the tragedy that left the Arizona Democrat gravely wounded and six others dead - including a Federal Judge, a congressional Staffer, a nine year-old girl, and an elderly gentleman who shielded his wife with his body, sacrificing his own life - the Far Left can’t restrain itself from intruding upon Tucson’s grief. Banning guns and silencing dissent is not the solution, and Conservatives are not to blame. It started with Pima County Sheriff Clarence Dupnik, a D...

Liberal Sickos Exploit a Rampage (Brent Bozell III)
Creators Syndicate – Imagine the Saturday morning of congressional aide Mark Kimble. Kimble told of going to a Safeway for a typical meet-and-greet event with his boss, Rep. Gabrielle Giffords. Kimble said he went into the store for coffee, and as he came out, Giffords was talking to a couple about Medicare and reimbursements, and Federal Judge John Roll had just walked up to her and shouted "Hi" — when a gunman opened fire. Nobody in America should greet this scene with...

After the Arizona Tragegy -- Healing the National Psyche
While Jared Loughner’s murderous violence was not caused—not even a little bit—by partisan politics in Arizona or in Washington, D.C., the fact that some politicians boldly and fraudulently stated that it was is evidence that our national psyche needs healing. Today, any news event, including a shooting by a psychiatrically disturbed man who takes some of his inspiration from an imaginary large, gray bird with scales, but no feathers, is fodder for Public Relations machines eng...

The Tucson Tragedy's True Lesson
Now that someone with Mental Illness has shot one of Washington's own, maybe Congress will start to pay attention to its abysmal failure to provide care for the most seriously mentally-ill Americans. We'll see. Lawmakers took a brief lunge in that direction after mentally-ill John Hinckley shot Ronald Reagan in 1981, and an even smaller step in 1988 when Russel Weston, another mentally-ill man, entered the Capitol and shot two police officers. But most mentally-ill people are not violent -- and ...

Glenn Beck Mocks Rhetoric Hysteria
I’m not a big fan of Glenn Beck because I think many times he is over the top.  However, I did enjoy his nine minute bit pointing out the absurdity of Congressman Bob Brady’s (D-PA) call to make “threatening” language and symbols used towards elected officials illegal....

Dad pursued Ariz. massacre suspect before shooting
(01-12) 07:41 PST Tucson, Ariz. (AP) -- Mysterious black bag in hand, Jared Loughner ran into the desert from his angry father, who was driving a truck on a futile pursuit. Hours after Randy Loughner's confrontation with his 22-year-old son Saturday morning, six people were shot dead and more than a dozen others wounded — and Jared Loughner was in custody. The sheriff's deputies who swarmed the Loughners' house removed what they describe as evidence Jared Loughner was targeting Rep. Gabr...