Thoughts on Loughner | Michael Tomasky

The false rush to cry 'balance' (Politico)
When Rep. Gabrielle Giffords was shot and six other people — including a Federal Judge who was coming out of Mass — were killed at a shopping center in Tucson, Ariz., I was staying at a resort a few miles away. Among the guests, there were three immediate reactions: outrage, sadness and, if you’re headed to the airport, make sure to turn right at Tangerine instead of staying on Oracle to Ina, because traffic’s going to be a mess down there. Life goes on incredibly quickl...

Cause and effect and Tucson
The News Media once again scrambled this past week to find the deep underlying causes of shocking events. We saw this impulse in the rush to explain the tragic Murder of six people at a shopping center in Tucson. And we saw it in the rush of stories about mass die-offs of birds and fish across the country. In the case of the shooting of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords in Tucson, attention has turned to the motives of the alleged shooter, 22-year-old Jared Lee Loughner, whose political ramblings about re...

The Tea Party and the Tucson Tragedy
How anti-government, pro-gun, xenophobic Populism made the Giffords shooting more likely. By Jacob Weisberg Posted Monday, Jan. 10, 2011 There's something offensive, as well as pointless, about the politically charged inquiry into what might have been swirling inside the head of Jared Loughner. We hear that the accused shooter read The Communist Manifesto and liked flag-burning videos—good news for the right. Wait—he was a devotee of Ayn Rand and favored the gold standard, so he was a righ...

The left stoops to new low with Arizona shooting
Despite the fact that the alleged shooter in Saturday’s massacre in Tucson appears to have no particular Party Affiliation, and police have found the Communist Manifesto and some sort of crude alter complete with skull and candles in Jared Loughner’s backyard…the leftwing media continues to blame this horrific event on the likes of Sarah Palin and Rush Limbaugh. The liberal blame game began shortly after Loughner was taken into Custody, with Pima County Sheriff Clarence Dupnik&...

Limbaugh: Dems Trying to Profit From Tragedy...
There’s no indication that Rush Limbaugh will temper his political Rhetoric in the wake of the violent weekend attacks in Arizona. Speaking out for the first time since Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-Ariz.) was critically wounded and at least six people were killed, the conservative Talk Radio icon on Monday lashed out at Democrats and media outlets for trying to politicize the violence. The Democratic Party, he said during his nationally syndicated radio program, as aired on the Tucson, Ariz....

Taking, Not Placing, Responsibility
In the wake of Saturday's tragic shooting in Tucson, Arizona, we're beginning to take a long overdue look at the state of our political debate. But that examination needs to be honest. There are times when both the right and the left are equally guilty of some sin or other, and the press' instinct to characterize every problem as the equal responsibility of both sides does no harm. This is not one of those times. The simple, unavoidable fact is that it is the right that has been purveying the r...

Butterflies Taking Turns in Attracting Mates
Jennifer Armstrong provided the link to a story about the squinting bush brown butterflies. From the article: Squinting bush brown butterflies use reflective "eye spots" on their wings to attract potential mates. Males born in the wet season beat their wings to flash their spots but in the dry season females grow brighter spots instead and take the lead. This behaviour could benefit females, allowing them to control mating when fewer food resources are available. Published in the journal Scie...

Tactics backfire, Palin caught in her own cross-hairs
Sarah Palin ... has become both ubiquitous and isolated. Photo: AFP UNDER criticism that her political Rhetoric had helped create a climate for political violence, Sarah Palin addressed the issue in Trademark Fashion: with an email to the conservative commentator Glenn Beck. ''Our Children will not have peace if politicos just capitalise on this to succeed in portraying anyone as inciting terror and violence,'' she wrote to Beck in the email he read on radio. By managing her image almost exclusi...

The Lefts Script of Hate
“Just the facts, ma’am,” Dragnet’s Joe Friday famously informed witnesses he interviewed. Oft-interviewed Pima County Sherriff Clarence Dupnik might adopt the catchphrase: “Save the facts, ma’am. Just the narrative.” The narrative of right-wing Rhetoric fueling accused mass-murderer Jared Lee Loughner proved so seductive to partisans that they didn’t wait for the compilation of facts, or burial of the dead, to advance their politically opportunisti...

The false rush to cry 'balance'
By: Michael Kinsley Politico.com January 11, 2011 When Rep. Gabrielle Giffords was shot and six other people — including a Federal Judge who was coming out of Mass — were killed at a shopping center in Tucson, Ariz., I was staying at a resort a few miles away. Among the guests, there were three immediate reactions: outrage, sadness and, if you’re headed to the airport, make sure to turn right at Tangerine instead of staying on Oracle to Ina, because traffic’s going to be a mess dow

Bill Maher: Jared Loughners Chalkboard Likely Looks Like Glenn Becks Chalkboard
Anderson Cooper took a very different tack last night in trying to make sense of the Arizona shooting tragedy from the weekend. While many on Cable News were turning down the partisan Rhetoric, AC360 producers booked comedian Bill Maher, who was unafraid to compare the imagined mindset of alleged assailant Jared Loughner with Fox News host Glenn Beck, while at the same time calling for responsibility in the media. Huh? Cooper opened by asking about the soul searching and finger pointing that cam...

Parallels to 1995
PARALLELS TO 1995.... President Obama will travel to Tucson tomorrow, attending a memorial service for the Victims of Saturday's massacre. He will also visit with families, and is expected to deliver some remarks about what transpired. As these developments unfold, we can expect to see one reference point repeated quite a bit: Oklahoma City. In general, I tend to roll my eyes when the media draws hackneyed historical parallels for presidential challenges. Last year, for example, the BP oil spi...

Pawlenty jabs Palin over 2010 crosshairs map
Former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty (R) said Tuesday he wouldn't have used crosshair images to refer to Candidates for Congress, as former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin's (R) PAC had done. Pawlenty, a likely Republican Candidate for president in 2012, took a shot at Palin over the Controversial map her campaign arm had released during the 2010 campaign, which depicted crosshairs over different lawmakers' districts that had been targeted in the election. "It wouldn't have been my style to put the cros...

Wonderful: Media Hack Now Lists Ann Coulter as Suspect in AZ Massacre
Despite a shred of evidence and a poll now showing most Americans disagree with this insanity, it appears evident the insane left will continue to pursue this lunacy, regurgitating decades-old sarcastic quotes from Ann Coulter. She's also helpfully portrayed with ringleaders Sarah Palin and Glenn Beck.Enough! We've let the haters and bullies lead the political and moral conversation for far too long. The national dialogue has descended into a fusillade of hate from politicians, political operati...

One wonders what we will learn from these senseless shootings
The moment of silence came and went Monday, and I tried to set aside my own anger and heed President Barack Obama's call "for us to come together as a nation in prayer or reflection, keeping the Victims and their families closely at heart." The quiet passed, and I was revisited by the uneasy sense we are unlikely to learn anything from Saturday's tragedy in Tucson. Is the lesson of the deadly shooting destined to be buried with the dead in a country that day by day watches its ability to reason ...

Call it what it was: An Act of Domestic Terrorism
Good editorial cartoons rip the heart from the moment and always piss people off. … But even some Republicans sympathetic to Ms. Palin suggested that she needed to find a more substantive and nuanced means of addressing the criticism to avert any risk to her political standing and to maintain control of her political narrative. … But other Republicans said that if she was serious about becoming president, the shootings in Tucson might require Ms. Palin to step out of the political co...

Shock, anger and finger-pointing in Washington
On opposite sides of the political spectrum, President Barack Obama and new House Speaker John Boehner suddenly face the same challenge: rise above the anger, suspicion and hostility of their liberal and conservative bases to help a rattled nation deal with the deadly outburst of violence in Arizona. But what comes after the easy moment of silence? For now, both men are stepping past the question of what role, if any, the vitriol of the past election campaign played in Saturday’s shooting ...

AZ shootings: McConnell, Yarmuth talk rhetoric and security
Related: Suspect in attack on congresswoman to appear in court McConnell speaks to Students about Tucson shootings Obama: US grieving, shocked over Ariz. rampage Military: alleged Giffords gunman failed Drug Test McConnell calls for review of congressional security (WHAS11) - The Assassination attempt of Arizona Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords that killed six and injured 14 others has sparked a national debate about whether inflammatory political Rhetoric was a factor in the attack. After Pim...

Answering an atheist's question
An atheist asks why believers are hostile toward atheists, then answers her own question in a manner she probably didn't intend: Why are believers so hostile toward atheists? Is there anything atheists can say about our Atheism -- or even just about our lives -- that won't make people look at us with revulsion? The short answer is no, because the self-styled atheist is usually an intrinsically repellent individual for the very reasons that caused him to label himself thusly. The reason that be...

Meet Jared Loughner
This is the rather bizarre mugshot of Jared Loughner that was released yesterday afternoon. He has been assigned lawyer Judy Clarke, who defended the Unabomber. One of the more interesting facts to emerge is that Loughner was expelled from his community college after complaints from classmates that he seemed on the edge of violence. In the meantime, the Sheriff is being attacked for criticizing right-wing commentators for their over-the-top Rhetoric, including conservative icon, Rush Limbaugh. ...

Barry's Angry Words
Pima County Sheriff Clarence Dupnik, overseeing the investigation the Tucson shootings that left Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords in a coma and Federal Judge John Roll and five others dead, wasted little time in blaming heated political Rhetoric for the crime. Shortly after the first reports of the shootings, Dupnick said, "The anger, the hatred, the Bigotry that goes on in this country is getting to be outrageous, and unfortunately Arizona has become sort of the capital," adding "We have become...

Accused gunman warned of brainwashing
Honouring the Arizona Victims ... Barack and Michelle Obama after observing a minute's silence with staff on the South Lawn of the White House on Monday. Photo: AFP Tucson: Online political ramblings of the man charged with the killings in Tucson bear a strong resemblance to the ideas of an extreme right-wing Conspiracy theorist who believes the US government uses grammar to control people's minds. The director of the centre's intelligence unit, Mark Potok, said Mr Loughner's YouTube rant that '...

NBCs Mitchell Digs Back to 2005 to Locate Becks Hate Speech, But Cant Find Any on MSNBC
There’s no evidence political vitriol of any kind drove Jared Loughner’s murderous rampage, ABC, CBS and NBC all acknowledged, but that didn’t deter them on Monday night from taking up the left-wing line holding Conservatives culpable as NBC, incredibly, managed to castigate Sarah Palin and go back more than five years to find an incendiary quote from Glenn Beck – but couldn’t find anything over the line from its own Keith Olbermann or Ed Schultz. “It was, by ...

NBCs Mitchell Digs Back to 2005 to Locate Becks Hate Speech, But Cant Find Any on MSNBC
There’s no evidence political vitriol of any kind drove Jared Loughner’s murderous rampage, ABC, CBS and NBC all acknowledged, but that didn’t deter them on Monday night from taking up the left-wing line holding Conservatives culpable as NBC, incredibly, managed to castigate Sarah Palin and go back more than five years to find an incendiary quote from Glenn Beck – but couldn’t find anything over the line from its own Keith Olbermann or Ed Schultz. “It was, by ...

Playing politics with tragedy
Gabrielle Giffords wasn’t even out of the operating room when the rush to judgment began. An unstable 22-year-old College Dropout had pulled the trigger in a devastating attack that left six people dead and more than a dozen wounded outside a Tucson shopping plaza. But the real culprit wasn’t Jared Loughner. It was Sarah Palin – along with the Tea Party, Fox TV and the whole gang of hate-spewing, right-wing fanatics bent on inciting the populace to violent insurrection. The pro...