The Tucson shooting was an unspeakable horror, a characteristic exercise in American democracy — a townhall meeting outside a Safeway store — interrupted by gunshots and bloodshed. The gunman targeted Democratic Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, who was shot through the head but survived,and killed six and wounded thirteen others. Any time someone attempts to assassinate a public official it is an attack on the entire country, and the Tucson shooting has been appropriately treated as such by politicians across the political spectrum.
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We barely knew all the facts in the immediate aftermath of the shooting, though, before this vicious act was being milked for political advantage by ghoulish opportunists on the Left. Their argument was that the suspect, Jared Loughner, was effectively sent from the Tea Party. Paul Krugman rushed to his keyboard to say, “We don’t have proof yet that this was political, but the odds are that it was.” Liberal blogger Markos Moulitsas blamed Sarah Palin because she included Giffords’s district on a map with crosshairs denoting Democrats she wanted to see defeated. Keith Olbermann called for Palin to be drummed from public life unless she repents of her role in the tragedy. Pima County Sheriff Clarence Dupnik blamed “the vitriol that comes out of certain mouths about tearing down the government,” and called his state “the Mecca for prejudice and bigotry” — apparently for the offense of enforcing immigration laws. And so on.
The irony of criticizing the overheated rhetoric of your opponents at the same time you call them accomplices to murder apparently was lost on these people, most of whom have never been noted for their subtlety (or civility). It is vile to attempt to tar the opposition with the crimes of a lunatic so as to render illegitimate the views of about half of America.
Jared Loughner is clearly deranged, his fevered mind drawn to irrational extremes, whether those of Adolf Hitler or Karl Marx. He was anti-government the way paranoiacs who think the government is controlling their minds are anti-government — think John Nash, not Milton Friedman. Like the Virginia Tech shooter, Loughner had behaved bizarrely around his fellow students, frightening them. One former high-school classmate remembers him as a liberal, yet given what we’ve learned so far about his ravings, it is doubtful Loughner’s disordered mind was capable of a holding a coherent ideology.
That doesn’t stop the Left from arguing that he was basically taking his cues from a map on Sarah Palin’s Facebook page. About that map: Martial imagery has been central to American politics for more than a century. Why do Palin’s critics think we say “campaign” or “rank-and-file”? We all use language of this sort, and no one ever before has thought it constitutes incitement.
That said, all of us have an obligation to speak with truth and charity in making our political arguments. Not because hateful talk will drive the mentally ill to criminal acts, but because civility is a good in its own right. We could always use more of it, but it’s not true that this is an unprecedentedly vitriolic time in American politics. The signature chant of the Vietnam protesters still lionized by the Left, “Hey, hey, LBJ, how many kids did you kill today?” is worse than most everything you hear on the airwaves today. Nonetheless, if we all can endeavor to be more civil, a place to start is to not to try to score gross political points off the heinous act of a disturbed individual.
Our prayers are with Rep. Giffords, everyone wounded in the attack, and the families of those who were slain.
Minutes after hearing about this act of criminal insanity on Saturday, I immediately thought about how - if the suspect was found to be a white male - that the leftist media and Democrats in congress would shamelessly exploit it as somehow associated with the right. I was unfortunately completely correct. They disregard the completely incoherent rantings of this lunatic which suggest no ideological bent (unless his lunacy regarding poor grammar could be warped into somehow representing Tea Party orthodoxy...I guess I should put nothing past the media and Democrats). Shamelessness has does not register with these people. It is telling that even as Rep. Giffords was in critical condition in surgery and 6 people lay dead - including a 9 year old child and a sitting federal judge - Democrat hacks like Clarence Dupnik were making irresponsible statements about "vitriolic rhetoric" and Arizona being the "Mecca for prejudice and bigotry" while the new Republican majority leader was doing respectful things like cancelling all scheduled votes for this week...the evidence is clear from where the vitriolic and hateful rhetoric comes.
The West Virginia Governor was much more explicit when he shot the health care bill in his ad. Why nobody is blaming him?
To milk other people's tragedy is repulsive and I just hope the the majority of the American public will not fall for it
It is time for the right to give that fact more than lip service, to acknowledge that America faces a budget crisis, not an existential threat to our liberty from within. (We have enough enemies abroad, and that's a different subject.)
When the right wing media stops framing tax hikes and out-of-control spending in the language of jackboots in the night, when taking the salt out of Happy Meals isn't compared to kicking down our doors and dragging us off to the gulag, when banning 31-shot magazines isn't equated with confiscating our guns -- the left won't have a leg to stand on we'll have more time to focus on the issues that really do matter.
Extreme reactions in the media are never the solution to a perceived violent act. By my answer here, there are those that perceive me to be a threat, only because the National Journal asked for a reply.
Mike B is spewing classic liberal nonsense. Set up a false premise and then condemn the right based upon the false premise.
No one, right wing media or otherwise, is equating tax hikes with jack booted thugs or happy meals sans salt with the gulag.
People are passionate about the issues that affect our country and our future. And the issues are often about liberty. Liberty to confront those who are radical and trying to make America a European type socialist anny state. Oops I should not have said socialist. Bernie Sanders will become violent. Oh wait, he describes himself as a Socialist. I wouldn't want him to hurt himself. I am sorry.
Prtesident Obama in political discourse noted that if they bring a knife to the fight we will bring a gun, that is the Chicago way. Is he responsible for this shooting committed by the deranged mind of a man described as a liberal? Of course not.
To try to gain political advantage as a result of this tragedy is shameful.
Thank you for this editorial, NRO. I do believe it is possibly the best and most on-point editorial that you folks have ever written.
I do, however, profoundly (but, one hopes, with civility) disagree with Mike B. There is indeed an existential threat to our liberty from within (exemplified in a small way by the hard-left's cynical and opportunistic response to these murders), and liberty must be defended from persistent small erosions as well as jackboots and gulags.
Oh please. The guy is a lunatic and the "cues" he supposedly took from the right were quite a bit better than most of what passed for critical commentary of Bush and the GOP when they were last in power - including books on killing Pres Bush and wishing certain right wing political types die horrific deaths while lefties watch with glee.
This guy was a nut job, whose politics when all is said and done once again will be so muddled no one will be able to tell - though it appears his literary backing comes squarely from the left side of the isle. Does that mean I should decry the left for creating him. No - I shouldn't. The left political puditry class has no shame, and even less class. But still, this is the actions of one lunatic - and a warped mind.
Once we find politicians from both parties willing to not micro manage our lives and respect the limitations placed upon them, the better off we all will be.
Innuendo from the left against our beliefs, while they sweep under the rug the fact that Obama's friend, Bill Ayers, driven by a radical left-wing ideology, tried to kill people. He failed and regretted not his actions, but that he didn't nail anyone. He's now walking around free, an operative in the Chicago political class.
I couldn't agree more with the line: "It is vile to attempt to tar the opposition with the crimes of a lunatic so as to render illegitimate the views of about half of America."
But I would add that it is even more reprehensible to to tar the opposition with the crimes of a lunatic FROM YOUR SIDE OF THE AISLE. (Or when you don't know what side of the aisle he is from.)
It's like the racists of the 60s using MLK's murderer to tar the civil rights movement. The unmittigated gall and hypocrisy from the left this weekend is disgusting.
Richard, I may not be able to convince you to see reality as I see it (lord knows, I have tried and tried to see it your way), but I sure as heck hope that we'll both call out our politicians and ask them to articulate exactly how they see (or don't see) an existential threat to America in the form of assault weapons bans, threats to Happy Meals, zoning laws and the like. You and I are probably united in the hope that everyone in America carefully consider whether we're on our way to a police state. But perhaps we're also united in wanting our politicians to acknowledge this very stark vision and debate its accuracy.
To MikeB and Richard, your back-and-forth is a clear example of what open discourse should look like in this country. Rather than spewing hatred for the other and/or his opinion, you are searching for some sort of common ground on which you could base a united defense. Kudos to you two.
To NRO, this commentary is a very concise overview of the glaring double standard present in today's America. Well done.
What may be even worse than what is being said about this horrible event is what Advertisement has appeared on the banner for your site AND right in the middle of the article; "Front Sight Firearms Training Institute"
Talk about insensitive.....GEEZ!
Civility to a fault: These adjectives are found at the top of the front page - "cynical", "shameful", "hypocritical". Oh, yes, dear NRO, at the very least all of that. Perhaps if we do things like....nominate a moderate for the Presidency, reach across the aisle in a spirit of bipartisanship, spend $500 billion on a stimulus instead of $700 billion, take a more 'sensible' approach to combatting the horror of Anthropogenic Global Warming, help Arne Duncan in his laudable efforts to reform education, tone down the rhetoric, all of this and so much more, then perhaps our criticism will have more of a stinging effect and the propagandists will retreat. Ya think?
Wrong on both counts - of crosshairs and crop marks.
As the left instantly mobilized to gain political benefit from the tragic Giffords shooting their favorite example was the Sarah Palin "crosshairs" map - for example:
They were wrong twice over. Not only was there no connection between Palin and the shooter except the one created by Democrats and the left for political gain, the symbols on Sarah Palin's map were CROP MARKS, used in the printing business to locate a point. They had nothing to do with crosshairs or rifles.
Yes, it is shameful to capitalize on this in any way but the right's rhetoric has been shameful, too. It is time for the right to stop the temper tantrums and name calling and grow up. Are you children or adults?
Make a decision. Have respectful debate or continue down the path to third-world country where nut jobs kill people all the time. The choice is yours...
We shouldn't have to explain the use of military imagery in politics as in your fifth paragraph. These demagogues on the left you've cited know full well the context in which such imagery is being used, as do, I'll wager, most of the American people. To pretend otherwise renders such disingenuousness even more odious.
Neighborliness and civility come from within a person; not from the things he can get his hands on. Outlawing guns still leaves those weapons in the hands of those committing crimes; it removes them only from law-abiding citizens. Why are we targeting law-abiding people for all we regulate? Because they're more easily controlled just as we target Christians and not Muslims; Christians don't cut your head off!
