An evil psychopath, Jared Lee Loughner — a man with no discernible ideology or political affiliation, and declared by those who know him to be both unhinged and unacquainted with contemporary media — shot a U.S. congresswoman, murdered a federal judge, and killed five other innocent people, while wounding several more.
Almost immediately, prominent liberal journalists and several politicians in the U.S. Congress and in state legislatures directly attributed Loughner’s rampage to the “climate of hate” in general and to the Tea Party, Fox News, Sarah Palin, conservatives in general, or the Republican party in particular.
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The local Democratic sheriff, Clarence W. Dupnik — in a brazen display of the Bloomberg syndrome of posturing on cosmic issues as local crises go unaddressed — thought he could elevate himself into Nelson Mandela status by damning the Right for the violence. Then his narrative too imploded when it was learned that Loughner had had several run-ins with a negligent law-enforcement staff, with plenty of indications that he was not all there. Observers soon made the argument that if there was a preexisting climate of hate about which Dupnik was now a self-appointed expert, why then had not the sheriff provided a single officer to protect Congresswoman Giffords in her open-air fora within Dupnik’s jurisdiction?
In some ways, the most embarrassing demagoguery came from the secretary of state. While in Abu Dhabi, Mrs. Clinton — in a rather shameful sort of moral equivalence — apparently intended to impress her hosts and score political points at the same time. So without any evidence, she labeled Loughner an “extremist,” in a general call to quell political violence both in and outside the United States.
What was the evidence for the charge that Loughner was a product of the political fringe, or that his rampage was a logical extension of right-wing politics? The scene of the crime was Arizona, which had been the object of liberal vituperation, failed economic boycotts, and political censure because of its efforts to enforce federal immigration laws that the Obama administration was not enforcing. The suspect was a lone white male. And there was a vague memory that such ideological scavenging amid tragedy had worked well in the Timothy McVeigh case. I think that was about it.
So in less than 72 hours the legion of liberal pundits, bloggers, and newspaper editors that had rushed to demagogue the issue was reduced to embarrassed silence. Loughner was clearly unhinged and had no political affiliation. Many who had called conservatives out had themselves a long record of using inflammatory metaphors and similes. President Obama — unlike his sloganeering after the Skip Gates mess or the Major Hasan murdering — uncharacteristically kept quiet, processed public opinion, and than gave a fine speech, disavowing charges of a political connection to the tragedy. In Orwellian fashion, the New York Times now praised the new bipartisan civility without citing its own uncivil efforts a few hours earlier to politicize the shooting.
End of story? Hardly. Consider the present landscape and its logic.
We are all supposed to deny any connection between the Taxi Driver copy-cat Loughner and politics. But we are also supposed to use this occasion to insist on a new age of civility in which we all strive to curb the inflammatory speech that did not prompt Loughner at all.
Are we appalled by the repugnant efforts of an ideologue like Paul Krugman to capitalize on the killing of innocent people, while we nonetheless de facto accept his thesis that politics, as in right-wing politics, motivated Loughner, and thus must tone down? And once incivility is accepted as Loughner’s catalyst, who, after all, is going to protest a return to “civility”?
I agree with the prediction that Obama will continue to employ "loaded language, coupled with calls for an end to rancor."
This rank hypocrisy could ONLY succeed with the help of a willing media, and I predict that we'll see precisely that from those attack dogs for the left, pretending to be watchdogs for the public.
Hopefully, a courageous conservative movement -- pundits, politicians, and the grassroots rank-and-file who will probably be the driving force (a la the Tea Party) -- can expose the hypocrisy, defeat Obama, and further discredit a media complex that deserves to be discredited.
Excellent overall, as usual. I do take issue with this claim: "That Obama is a postracial mellifluent Chicago politician does not mean that he is not a Chicago politician."
There's no evidence (that withstands easy challenge) that Obama is "postracial." Rather, he is the most thoroughly racialized president of the civil rights era, and should have been disqualified by voters on that basis, if they had been properly informed of his background.
To a left winger, I think the Laughner episode is completely rational. The logic follows like this:
1. Everything is political.
2. Killing people is bad.
3. Lefties are good.
4. Killing therefore must be the result of righties.
This distorted thinking has kept the left from seriously acknowledging the crimes of Communism, Oswald's assassination of JFK with his leftist links, et al.
vdh is pretty much on top of this, but most of the conservative media, other than talk radio are shooting conservatism in the foot.
The Tucson shootings weren't planned and executed by the left, but the aftermath certainly was...and conservative pundits fell for the con job.
Every conservative pundit should have united behind Sarah Pundit and focused, not on the hypocricy of the left, but on illustrating how the left was using classic Alinskey tactics to smear, tommy-gun style, every conservative within sight.
"Civility" is a tactic, and a diversion. The main battle was about sucker punching the strongest conservative voices; and too many in the shameful mainstream of conservatism allowed it to happen
Strieter's summary of left wing logic was right on. I think that's exactly it. They also think their uncivil vehement rhetoric is not a problem at all, but ours is, because the crazies armed with guns are, by definition, conservative, of course. So, naturally, the calls for calmed down rhetoric apply only to those on the right.
Recognizing all that doesn't do a whole lot for the cause of civility, does it? I don't know about you, but it could easily get me worked up -- for uncivil rhetoric. Contrary to popular opinion, we're not necessarily armed and inclined toward violence!
VDH is invariably frustrating, as he always seems to avoid the heart of whatever issue is at hand. In this case, the issue is cultural Marxism. Is is long past time for people like VDH to understand it and acknowledge it. This “hypocrisy of the left” is not some aberration that will go away if only we can open up a meaningful dialogue. It is the essence of the left, and it has a long history. The logic is as follows:
- The progressives' secular religion is based on equality of results.
- Equality of results can only be pursued by treating people, cultures, religions and societies unequally.
- The left must drag down anything deemed "unfairly" successful (and therefore evil), and elevate that which it views as "oppressed".
This is the origin of leftist double standards. It is cultural Marxism, and far from seeing it as wrong, the left successfully employs it over and over again as a tactic against its enemies. Handed an opportunity like the Tucson shootings, progressives immediately trot out their premeditated hypocrisy, which is all neatly designed as a power play for the next quasi-legal attempt to gain control of their enemies.
What those such as VDH seem unable to understand is that the left is deliberately inciting hatred of the right, based not on facts but on fantasies and meta-narratives (others such as Brit Hume and Daniel Henninger of the WSJ have finally realized this). Most importantly, we are now at the point where any attempt to pose alternative viewpoints to the left is labeled hate speech. When are the vast bulk of Conservatives going to wake up and realize that those whom they still suppose to be mere political opponents are instead vicious enemies, who have already battered down their door, are in their homes, and at their throats?
By now we have heard analysis from all the conservative top guns on the Loughner issue.
I will give VDH credit for his usual perspective. However, he fails to suggest how to deal with future similar crises.
Sheriff Joe Arpaio, in a pithy, homespun response nailed how conservatives should respond: just do more of it and tell them to put that in their pipe and smoke it.
The left will continue to lie, cheat, decieve, malign, distort, libel, fabricate, falsify, exaggerate, equivocate, misinform, misreport and generally not be truthful. They reek of mendacity.
Obama will win in 2012 only if the Republicans permit him to like they did in 1996 and 2008 by nominating some tired old hack, "whose turn has come." Palin for President in 2012!
"When are the vast bulk of Conservatives going to wake up and realize that those whom they still suppose to be mere political opponents are instead vicious enemies, who have already battered down their door, are in their homes, and at their throats?"
My opinion on this is that we have a different kinds of conservative and libertarians on the right.
We have the more high brow - like NRO - who try to stay away from speech and articles that sound too, perhaps, conspiratorial. Or too uncivil.
Then we have the still intelligent but more passionate ones - the Becks, the Palins, the Levins, the Limbaughs, etc.
NRO is the older adult, ready to debate any issue, but to always make it as civil as possible. It's not that they may not agree with your assessment, but feel that perhaps such talk would not keep the debate focused enough.
Everyone else is the younger adult, the passionate 20 something, louder and more ready for verbal fisticuffs if you will.
Both groups serve their purpose I believe, and keep each other in check.
That said - I agree with what you said INVESTORCS. At first, when I came to the Right I could see it as NRO and the older adults see things.
But slowly but surely, I realized that is not the case.
In many respects, some on the conservative side do tend to bring a verbal knife to a verbal gun fight and then wonder why they don't win and sometimes actually cede ground to the other side.
To me, it's similar to the calls from the Left to make nice with Islamists because if we're nice, they'll back off.
Um, no they won't. And if we keep treating them like that, we're going to have our butts handed right back to us.
All it takes to stand up to a demagogue is a person with the courage to do so. At this point, what are
leftists, if not demagogues? Note, though, the warning of Alexander Hamilton in Federalist Number 1 -- a demagogue is a person on his way to becoming a tyrant.
On civility per se, pls cf. Justice Harlan in Cohen v. California:
"The constitutional right of free expression is powerful medicine in a society as diverse and populous as ours."
"Surely the State has no right to clease public debate to the point where it is grammatically palatable to the most squeamish among us."
"[O]ne man's vulgarity is another man's lyric."
"[W]ords are often chosen as much for their emotive as their cognitive force. We cannot sancton the view that the Constitution, while solicitous of the cognitive content of indivdiual speech, has little or no regard for that emotive function which, practically speaking, may often be the more important element of the overall message to be communicated."
