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Go Home Lord Help Me, I'm Defending Palin

JONATHAN CHAIT JANUARY 12, 2011

Lord Help Me, I'm Defending Palin

BY JONATHAN CHAIT

Okay, it's a little over the top for Sarah Palin to accuse her critics of "blood libel." But she does have a basic point. She had nothing to do with Jared Loughner. He was not an extremist who embraced some radical version of her ideas. And her use of targets to identify districts Republicans were, um, targetting is not exceptional or prone to incite anybody.

What's happening is that Palin has come to represent unhinged grassroots conservatism, and people in the media immediately (and incorrectly) associated Loughner with the far right. Moreover, the Republican establishment understands her potential candidacy as a liability and is looking to snuff it out. So you have this weird moment where Palin is on trial for something she has no connection with at all.

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119 comments

well, look how she is responding to the criticism. It could have easily been deflected, but she is fanning the flames of media criticism with her words and actions. I saw get her media!!!

- RedState

January 12, 2011 at 9:55am

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This is manifestly correct, Jonathan, but you will pay for it.

- liberal reformer

January 12, 2011 at 9:55am

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Sarah Palin does not deserve this blame game. As the facts emerge, it would appear that a combination of reefer madness and too much nihilism (Nietzsche) are factors. There goes any hope for legalizing marijuana, and it looks like Target, the retail chain, may have to change their name and logo.

- K2K

January 12, 2011 at 10:00am

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Not only does she completely fail to understand the context of the shootings and how her irresponible rhetoric contributes to a climate of violence, she is a coward. A Facebook video? Seriously? Even Fox News is too risky for her.

- pgutermann

January 12, 2011 at 10:08am

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"blood libel"? wow.

- subterran

January 12, 2011 at 10:13am

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Good lord, Jon! Who cares if it's intellectually dishonest to attack her and pin this on her. I admire your honestly and lack of cynicism here, but the teaparty has crossed the line of good taste in their vile and violence-laced attacks and rhetoric aimed towards politicians in BOTH PARTIES. I should think that all elites would agree that they deserve this and that this will calm them down and reinforce the temporarily forgotten social norm that over the top rhetoric is inappropriate. If you're trying to argue that this won't work, then you're wrong. John Boehner has every incentive in the world to quiet these nuts down before a presidential election. Their usefulness is limited to base turnout elections (midterms). Most Americans will buy these attacks on Palin, by the way, regardless of the facts. Why? Because they don't like her.

- Virginia Centrist

January 12, 2011 at 10:17am

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Sorry, Jon, but you're a bit off-base on this one. First, we don't know exactly why Loughner did what he did. You are correct in noting that he seems to be a mentally-unstable person prone to conspiracy theories, not a far-right nutjob inspired by Palin. That idea does seem extremely doubtful - but it's not, at this point, a settled question. Second, while it's true that in the heat of the moment, many people made a fairly logical connection between the shooting of a Democratic congresswoman and a federal judge who had riled anti-immigration activists and the disturbingly violent rhetoric of many on the right, in most cases those who made the connection were also quick to emphasize that they were not suggesting causation, and *certainly* were not implicating Palin. The sentiment was usually more along the lines of, "Well, whether there's a connection or not - and there very well may not be - this rhetoric nonetheless seems over-the-top and regrettable in light of the shooting." And since the NYT story you link to doesn't quote a *single* person on the left making any accusations against Palin, it's a bit of a stretch to say she's "on trial." I mean, come on! Palin puts a crosshairs over a representative's district, and the representative gets shot in the head. It would have been absurd for the media not to note this fact. But most importantly, this video - complete with a couple of potshots about recent political controversies (like reading the Constitution on the House floor), as well as fireplace and flag in the background, as if Palin were addressing us from The Real America White House - has an implicit and unmistakable message: Sarah Palin is the victim. Not the six dead people, not the many injured, not the critically-wounded public servant or the families of the dead, but poor embattled Sarah Palin, who must suffer through the indignities of being scrutinized by the public and the press, something she has never enjoyed (and usually, thanks to her Fox News bubble, is not forced to endure). This was a moment when she could have proven her magnanimity. But instead, she proved that she has not matured: she remains a stupid, thin-skinned diva, so obsessed with herself that it probably never occurred to her how astonishingly petty and small this video is.

- npippenger@gmail.com-old

January 12, 2011 at 10:22am

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See, this is the danger of being a moderate -- you find it necessary to defend against "extremism" on all sides. Don't get me wrong, I agree with this approach. Meanwhile, Palin defends herself with yet MORE extremist rhetoric -- "blood libel" indeed. So while she continues the standard extremist denial -- "nothing is MY fault!" -- along with demonizing rhetoric -- "it's a BLOOD LIBEL to criticise me in this instance!" -- you find yourself in the sad position of having to agree that currently there's no evidence that the shooter was "politically motivated".

- AllanL5

January 12, 2011 at 10:36am

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Here we go again. I'm happy to see some reasonable responses to this even though I'm sure this will devolve into the 'RA RA' angry mob stuff soon. Also, mansfield, if you've read through Chait's other posts relating to this topic, a lot of the comments reflect anger that Chait refuses to throw out intelligent analysis and just blame the right, directly, for this shooting. A lot of comments have even gone so far as to say that they don't care about truth, only that the right get what many believe they deserve. While I'm angry with the right, I'm not up for turning off my brain to get back at them.

- tgatz85

January 12, 2011 at 10:39am

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Since Sarah Palin is only defending the rights of "law-abiding citizens who respectfully exercise their First Amendment rights at campaign rallies", doesn't that leave out just about everyone who screamed out at a Tea Party rally or health care town hall meeting?

- wildboy

January 12, 2011 at 10:39am

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I'm willing to assume that over-the-top political rhetoric had nothing to do with the Arizona shooting. But that doesn't mean that over-the-top political rhetoric should become a non-issue. What's the point of overheated discourse? Maybe fundraising, getting more people to the polls, but it doesn't change minds or make more serious debate possible. It polarizes and antagonizes and is detrimental to our political system. So yes, Palin is probably not responsible for what happened in Arizona. And she and others (regardless of political affiliation) should have to defend their rhetoric regardless.

- dsimon

January 12, 2011 at 10:46am

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dsimon... I absolutely agree. All my comments have been focused on the rhetoric being poisonous and a problem that the right needs to address but not necessarily the cause of this particular shooting. Like you said though, that doesn't make the hateful speech a nonissue. I've also seen some great comments about gun control laws and the reform they need, but I am less familiar with that topic.

- tgatz85

January 12, 2011 at 10:49am

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Dear God, when will this awful woman's fifteen minutes finally be up?

- timteeter

January 12, 2011 at 10:54am

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The entire correspondence between Palin's map with crosshairs over Tucson and a shooting event in Tucson is faulty. The Tucson shooter did not use a scope, hence no crosshairs. Call me autistic, but that's how I see it. Ok, just kidding! Even I can see why people must comment on the possible connection between the two things. Yes, I agree with Chait that in this case it is ironic.

- Milstein

January 12, 2011 at 10:56am

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I'm sorry, but this is a little too facile for me. Obviously there is no DIRECT causal link from something Palin did or said to Loughner shooting Giffords. There is also no DIRECT causal link from the fossil fuel I have burned in my life to increased frequency of extreme storms. But that is far from saying there is no important causal relationship. People who amp up political rhetoric with violent and over the top words and images, change the "atmosphere" in which the details of day to day life play out. People who think anyone who wants should be able to buy any gun they want, do the same. Palin is self-consciously on the front line in both cases. How frequently someone is nuts enough to go on a shooting rampage, and whether they target politicians or not, and how many people they kill when they do, are indirect functions of the "temperature" in that "atmosphere." Should Palin be singled out? Not by me. But she has chosen to make herself the symbol of unrestrained rhetoric. She's every bit as fair game as is unreconstructed Exxon in global warming.

- IowaBeauty

January 12, 2011 at 11:03am

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Your post is incoherent, Iowa. Gun ownership has skyrocketed in the last generation while violent crime has groundrocketed, though vast numbers of Americans are not aware of the latter datum.

- liberal reformer

January 12, 2011 at 11:19am

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I think Iowa nails it with the perfect analogy. If I drive a car, I add to the burden of carbon in the atmosphere, and carbon in the atmosphere causes global warming. Can we run a controlled experiment on the earth to "prove" that? No. Is there ample evidence in the form of correlation between carbon and temperature? Yes. Does that mean that I personally caused the latest hurricane? No, of course not. Does it mean that I have no responsibility for my contribution do the problem? No, it does not mean that either. In terms of the political atmosphere and temperature, as IowaBeauty correctly calls them, we are not all equal. The contributions of media and political figures is a four or five magnitudes greater than mine. Not only is their contribution magnified, but their behavior inspires others. So, if one believes, as I do, that there is ample evidence that the total atmosphere of extremist rhetoric is part of what motivates extremists to shoot politicians, and that the extremism in our era is almost entirely a right-wing phenomenon with the results to show for it, it is perfectly appropriate to hold people like Palin and Beck responsible for their out-sized contribution to the atmosphere in which these acts occur. It is completely irrelevant whether Loughner was thinking about Palin or the Tea Party when he shot those people. He exists in a stew of toxic rhetoric and social approval expressed for that rhetoric that is going to have this effect on a certain number of unbalanced individuals. Part of what reduces the risk of this harm is if the society as a whole deplores the extremists rhetoric. That is what we have to do.

- roidubouloi

January 12, 2011 at 11:40am

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I gues Iowa nails it, except he's nailing something no one is really disagreeing with. Everyone pretty much agrees that hateful rhetoric is bad and creates a more violent political environment. What Chait and the rest of us are saying is that this particular case is one of correlation not causation because there are a lot of different factors contributing.

- tgatz85

January 12, 2011 at 11:45am

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"it's a little over the top for Sarah Palin to accuse her critics of "blood libel."" Just a little. Agree with Iowa, roid and mandfield. Frum, quoting an aquaintance, nailed it: “You must always remember that no matter what happens, and no matter who it happens to, the real victim is always Sarah Palin.” http://www.frumforum.com/why-is-palin-always-the-victim

- icarusr

January 12, 2011 at 11:50am

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Obviously the savvy thing to do will be to couch statements thusly: "I know it's politically incorrect to say overheated right-wing rhetoric may have tragic consequences, BUT ..." Doesn't that solve everything? Why, you're acknowledging right there that you're not going to voice a popular opinion (among Beltway pundits and those feeling guilty/nervous on the Right)! That seems to be how use of "politically correct" works, so let's go for it.

- W_Bombay

January 12, 2011 at 11:51am

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Causation is a much more complicated thing than the sort of proximate causation we require for legal liability. No one is suggesting that Palin et alia are legally liable. Correlation is a form of evidence and there is ample evidence that extremist rhetoric contributes to extremist violence. It is neither necessary nor possible to say that the particular speech act by A was the proximate cause of the violent act by B in order to hold speakers to account for their contribution to the cultural and social atmosphere that produces this behavior amongst the unbalanced. And what history teaches us is that under circumstances not well understood, the outliers can become the norm and whole societies can resort to extremist violence. It is not to early in the chain to deplore the extremist speech for this very reason.

- roidubouloi

January 12, 2011 at 11:51am

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tgatz: There is proximate cause and there is ultimate cause. Without gettig into a philosophical debate, let us agree that the proximate cause was not Palin, or right-wing lunacy. But Palin, as roid suggests, has an integral part in creating a climate - the flow - in which her crosshairs and the shooting "correlate". Palling around with terrorists? All the accusations of socialism? Taking back our country - as if Obama and the Democrats have stolen it? Death Panels? We have had well-nigh three years of this crap; regardless of proximate cause, the correlation you identify arises ultimatly out of a current to which Palin has been the major contributor.

- icarusr

January 12, 2011 at 11:53am

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tgatz85: I don't mean this at all as snark, but the perspective that this case is one of correlation, and not unambiguous causation, also does not appear to be in serious disagreement.

- shewchuk

January 12, 2011 at 11:55am

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Repeating the gist of a comment I made on a related article in Cohn's blog yesterday: Hope that this doesn't mean the end of Palin - we need her to have an impact on the 2012 race, either by running for or winning the nomination, hopefully the latter ... would love to see her refudiated once and for all.

- NR409654

January 12, 2011 at 11:55am

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Can't believe this whole story is about Palin. Saw that clip of the six year old's father on Fox. Seriously hearbreaking stuff. Can't Palin just SHUT THE FUCK UP for one news cycle?

- IggyPop

January 12, 2011 at 11:58am

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I think Palin's framing the issue as a "blood libel" IS more than "a bit over the top." But worse, her response is entirely lacking in any sort of humility or self-awareness. No self-examination or introspection for her. No thought of a moderated response, just raise the rhetorical temperature some more. She sees herself as the primary victim, and her concern for those that were shot and/or killed is offered only in the remotest terms. Her narcissism is nearly as horrifying as Loughner's killing spree.

- compositeur

January 12, 2011 at 12:01pm

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shewchuk.. it is.. I have been going back and forth with Roid in another post about this exact thing. People keep responding to me as if we disagree but then you just said that people agree with what I've been saying. Every time I say, 'hateful rhetoric is bad and people spewing it should take responsibility for it but are not the cause of this shooting' (and this shooting is the what this is all about atm), I get 5 replies of, "but the right is spewing hateful rhetoric and should take responsibility for it." I agree that there is clearly a diconnect here, but I don't think it is only on my end.

- tgatz85

January 12, 2011 at 12:04pm

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I'm with Mansfield. In typical Pailn fashion, her indomitable, steel plated narcissism takes your breath away. Her ability to say the exact wrong thing and pour fuel on any fire she sees is singular isn't it? She's America's Hate Czar. Thinking of making a tee-shirt with her face on it in crosshairs, no harm intended of course. tgatz, while I disagree with your views on this issue, I do not claim to own the mantle of the logical one, as you are. Both sides have a good case, unfortunately they are completely incompatible. Let's just leave it at that. I can just as easily make the case that you and JC have given "up your brains" on this as you can. I just won't because it isn't right.

- WandreyCer

January 12, 2011 at 12:05pm

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The 'brains' comment was more in reference to people who said that they were ok with assigning the blame even though they felt it was inaccurate to do so. I don't believe you, Chait, or I have done that. A lot people on here have been coming up with intelligent arguments but a lot have also just been disagreeing with Chait's post but with no real substance for the reason. Once again, I'm confused by the fact that apparently no one is arguing about correlation vs. causation but then every time I turn around someone disagrees with my views. So far my view has been the right needs to tone down it's rhetoric, but they have not caused this particular shooting. I think people are disagreeing with my opinion on the cause of the shooting. That's fine, but everything I've seen people saying, including Iowa's post talks about rhetoric and violence being related not about it being the cause of this particular shooting.

- tgatz85

January 12, 2011 at 12:16pm

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Also, some of it may be my tone. I apologize if my tone has put people on the defensive. I'm at work so I'm typing and thinking quickly.

- tgatz85

January 12, 2011 at 12:19pm

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Palin's map (doesn't that ring a little like Mendel's peas, John Brown's body, Seward's Folly, Nixon's dog-what was his name?) I really don't think there is any direct or indirect causal connection here which warrants a "j'accuse!" except that might be thought of as emblematic, but that too seems to me pretty weak tea, pardon the pun. The so-called Tea Party is nothing more than a politico-cultural marker for a broad, diffuse libertarian/conservative(small 'c')/nativist etc., noisy gallery. A handy bit of shorthand for what my maternal grandmother called "aginners." i.e. frustrated, stressed out, mad-as-hell... phenomenon. I tend to agree with Harry Reid, who said it (the TP) will withdraw into the ether as the economy improves, and Tea Partier's cool down enough to notice that they don't like or agree with their cohort all that much, either. Sarah Palin is another cultural marker of sorts, and with any luck she will fade as well, save for the fact that she is a fairly clever manipulator on her own behalf. But the fog of barely suppressed rage that and deepened in toxicity with the anti-immigration controversy, Arizona being one of the border states, also a state somewhat akin to Texas, for its tradition of rough-riding free-wheeling politics, does afflict the state of mind and volatility of mood of its citizens. Just as it has in California, though to a much lessened degree recently, people are all riled up and tend not to think clearly and coherently as they typically do on the issue (of immigration). There is another trend, as we have discussed quite a lot in recent threads, among some conservatives, including for a notorious example Glenn Beck; that being the inevitable psychological inflation among those those attracted to a Randian pseudo-Objectivist style philosophy. That might have been a constituent of the intellectual toxic atmosphere Loughner breathed that added to his own psychological inflation. I emphasize "might" and "possibly", not any probability. Just an intriguing muse I've been following. I don't like psychologizing, but I do a lot of it, hoping against hope I might secure at least a first-base hit that would make my day. (;

- Tgossard

January 12, 2011 at 12:36pm

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There is ample evidence that extremist rhetoric causes extremist violence? And no data to back that up, as usual. Certainly incendiary words can lead to incendiary acts, but all the evidence points to Jared Loughner being one wacked honcho, who was extremely angry and menacing. The Communist Manifesto was on his reading list. Doesn't exactly sound like a rightist fringie to me. Okay, some of you will cherry-pick and cite Mein Kampf, which was also on his reading list. The difference between J. Chait and any number of the commenters out here is that Chait can think; he also can put his emotions on hold, while many TNR readers have not yet transcended emotional puberty and just want to lash out at the right, so what better opportunity?

- liberal reformer

January 12, 2011 at 12:36pm

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I do that too tgatz, thanks for the post. You are right, my feelings on causation are not cynical, they are sincere. We'll just have to agree to disagree. I have to work on my tone too.

- WandreyCer

January 12, 2011 at 12:39pm

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Roi, Iggy - terrific.

- WandreyCer

January 12, 2011 at 12:40pm

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One of the reasons why the Republicans are scared and defensive as hell is because Lougher is not dead. And they don't know what he's going to say in the future, say the distant future, when he is medicated and relatively lucid. No one knows.

- gwhitaker

January 12, 2011 at 12:42pm

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It seems a fair speculation that Loughner is obsessional, or became obsessional. It's integral to the paranoid personality. Frankly, I think Loughner simply was obsessed with/fixated on Congresswoman Giffords, for whatever reasons. It it was a love/sex sort of obsession, extreme violence is one likely outcome, which would pretty much nail it. If that's the case, too bad it wasn't Sarah Palin. Just kidding, not altogether.

- Tgossard

January 12, 2011 at 12:52pm

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I apologize for that in very poor taste quip. It wasn't called for.

- Tgossard

January 12, 2011 at 12:53pm

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Thanks Wandrey. I am completely cool with that and I love discussions with people like you that force me to really think out my position. Also, liberalreformer... I'm glad someone understands what I'm saying.

- tgatz85

January 12, 2011 at 12:54pm

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I am going to organize a rally where I draw a bulls eye on Sarah Palin, and have participants shoot M16s at her picture. And if some nutjob chooses to shoot her at some other time I must not be criticized at all, following the logic of Palin herself.

- blackton

January 12, 2011 at 12:54pm

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It is not so simple. Chait is taking the logical, sane, approach: Does the shooter have the same views as Palin? No? "Well, then Palin is not responsible," goes the thinking. But logic cannot give us the answer regarding what led to the shooting. The shooter is crazy. It could be that even though he has different political views than Palin, when he heard her speak or saw her target map he thought, "maybe I should shoot the Congresswoman." That possibility is reason enough to hold Palin responsible for her irresponsible rhetoric.

- Sirhc

January 12, 2011 at 1:01pm

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On the very positive side, I'm very glad now to have become aware of Rep. Giffords. What an admirable person as well as politician! She gives me hope for a future saner politics populated by dedicated, generous, and uplifting politicians such as herself!

- Tgossard

January 12, 2011 at 1:07pm

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Had to be said Mr Chait. Good on you.

- Robert Powell

January 12, 2011 at 1:23pm

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I agree Tgossard. What a great lady.

- WandreyCer

January 12, 2011 at 1:30pm

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Jonathan, I agreed with you until I watched the speech today, and then I watched it again, just to make sure I heard it right. Governor Palin's speech sounded like a victory tap dance on Congresswoman Gifford's face. Governor Palin prayed for this. I don't know what else you call it when a former Vice-Presidential candidate, a person with real power, puts up a target like this. Sarah Palin doesn't get to be judged by Rush Limbaugh, Rachel Maddow standards. Those people just talk to sell soap and make money. She has to be held to the higher standard of real power and the ability to use it. Sarah Palin prayed for this. And maybe she meant it. One of the reasons you’re allowed to think that she meant it is that Congresswomen Giffords publically mentioned several times that she took the matter of being targeted by Governor Palin seriously. Yet Governor Palin took no action to take the offending material down. Or to attempt to explain it. Governor Palin thought the targets spoke for themselves. And they did. A parallel situation are the target lists of abortion doctors. People understood what those targets meant. The Doctor who was recently killed in Kansas was killed by an articulate, sober assasin. He was commited to the cause, and willing to stand by his actions. He had the support of the people who put up the list. Man proposes and God disposes. So Sarah Palin put up these targets with the implication that she would support anyone who brought these targets down. Then, maybe by coincidence, maybe not, someone gunned down Congresswoman Giffords. God answered Sarah Palin’s prayer. That’s not to say that the gunman ever heard of Sarah Palin. That’s not to say that Sarah Palin is under any legal obligation to stop saying what she is saying or doing what she is doing. That’s not to say she was lying today when she claimed that in the context of what she was saying and doing, the “targets” were simply metaphors for “votes”. I’m only saying -- and I say this as someone on the losing side – that if Sarah Palin didn’t mean that she literally wanted some psychopath to gun down Congresswoman Giffords, then she should have prayed more carefully.

- BruceGGGG

January 12, 2011 at 2:00pm

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blackton writes: "I am going to organize a rally where I draw a bulls eye on Sarah Palin, and have participants shoot M16s at her picture." See here. http://michellemalkin.com/2011/01/10/the-progressive-climate-of-hate-an-illustrated-primer-2000-2010/ Already been done. She's been hung in effigy and the story ran for days on MSNBC so that everyone coudl see her hanging from a house. And Getty, no less, has hosted images of here being hunted with a rifle pointed in her face. Wander through the link to really understand. dont' eat the linkdont' eat the linkdont' eat the linkdont' eat the linkdont' eat the linkdont' eat the linkdont' eat the linkdont' eat the linkdont' eat the linkdont' eat the linkdont' eat the linkdont' eat the linkdont' eat the linkdont' eat the linkdont' eat the linkdont' eat the linkdont' eat the linkdont' eat the linkdont' eat the linkdont' eat the linkdont' eat the linkdont' eat the link

- seattleeng

January 12, 2011 at 2:52pm

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Seattle: I for one deplore that sort of imagery, whether it is directed against people I respect, or people whom I think have no business in politics beyond being mayor of Wasilla. It's wrong, and in the case of some of the images on the Malkin page, clearly an incitement.

- IowaBeauty

January 12, 2011 at 3:00pm

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Iowa Beauty I want to quarrel with your analogy. I want to suggest to you that there is a qualitative difference in the relation between your car’s emissions and global warming and, say, Palin’s rhetoric and imagery and Loughner’s actions. If a man dies a death by a 1,000 cuts, no one cut kills him but each cut directly contributes to his death. So, in that sense there is a direct link between your emissions and global warming. It in combination with all other sources of whatever all creates global warning is, I’d argue, analogous to the one cut. The difference between one cut and one person’s emissions is one of fractionality and not of analytical difference. But can the same be said about incendiary rhetoric and imagery in relation to Loughner? I think not because we have no basis at all for identifying any connection, but a trivial one, one of coincidence,, between that rhetoric and imagery and Loughner’s actions. Assuming his psychosis, his mental defect, the world around him of course impinged on him and affected him but that would include every instance of violence apparent to him including, for one example, Saturday morning cartoons, which detach pain and violence from suffering and thus anesthetize them. But saying that Saturday morning cartoons had some relation to Loughner’s actions measures the triviality of saying that incendiary rhetoric and imagery did. I’d argue that the operative distinction here is not between causation and correlation but between causation and correlation on the one hand and coincidence on the other. Loughner, arguably, would have exploded at some point in any event due to his own mental defect. I argue, what happened to be the mental furniture of his world—the constituents of experience and reality-- comprised a coincidence not a cause or a correlation. All of which of course is not to say that the incendiary political rhetoric and imagery should not be inveighed against and exposed for what it is as forcefully as incivility short of indecency allows.

- basman

January 12, 2011 at 3:17pm

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There was never any doubt that radical Rebpublicans would fail to own up to a respectable level of personal responsibility. Or that they would attack more fiercely those that attacked them. There was never any doubt that the left would spend more time arguing amongst its own. But people with disease of the brain exist, lax gun control laws exist, lack of sufficient mental health services exist because of insufficient tax revenue, and everyone has access to the extremist rhetoric. If she does not own a significant piece of this problem, then who does?

- keepin_on

January 12, 2011 at 3:58pm

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Palin the Hate Czar. Amen. Notice how she's managed to make herself the victim - using the term "blood libel" yet - while a Jewish Congresswoman lies grievously wounded and her aide and several others are dead. Astonishing and awful. Jon, I disagree with you. I don't think it's reasonable to assume that the Sheriff of Pima County is incorrect, he lives there, Rep. Giffords was afraid of the target thing, her office was attacked, she's been threatened and now she's been shot. I don't think anything happens in a vacuum. No, St. Sarah The Martyr didn't personally pull the trigger. But she's spoken to something dark and ugly in America. We saw this during the Presidential campaign and it's gotten worse and worse. Death panels and now - blood libel? Referring to herself? Please.

- Sophia

January 12, 2011 at 4:04pm

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There is the likelihood that there was some meaning specific and personal to Loughner that factored into his foiled his attempt to assassinate Giffords, a "theme" accompanying the act. (One of my partner's superviser/mentors in the process of becoming a licensed psychotherapist stressed "the meaning of the behavior" of the therepand's being key to discovering and understanding h(is)er psychological/behavioral conflict or problem.) That meaning has been nagging at me since the moment I learned of the shooting, like a recurring musical motive. The meaning could have something to do with the conflict or problem, legitimacy vs. illegitimacy, validity vs. invalidity. His "second Constitution" motif, the present one's false amendments which undermine the true meaning and intent of the framers; illegal immigrants becoming legal citizens (denigrating or denying a crucial distinction between a valid American vs invalid, pure vs. sullied, corrupted or righteous, America's rightful inheritance vs a diluted, cheap, degraded usurpation. Those polarities were/are characteristic of both fascist and Communist core assumptions in varying ways. "True" aryans vs. garbage, mongrel subhumans. Or, working class vs. elite, entitled, oppressive capitalists, etc. Giffords, in such a frame, would be a figure which represented the oppressive and corrupt government undermining and betraying its responsibility to serve only the deserving. It is amazing the extent and detail of Loughner's plans. He intended exactly the person, the scene, the playing out of the incident. He must surely have expected to die himself and be a martyr. Whether there was a plan B including his being thwarted and taken alive, it's interesting that he had the presence of mind and preparation to immediately invoke his 5th Amendment rights, demand an attorney, answer the judge's questions succinctly and aptly, his care in disclosing his intentions and locking them in the safe. I believe he is withholding and harboring key secrets (or imagined ones) and information about his secret mission. A very sophisticated enactment of his peculiar psychodrama. When I saw Loughner's expression in the now famous mug shot , I thought of other famously monstrous serial killers, Richard Ramirez, Manson et al. and their blood chilling stares, madness in method. Before and above all there was that appearance that there was no person in or behind his gaze, no recognizable individual, a moral blankness, and disregard for life and the lives of others. That and his crooked grin put me in mind of the phrase, "and his heart was full of malice." Heart, not head. Willfulness that he was fulfilling an evil promise. Anyway, that's more than enough for me now. I continue to probe my thoughts to find some clear meaning. All I've seen and heard of Loughner himself is an obscure, evil, taunting conundrum, a monstrous "joke." But then, my bias tends to validate those polarities, questions and conflicts of good and evil. Mythologies enclosing negative tendencies as well as positive, of real human behavior.

- Tgossard

January 12, 2011 at 4:06pm

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Palin. I may have to register as a Republican so I can vote for that Dolt in a primary.

- Bukharin

January 12, 2011 at 4:20pm

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IowaBeauty: "Seattle: I for one deplore that sort of imagery, whether it is directed against people I respect, or people whom I think have no business in politics beyond being mayor of Wasilla. It's wrong, and in the case of some of the images on the Malkin page, clearly an incitement." So, where is the equivalent web page showing us all the hate from the right? I'll bet you cannot find a web page that even compares to the crap I linked to. Can you? As Krauthammer wrote today, this guy made up his mind long before Palin and the Teaparty even entered the scene. This guy decided to do something sinister to this woman in 2007. This guy was a nut. What this episode reveals is that some see everything as either FOR or AGAINST the team. Just watching Roid trying to connect the dots here is amazing. But it shows that the guy will defend an ideology above all else. At any expense. Truth is not interesting to him. Showing that his team is right, even if it means flat out lying, is above all else. Just incredible. But telling. Even more incredible is now you have ABC news writing a story about how Palin always tries to make everything about her. After days of blaming her for something she has zero part of, she issues a statement vaguely defending herself, and then the media blows up again claiming the woman can't stand to be out of the spotlight for even a moment. You will seldom see such raw hatred as we do directed at Palin. I've been with people that get red-faced and start shaking they hate the woman so badly. It's quite amazing. And yet when asked "why" they respond with a long string of invectives instead of reason. Let me ask you: Why do you hate Palin so badly? You give some hint, by saying "she has not business in politics" as if that job can only be held by those with ivory league credentials. But what else?

- seattleeng

January 12, 2011 at 4:32pm

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"There is ample evidence that extremist rhetoric causes extremist violence? And no data to back that up, as usual. Certainly incendiary words can lead to incendiary acts, but all the evidence points to Jared Loughner being one wacked honcho, who was extremely angry and menacing." Surely lib ref, who has escaped emotional puberty, would like to point out the many historical cases (one historical case?) of extremist violence not preceded by extant extremist rhetoric and agitation. "All the evidence . . . ?" Such as Loughner's rant on the Constitution? Gee, is that a far right meme or far left? Is the answer obvious enough even for lib? http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-arizona-shooting-extremism-20110112,0,7697607.story "Potok agreed on his website that Loughner was most likely influenced by ideas around him, rather than perpetrating a philosophy of his own. 'But at the same time, I think you can find clues to some of the ideas that have influenced him, and I think many of them are clearly coming from the extreme right.'"

- roidubouloi

January 12, 2011 at 5:31pm

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"But it shows that the guy will defend an ideology above all else. At any expense. Truth is not interesting to him. Showing that his team is right, even if it means flat out lying, is above all else." says seattle. Seattle is a well-known libertarian nutcase who falsifies data repeatedly, most any time he chooses to refer to some. In this case, he finds himself unable to find rightwing hate speech. But you don't need to link to it, seattle. Just listen to the radio. It is ubiquitous. You don't notice because you approve of it. Hence, to you it isn't.

- roidubouloi

January 12, 2011 at 5:35pm

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seattle - do you have the same reaction to incendiary speech by a Muslim Imam? When someone says that shootings by a Muslim man screaming "death to the infidel" is an act of a lone madman, what is your reaction? Would demonstrate the same detachment as you do now?

- icarusr

January 12, 2011 at 5:37pm

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I for one don't hate Sarah Palin. It's her schtick I can't stand.

- Tgossard

January 12, 2011 at 5:49pm

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I am surprised at you, icarus. You of all people should know that Islamist hate speech, just like right-wing hate speech, is not intended to motivate anyone to do anything. It is intended purely as entertainment.

- roidubouloi

January 12, 2011 at 5:54pm

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One has to wonder about the posters who purport to deplore extremist speech while at the same time denying that it has any consequences (or any consequences that we so much as suspect let alone know for certain). Why deplore it at all if it is of no consequence? We should merely critique its aesthetics as we would any piece of art or theater.

- roidubouloi

January 12, 2011 at 5:56pm

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,,,01/12/2011 - 5:31pm EDT | roidubouloi.. I can't get your whole post when I click on comment." " Would you kindly reproduce it. Thanks.

- basman

January 12, 2011 at 6:03pm

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...One has to wonder about the posters who purport to deplore extremist speech while at the same time denying that it has any consequences (or any consequences that we so much as suspect let alone know for certain). Why deplore it at all if it is of no consequence? We should merely critique its aesthetics as we would any piece of art or theater... I don't think this is the argument in relation to Loughner specifically. That argument is that there is a disjunction in his particular case between his insanity and incendiary talk and images--sort of like the negligence doctrine of intervening cause--that belies both causality or correlationality. I argue it's coincidental with him. Which is different from saying that incendiary rhetoric and imagery don't have real world consequentiality.

- basman

January 12, 2011 at 6:11pm

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There was nothing important after that, basman. Just a quote of the last two sentences of the article. May I ask you, if incendiary rhetoric and imagery do have real world consequences, how do we know in a specific case whether it is one of the consequences? Loughner was ranting about "the Second Constitution," debasement of the currency and other things that appear to me to come straight from the list of right-wing extremist preoccupations. Just recall the howling at the Federal Reserve (another target of the extreme right) program of "quantitative easing." Is this but a coincidence? Most if not all of the people who do this sort of thing in our country are going to turn out to be mentally imbalanced. If that is sufficient disjunction for there to be no causality, then how might there ever be "consequences" of extremist rhetoric? Only when there is a mob?

- roidubouloi

January 12, 2011 at 6:22pm

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I suppose actual death threats, stalkings, throwing bricks through windows, cutting propane lines, and assassination attempts against Democratic representatives doesn't amount to the same level of "visual" violence depicted on the rally posters of left-wingers or pie-throwing at pundits as posted on Michelle Malkin's "proof of violence." "Absence of proof isn't proof of absence" Donald Rumsfield

- singlspeed

January 12, 2011 at 6:37pm

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With some reluctance I decided to watch Palin's YouTube videocast, just to see for myself why it was stirring such controversy. I liked it, rather to my surprise. I thought it was going to be a self-serving rant, trying to characterize the criticism her to her favor. Aside from the odd, context-less misapplication of the term "blood libel" (I shook my head in bewilderment: "hunh?" On further reflection, I still don't get her meaning, or motive, if any.) I thought it was pretty good, even, dare I say it, Presidential in its careful, measured, "My fellow Americans..." style of delivery. She did herself a favor posting the video. Most people (excepting those who can't bear the sight or sound of her, myself among them) will be impressed, as to my surprise was I.

- Tgossard

January 12, 2011 at 6:47pm

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seattleeng, all the Malkin stuff you linked to is the work of fringe loonies and their wild drivel that both sides have to deal with. In the Giffords case, in contrast, we're talking about an actual Republican candidate for national office hosting an election meeting where the gag was his opponents face on targets for actual shooting practice. You're comparing apples and pears. The fringe crap is not echoed and tolerated by the Democratic mainstream or the party leadership, unlike in today's GOP.

- ironyroad

January 12, 2011 at 7:12pm

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Basman sayeth: "I want to suggest to you that there is a qualitative difference in the relation between your car’s emissions and global warming and, say, Palin’s rhetoric and imagery and Loughner’s actions. If a man dies a death by a 1,000 cuts, no one cut kills him but each cut directly contributes to his death. So, in that sense there is a direct link between your emissions and global warming. It in combination with all other sources of whatever all creates global warning is, I’d argue, analogous to the one cut. The difference between one cut and one person’s emissions is one of fractionality and not of analytical difference." I would argue, in response, that what we think and then decide to do at any given juncture of significance is highly influenced by what we have heard, and where what we hear sets the bar for behavior. This is almost absurdly obvious when you think about humans as social creatures with a transmissible culture, and it's the foundation of the entire advertising industry. Brands work because they change that "atmosphere" of which I spoke metaphorically, as it relates to our purchase decisions. Likewise, "branding" a movement the Tea Party, invoking Jeffersonian imagery about shedding the blood of tyrants, putting opponents in cross hairs, etc, changes the thresholds by which individuals make decisions - even if you are psychologically disturbed - maybe especially if you are psychologically disturbed. And although my analogy is just that, and not my main point, I think it holds. I can't cause a storm by emitting carbon dioxide, but I can raise the likelihood that extreme storms will occur, by giving them access to the energy they need to be extreme. No on politician caused Loughner's actions, but extreme rhetoric was clearly part of the "energy" on which his delusions fed.

- IowaBeauty

January 12, 2011 at 7:22pm

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Would someone validate what some conservatives are saying, that the term "blood libel" is frequently used in speeches by both liberals and conservatives. I can't recall any other occasions when I've heard the term used in speeches. I'm certain there must have been sometime, but "frequently?" I could just be out of touch on that. Anyway, I'm certain I'll be hearing it again in coming days. And again, and again, and again...

- Tgossard

January 12, 2011 at 7:52pm

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The other post wouldn't let me comment, so I'll put this here. In the midst of the hurly-burly about responsibility for the Giffords shootings, I happened to read the following from Malcolm Gladwell’s *The Tipping Point*. He was discussing, among other things, how targeting the petty crimes of graffiti and fare-beating in the New York subway system had an enormous impact on reducing the incidence of much more serious crimes. “An enormous percentage of those who engage in violent acts...have some kind of psychiatric disorder or come from deeply disturbed backgrounds. But there is a world of difference between being inclined toward violence and actually committing a violent act. A crime is a relatively rare and aberrant event. For a crime to be committed, something extra, something additional, has to happen to tip a troubled person toward violence, and what the Power of Context is saying is that those Tipping Points my be as simple and trivial as everyday signs of disorder like graffiti and fare-beating. The implications of this idea are enormous. The previous notion that disposition is everything -- that the cause of violent behavior is always “sociopathic personality” or “deficient superego” or the inability to delay gratification or some evil in the genes -- is, in the end, the most passive and reactive of ideas about crime...there is very little you can do to prevent crime from happening in the first place...Once you understand that context matters, however, that specific and relatively small elements in the environment can serve as Tipping Points, that defeatism is turned upside down. Environmental Tipping Points are things that we can change: we can fix broken windows and clean up graffiti and change the signals that invite crime in the first place. Crime can be more than understood, it can be prevented.” Gladwell, The Tipping Point, pages 166-167 Can this also apply to our current political malaise? Tee shirts and maps don’t kill people any more than subway graffiti does. But do they create an environment where the unbalanced are more likely to act out? I suspect so.

- Ouroboros

January 12, 2011 at 8:40pm

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ironyroad: "seattleeng, all the Malkin stuff you linked to is the work of fringe loonies and their wild drivel that both sides have to deal with" OK, so you acknowledge the fringe left is scary rabid. Zero sense of shame or decency. Some of the meanest stuff you will ever encounter. Good. Now, were is the equivalent of the fringe right? The stuff on Malkin's page wasn't hidden in back rooms. It was OUT THERE at rallies for all to see. Where is the equivalent?? If you are interested in mainstream dem speech: "If they bring a knife to the fight, we bring a gun "You think you are big enough to make me, you little wimp? Come on. Come over here and make me, I dare you. You little fruitcake “I don’t want to quell anger. I think people are right to be angry! I’m angry! "If there is retributive justice [Sen. Jesse Helms] will get AIDS from a transfusion, or one of his grandchildren will get it. "For hypocrisy, for sheer gall, [Newt] Gingrich should be hanged. “We’re gonna punish our enemies and we’re gonna reward our friends who stand with us on issues that are important to us. "[I]f we were in other countries, we would all right now, all of us together, all of us together would go down to Washington and we would stone Henry Hyde to death! We would stone him to death! [crowd cheers] Wait! Shut up! Shut up! No shut up! I’m not finished. We would stone Henry Hyde to death and we would go to their homes and we’d kill their wives and their children. We would kill their families. "If President Clinton would pardon me I would whip Starr’s ass right now. I will get a crew from Brooklyn and we will stomp him like, like, we’re Savion Glover. We’ll stomp him like it’s bringing da noise. “We talk to these folks… so I know whose ass to kick “I think it’s tempting not to negotiate with hostage takers, unless the hostage gets harmed. In this case the hostage is the American people and I was not willing to see them get harmed "Shoot him with a .44 caliber Bulldog. "He’s one more mistake away from not having any kneecaps. "“Instead of running for governor of Florida, they ought to have him [sic] and shoot him. Put him against the wall and shoot him "I want you to argue with them and get in their face "A Republican majority in Congress would mean “hand-to-hand combat” on Capitol Hill for the next two years, threatening policies Democrats have enacted to stabilize the economy,” “Here’s the problem: It’s almost like they’ve got — they’ve got a bomb strapped to them and they’ve got their hand on the trigger. You don’t want them to blow up. But you’ve got to kind of talk them, ease that finger off the trigger. Want more? Just say so. And please. Let's not pretend the mainstream dem opinion is not just as, if not more, toxic.

- seattleeng

January 12, 2011 at 8:48pm

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Oh, really? Got any examples of left-wing political violence to show for it? Nope. rhubarbs counts 52 deaths attributable to right-wing political violence and 0 attributable to left-wing political violence. We have, as ironyroad pointed out, all sorts of people saying all sorts of things. It matters whether they are in positions of leadership or part of the media elite whose utterances are magnified by the medium and beamed to millions. Where is the equivalent? How about a candidate for the second highest office in the land who says, "Don't retreat, reload" and publishes political opponents with gunsights on them? Naaah. Doesn't count. How about these: "As illustration, consider the following. Here's Glenn Beck on murdering Michael Moore: Hang on, let me just tell you what I’m thinking. I’m thinking about killing Michael Moore, and I’m wondering if I could kill him myself, or if I would need to hire somebody to do it. No, I think I could. I think he could be looking me in the eye, you know, and I could just be choking the life out — is this wrong? And now Rush Limbaugh on the firestorm surrounding the Tucson murders: Do not kid yourself. What this is all about is shutting down conservative media. That’s what this is all about. Shutting down any and all political opposition." http://www.tnr.com/blog/jonathan-chait/81336/lord-help-me-im-defending-palin?page=1 "I really believe that the pagans, and the abortionists, and the feminists, and the gays and the lesbians who are actively trying to make that an alternative lifestyle, the ACLU, People For the American Way, all of them who have tried to secularize America. I point the finger in their face and say 'you helped [9/11] happen.'" - Jerry Falwell, September 13, 2001, on The 700 Club "I’ll tell you who should be tortured and killed at Guantanamo — every filthy Democrat in the U.S. Congress." — Sean Hannity "To fight only the al-Qaeda scum is to miss the terrorist network operating within our own borders... Who are these traitors? Every rotten radical left-winger in this country, that's who." — Michael Savage "Liberalism is the greatest threat this country faces." — Rush Limbaugh "It is not a stretch to say that MoveOn is the new Klan." — Bill O’Reilly "We need to execute people like John Walker in order to physically intimidate liberals, by making them realize that they can be killed, too." — Ann Coulter "I don’t see any difference between [Arianna] Huffington and the Nazis." — Bill O’Reilly "The Islamofascists are actually campaigning for the election of Democrats. Islamofascists from Ahmadinejad to al-Zawahiri, Oba -- Osama bin Laden, whoever, are constantly issuing Democrat talking points." — Rush Limbaugh "There are things in life worth fighting and dying for and one of ‘em is making sure Nancy Pelosi doesn’t become the [House] speaker." — Sean Hannity "And let’s make one thing very clear: these are not quotes from the fringes of the right, opinionated actors, and anonymous bloggers marketing to a small number of depraved kooks. These are from the right’s best-selling authors, their most popular radio hosts, and their most prominent TV personalities with audiences in the millions." http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jonathan-kim/right-wing-tn-church-shoo_b_115789.html For instance, Rush Limbaugh declared, "I tell people don't kill all the liberals. Leave enough so we can have 2 on every campus - living fossils - so we will never forget what these people stood for." Right-wing Rep. Peter King (R-New York) once encouraged the assassination of the late Tim Russert. "I think people like Tim Russert and the others, who gave this guy such a free ride and all the media, they're the ones to be shot," King cried, regarding an unspecified incident. Right-wing commentator Melanie Morgan said she would "have no problem with" the editor of the New York Times "being sent to the gas chamber." Bill O'Reilly invited Al-Qaeda to blow up San Francisco. Ann Coulter once said, "We need somebody to put rat poisoning in Justice Stevens' creme brulee." Another right-wing commentator, Kathleen Parker, said that Wesley Clark, John Kerry, Howard Dean, Dick Gephardt, Dennis Kucinich, and Rev. Al Sharpton "should all be lined up and shot." http://onlinelunchpail.blogspot.com/2008/08/right-wing-hate-speech-unearthed.html Another recent topic that is getting a lot of air time is a report from the Department of Homeland Security "Right-wing Extremism: Current Economic and Political Climate Fueling Resurgence in Radicalization and Recruitment." The report had been commissioned by the Bush administration, which also commissioned reports on potential left-wing extremist dangers. The release of the report under the Obama administration led to a great deal of consternation and more heightened rhetoric in the cable and talk radio realm: Rush Limbaugh: "So you have a report from Janet Napolitano and Barack Obama, Department of Homeland Security portraying standard, ordinary, everyday conservatives as posing a bigger threat to this country than Al-Qaeda terrorists or genuine enemies of this country like Kim Jong Il. They wouldn't write anything about Jim Jong Il like this. They wouldn't write anything about Osama Bin Laden like this." April 14th, 2009. Neil Cavuto on Fox News' YOUR WORLD: "It more or less states the government considers you a terrorist threat if you oppose abortion, speak out against illegal immigration, or are a returning war veteran." April 16th, 2009. Sean Hannity during an interview with Joe the Plumber: "If you have a pro-life bumper sticker on your car, if you have an 'America is overtaxed' bumper sticker, if you have a pro-Second Amendment bumper sticker, they're viewing you potentially as a radical." April 15th, 2009. http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/07242009/profile2.html Ann Coulter: "My only regret with Timothy McVeigh is he did not go to the New York Times Building."

- roidubouloi

January 12, 2011 at 9:40pm

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Where is the equivalent? There does not exist on the left any equivalent to right-wing political leaders and media figures calling for the torture, maiming, and death of political opponents as traitors, enemies, and moral polluters. That is why there is no record of left-wing political violence in the last 40 years or so and constantly recurring right-wing political violence. There is plenty more to quote where all that came from. But there isn't time enough.

- roidubouloi

January 12, 2011 at 9:46pm

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I am of the "Loughner was more crazy than right-wing" school of thinking, but I still feel like Palin was way out of line with her comments. If someone is mean to me, I haven't experienced a Holocaust. If I have to work through lunch, I haven't experienced the Great Leap Forward. Six people are dead, a congresswoman is in the hospital with a bullet through her brain, and Palin seems to think that the main tragedy is that people are being mean to her. She can dish it out, but she sure as Hell can't take it.

- WillPastor

January 12, 2011 at 10:06pm

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Roidubouloi, as usual you ask the toughest and most pressing questions going to the analytical heart of things. But if Loughner was, due to his mental defect, going to blow in any event, inevitably, then anything might have triggered his impulse at any time. There is no inexorable, but for, nexus that I can see in what he did. He breathed in the world around him, whatever it was. What led to his insane actions, I’d contend, on what I know, was in him, in his insanity—he was nuts—and not in any correlational link to one thing or another. I remember when in Canada Marc Lepine murdered fourteen women and wounded ten women and four men[ at the École Polytechnique,--the "Montreal Massacre”—some wrote about how attitudes towards women in Canada were to blame and cited a causal continuum between his insane actions and misogynist violence committed against women in the culture and the misogyny in the culture. To that, and to this example I repeat, the insanity is, in a sense the cause of itself, and moulded itself to the universe it found itself in. (I’m not familiar with who howled at the Federal Reserve.) Listen, I’m with you on the depredations of the volatile rhetoric of the Palins, Becks, Angles, Waxes and others. And I’m with you and others in locating all that essentially on the right. They lead to a terrible poisoning of, and explosive violent impulses in, your country’s politics and to all kinds of social dysfunction rending the American social fabric. But to assimilate the insanity of a Loughner, a Lepine or a Hassan in linked way to the reality they necessarily breathed in by virtue of living in the world goes too far.

- basman

January 12, 2011 at 10:18pm

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What goes around comes around. "Palling around with terrorists", indeed. As for the usage of "blood libel", it is almost certain that she did not know the history of the term, but had heard it used and liked how it sounded. Her ignorance can't be underestimated.

- JEFF FREY

January 13, 2011 at 12:02am

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Roid writes: "Where is the equivalent?" There are 3 buckets you can draw from. Fringe wackos. Both parties have them. We agreed to dismiss their rants. Media wackos. Both parties have them. Limbaugh, Ed Shultz, Beck, Savage, Stephanie Miller, Olberman. They are all the same. Leaders and Cheerleaders. These are those either in the party, or the places the media turns when they want opinion while appearing not too biased. I post comments from the Leaders and Cheerleaders bucket, and you reply with Media Wackos? Hint: I can post a pile of rhetoric from Shultz, Miller and Malloy. As noted, they are all the same. Let's throw those out. But what about the right-wing equivalents of our political leaders posting inflammatory rhetoric? Do you have examples of that? Sure, Bush said "Smoke 'em out." What else?

- seattleeng

January 13, 2011 at 12:23am

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Good point, seattleeng. We have the loonies on both sides, and there's a lot of stuff that approaches or even crosses the line in the material you posted. We have hard political rhetoric too, in campaigns. But, BUT, what we don't have is a Democratic equivalent of Giffords's opponent Kelly calling an election event with the gag that participants can shoot real ammunition at actual targets with Giffords's face on them. What we don't have is the crazy stuff on the left fringe being echoed and amplified by the political mainstream, on the lines of Obama having won because of ACORN, that he's a Muslim, that he's a socialist totalitarian, that the ACA imposes "death panels," that there's a government conspiracy to imprison domestic opponents, that Harry Reid better lose because if he doesn't there are "Second Amendment remedies" at hand. And so on and so forth. They are ultimately much more dangerous ideas to be playing with.

- ironyroad

January 13, 2011 at 5:10am

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As always, seattle, confronted with the evidence that you have again invented a claim that is unsupported by evidence, you struggle to reinterpret the world to fit your separate reality. Wrong bucket, you say? Media figures are not "cheerleaders?" Here on earth, these media figure are far more influential on the right than anyone of any class, leader, cheerleader, media figure, on the left. There IS no equivalent on the left. There is nothing like the extremist rightwing media circus on the left. Indeed, on the right we even have crossover as someone like Palin becomes both a politico and a media figure. So, of course, you want to exclude such figures completely because the make nonsense of your claim. Go ahead. Find something from Keith Olbermann where he talks about murdering someone, or lining rightwing public figures up to be shot

- roidubouloi

January 13, 2011 at 7:37am

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Seattle - I did not see a reply to my questions, which were not rhetorical. But, as for your equivalence arguments, I gather you are perfectly happy then about the "Israel also commits violence" arguments of pro-Palestinian agitators in defence of Hamas terrorists, right? I mean, both commit violence, right? I mean, there is your equivalence, right? Ah, these are rhetorical questions, by the way.

- icarusr

January 13, 2011 at 8:33am

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Basman, Here is what we know: Loughner, although hardly ideologically coherent (and to some degree altogether incoherent) in his rants picks up paranoid, right-wing extremist memes about the Second Constitution, debasement of the currency, tyrannical government trying to control us. He is mentally unbalanced. He is almost by definition a fringe case even by the standards of the radical right fringe. Hence, it is not surprising that his expressions are not even as orderly as theirs. But the source of his disturbed ideas seems pretty clear. This occurs against a background of threats and attacks directed at Democrats, particularly after the healthcare vote that the radical right (including therein virtually the entire Republican party) portrays to its nutcase rank and file as the death of liberty. They all fantasize aloud about picking up their guns to prevent tyrannical government from stealing their Constitution, their money supply, their grandma, and their freedom. Is it just a coincidence of common ideation? I think that is quite unlikely. Is it possible that even without any influence or encouragement from the extremist right this individual would have picked up a Glock and shot a bunch of people? Certainly it is. But we can never know whether that would have happened. Against that we have to balance the reality of a continuing stream of right-wing violence. This cannot be attributed to the general zeitgeist or the character of politics generally as there is nothing like it from the left, indeed there is apparently no political violence from the left at all. We have powerful right-wing media figures like Coulter and Beck egging this on with open fantasies about murdering liberals. You cannot ever prove what this individual would have done in the absence of these influences, but there is ample reason to believe that the fringe of the right-wing fringe is being influenced to political violence because we see the violence. That is as much proof of causation as we are ever going to get, and it seems to me to be enough. Given the inability to say with certainty that any particular violent act with clear right-wing political overtones is the result of such rhetoric, or that the same person would not have committed some violent act even without the political influences, together with the statistical likelihood that, overall, such rhetoric does lead to violence, I think that is more than enough of a basis for deploring such speech and holding these public figures morally accountable for the violence that is in a sense perpetrated in their name and with their explicit encouragement. The logical alternative is to accept that any speech is morally acceptable simply because we can never know for sure where it leads or if indeed it has any consequences. The world is not in its nature going to provide us with the sort of evidence of cause and effect that we would demand in a courtroom. In a world in which we must constantly make choices in the face of uncertainty, that does not seem to me to be morally supportable.

- roidubouloi

January 13, 2011 at 8:57am

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One can also make the point this way: If one wants to retreat behind the impossibility of knowing whether extremist rhetoric has any consequences, why should we be the slightest bit concerned about pounding the extremist right for its rhetoric? We will never know if there is any harmed caused thereby. It is logically inconsistent to complain of speech acts while simultaneously maintaining that we cannot complain of them because the precise harm they do is unknowable. We must make judgments. Silence is as much a judgment as criticism. I vote for harsh, persistent, public criticism of this extremist, violent rhetoric.

- roidubouloi

January 13, 2011 at 9:14am

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basman, I hear what you are saying, but the shjape that crazy takes IS at least in part a product of their times. Most schizophrenics even the paranoid ones, do not become violent. The content of their delusions is both related to their times, AND to their behavior. I knew a patient who happily expected to be crowned King of North America in the immediate future. He was the happiest, most peaceful person, filled with certainty that good times were ahead for him. Or the many Jesus Christs I met in the inpatient wards, most preaching peace and self-sacrifice. Occasionally mutliating themselves to be sure, but not others. Their delusions made them believe that they were doomed to suffer, but commanded to suffer it gladly. Others, where they were being persecuted, felt the need to fight back and fought back againts all kinds of innocent people. So the content of the delusion matters. And the content of delusion is a product of the times. Religious delusions are in decline, as religion in secular culture recedes. The internet has stepped forward into the breach as not only the source and reinforcer of delusion, but as a theme of content. Delusions that one has been abducted by aliens were replaced by delusions about the KGB, which have then been replaced by delusions about the international monetary fund, and now the internet. Does this make any particular media figure responsible for any particular thing done by a crazy? no. But the crazies are products of our times. And they are on an extreme end of a continuum with the rest of us. Lepine's madness made hiim hate women. And no, one can't say he hated women because of what this particular or that particular person said. But his hatred of women wasn't completely in a vacuum either. He was on a continuum with many other misognyists in society. he learned his hatred of women specifically from his father, and his specific hatreds grew in part from his rejection by women he was interested in. Why did he feel that their rejection was unfair? was he entitled to reciprocation? Where would such an idea come from? not simply from outer space, I would argue, or from his own mind. Such expectations and beliefs are common in society, although they are rarely acted on to such a vicious degree.

- miceelf

January 13, 2011 at 10:24am

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I continue to think Loughner was psychologically fixated on Giffords, and what played out was an the climax of enactment of his peculiar psychodrama. The heated rhetorical atmosphere in Arizona may have played a small role in it, but the outcome, i.e. Giffords assassination, had a specific meaning or symbolic value only Loughner knew. That he had prepared to shoot and kill any and all attendees to Giffords' appearance could be taken as measure of the intensity and dimension of his rage: "I'll show them all how big and important my anger is..." At least its a definite possibility, that it was a personal grudge of roiling hatred he acted out. I think politics and the climate of anger and hate may have figured into the psychodrama, but not necessarily in the ways we imagine or speculate.

- Tgossard

January 13, 2011 at 10:56am

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Roid: "Wrong bucket, you say? Media figures are not "cheerleaders?" Here on earth, these media figure are far more influential on the right than anyone of any class, leader, cheerleader, media figure, on the left." Ah, so you agree Malloy and Rhodes and Miller and Garafallow and Maher are just as hateful and mean, but because they have no audience it doesn't matter. You give those jackasses too much credit. You pull a quote from Jackass Beck that he made 5 years ago. The guy has talked for 3 hours a day, for the last 8 years. Over 5000 hours of talk, and you have one quote? That's it? And a top quote of your from Limbaugh is "Liberalism is the greatest threat this country faces." What are you? The thought police? That is reasonable opinion for someone to have. The converse opinion is certainly held by many on this very board. If anyone is grabbing here, Roid, it's you. Now, do you have rhetoric from leaders on the right or don't you? I'll assume you do and save you the trouble. The end conclusion here is that BOTH sides, at all levels, have their share of 'inciteful' speech. To conclude otherwise is ridiculous.

- seattleeng

January 13, 2011 at 11:38am

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seattleeng, perhaps you don't understand what "influential on the right" means. Right wing talk radio people are influential in the political circles on the right and republican politicians kowtow to them. No Dem politician kowtows to left-wing radio celebrities. The only one on your list I have listened to is Stephanie Miller, and if you really think she's as hateful as Beck, then you live in a very different world.

- miceelf

January 13, 2011 at 11:58am

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I leave it to you, seattle, to explain why we have had for some decades now a problem of right-wing political violence and murder and no incidents of left-wing political violence and murder. Both sides, according to you, have their share of "inciteful speech," yet only one side is incited by it to violence. Perhaps your opinion about what is and is not significant incitement and which speakers have the ability to motivate violence should take a back seat to the results. D'ya think? You simply cannot tolerate reality as it is and insist on one absurd distinction after another. Now it is that the one quote by Beck was uttered five years ago. Are you trying to tell us that all of these vicious right-wing wackos have cleaned up their act in the past five years? That the quality of speech on the extremist right, which includes almost all of it these days, has improved? Somehow I doubt it.

- roidubouloi

January 13, 2011 at 12:07pm

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Good posts both Roi and Mice on an interesting point of contention. I thank you for them. I'll answer (try to) both of you when I have a better moment.

- basman

January 13, 2011 at 12:14pm

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icarusr: "seattle - do you have the same reaction to incendiary speech by a Muslim Imam? When someone says that shootings by a Muslim man screaming "death to the infidel" is an act of a lone madman, what is your reaction? " Sorry, I saw your prod on this. It's a good question. I think it is important to look at the feelings of the group as a whole, and if a percentage of the group feels the behavior was perhaps warranted or justified, and if the group teaches this behavior, then the group could be deemed at least partly culpable. Take an example of an honor killing that happened in the UK: A Muslim man is upset and believes his family has become too westernized and debased. And he kills them by burning them alive with gasoline while they sleep. Of course, it is the fault of that man. But does his religion have a contribution to his fault? Next, consider a husband and wife, members of a religion that state doctors should not be used for medical treatment. Only prayer. Their child gets an infection, the prayer fails, and the child dies. Again, the parents own the responsibility, but does their religion have a contribution to their fault? In both cases, I think the answer is yes. Now, incendiary speech from an Imam is interesting, becasue in parts of the world there is a high percentage of Muslims that believe suicide bombing is OK to defend the religion. Pew polled and found that in 2002, 74% of Muslims in Lebanon believed suicide bombing was OK to defend the religion. Knowing that I'd say "yes", that incendiary speech by an Imam in Lebenon in 2002 was partly to blame if someone acted on it. But in 2009, in Turkey, only 4% of Muslims supported suicide bombing. So the ability of a radical Imam to incite people is dramatically reduced because not many are listening to him anyway. So, there are two components here to consider: 1) How hateful is the speech, and 2) how receptive are the listeners? Terrorism as we know it today is a concern because of the hateful speech and the receptiveness of the listeners. Talk radio is not a concern, because of the lack of receptiveness of the listeners. Limbaugh can yell "Kill!" but nobody does. Just as a football coach yells "Kill!" and nobody does. "Kill" is an understood proxy for "fight your hardest to succeed, but don't actually kill. " But that same speech in other countries could have radically different outcomes, due to the receptiveness of the listeners. Only if the speech is hateful AND a large number of listeners are receptive, do we have a problem. What think?

- seattleeng

January 13, 2011 at 12:18pm

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roi, even though it probably has been decades since the left was guilty of commonly using violence laden rhetoric, the left has had its violent days, too. I recall the intensity and pervasiveness of violent left wing revolutionary speech during the Vietnam War, Patty Hearst, Black Panthers, et al. Then "we" were the ones stirring up hatred of government and inciting to revolutionary acts. By no means do all conservatives sign on to the extremes of the far right. Today it seems both sides, in varying ways and to varying degrees, are tempted to over the top the other side. Hateful accusations and vilifications of the other side do occupy the thoughts on the left, too. But comparing isn't helpful in itself, somebody must yield and offer to listen without reacting to another's accusatory language. Peace usually has to start with somebody's offering it. It goes against the logic of a debate where the point is for our side to win, there's to lose. Not losing one's own temper can have a cumulative effect in defusing an uproar. Try to understand the other side in its own terms, not insist on our terms only. I'm not addressing this to you personally, just suggesting ways we all can use to calm things down a little.

- Tgossard

January 13, 2011 at 12:34pm

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Roid writes: "I leave it to you, seattle, to explain why we have had for some decades now a problem of right-wing political violence and murder and no incidents of left-wing political violence and murder. " Seattle WTO? 2008 RNC? Earth Liberation Front? The Weathermen? Shots fired at Cantor's campaign office by Leboon?. Pittsburg 2009? You are blind if you don't see these. It's there on both size, in equal force.

- seattleeng

January 13, 2011 at 12:37pm

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seattleeng, those are good examples, thx. I do confess to having been one-sided in my perspective generally concerning violent rhetoric and deeds. I do hope their will be a lessening of violent language use. It may suit our times to adjust our perspectives of the other side. As for the crazies, they have always been with us and little doubt will continue to be with us. Like it or not, we are a nation that has its civil and political roots in revolutionary action, and reaction, so I doubt we can ban all language that references our origins. But at the same time, the founders went to extraordinary lengths to obtain and maintain compromise as a grounds for our collective civil behavior and language. The goal has always been to form that more perfect union, acknowledging that it is an ideal, not a law in itself.

- Tgossard

January 13, 2011 at 1:19pm

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Here's an excellent post by GeoffG over on Chait's thread about Bachmann: EJ Dionne has a piece up on this website today with a short list of Republicans saying that the purpose of the Second Amendment is to enable us to fight back against a tyrannical federal government. If you want a long list of people who've taken this "fight back against tyranny" insanity seriously, go to: http://www.csgv.org/issues-and-campaigns/guns-democracy-and-freedom/insu.... This highlights where "both sides do it" breaks down. I'll assume, either arguendo or because it's true, that the Left has people as crazy as Bachmann. But, when they pipe up with nonsense, most mainstream liberals and other people who want to be seen as decent don't come to their defense.

- roidubouloi

January 13, 2011 at 4:07pm

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The Weathermen? And you complain about a five-year old quote by Glenn Beck? And are you trying to tell us that ELF is inspired by Al Gore? That there is any public, political or media figure of the left who is urging the ELF to violence even obliquely? Leboon? Oh, come on. "Norman Leboon, the man now charged with threatening to kill Rep. Eric Cantor (R-Va.) was arrested over the weekend, according to a statement released by the U.S. Attorney in Philadelphia Monday. Leboon made the threat in a YouTube video in which he leveled a variety of offensive and incendiary statements at Cantor and his family. "My Congressman Eric Cantor, and you and your cupcake evil wife," Leboon said in the video, according to an affidavit. "Remember Eric...our judgment time, the final Yom Kippur has been given. You are a liar, you're a Lucifer." If convicted, Leboon faces a maximum sentence of 15 years in prison. It appears that Leboon has also been involved in a lawsuit against Verizon regarding their alleged complicity in surveillance of US citizens and has been an active uploader of inflammatory and often anti-semitic videos. Watch some of Leboon's other bizarre, sometimes threatening, YouTube videos, or scroll down to read the statement on this case from the Philadelphia U.S. attorney's office: Leboon Plans Punishment For Obama, Democratic Leaders: "Yes, President Obama, you and Vice President Biden and Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid and your security council say very bad things about me. Your punishment is coming, the swine, it will be severe and you will beg for mercy to your God. It will be severe." This is what you claim as left-wing political violence? A guy is threatening Obama, Biden, Pelosi, and Reid? Which left do you have in mind exactly? ______________________ Yeah, right Seattle, Leboon. And the RNC convention of which wikipedia said this: "The convention was marked by peaceful demonstrations and unusually strong police presence in Saint Paul. Hundreds of arrests resulted in mostly dropped charges." And how about this on the Seattle WTO meeting (you oughta know): The New York Times printed an erroneous article that stated that protesters at the 1999 WTO convention in Seattle threw Molotov cocktails at police.[18] Two days later, The New York Times printed a correction saying that the protest was mostly peaceful and no protesters were accused of throwing objects at delegates or the police, but the original error persisted in later accounts in the mainstream media.[19] The Seattle City Council also dispelled these rumors with its own investigation findings: "The level of panic among police is evident from radio communication and from their inflated crowd estimates, which exceed the numbers shown on news videotapes. ARC investigators found the rumors of "Molotov cocktails" and sale of flammables from a supermarket had no basis in fact. But, rumors were important in contributing to the police sense of being besieged and in considerable danger." [20] An article in the magazine The Nation disputed that Molotov cocktails have ever been thrown at an anti-globalization protest within the US.[21] [edit] Aftermath Controversy over the city's response to the protests resulted in the resignation of Seattle police chief Norm Stamper,[22] and arguably played a role in Schell's loss to Greg Nickels in the 2001 mayoral primary election.[23][24] Similar tactics, on the part of both police and protesters, were repeated at subsequent meetings of the WTO, IMF/World Bank, Free Trade Area of the Americas, and other international organizations, as well as the Democratic and Republican National Conventions in the U.S. To many in North American anarchist and radical circles, the Seattle WTO riots, protests, and demonstrations were a success and are thought of as the most recent victories in the U.S. Prior to the "Battle of Seattle," there was almost no mention of "anti-globalization" in the US media, while the protests are seen as having forced the media to report on why anybody would oppose the WTO.[25] However, this was only the second phase of these mass demonstrations. The first began on 12 December 1997 in which newly formed grass-roots organizations blockaded Melbourne, Perth, Sydney and Darwin city centers.[26] On January 16, 2004, the city settled with 157 individuals arrested outside of the no-protest zone during the WTO events, agreeing to pay them a total of $250,000.[27] On January 30, 2007, a federal jury found that the City of Seattle had violated protesters' Fourth Amendment constitutional rights by arresting them without probable cause or hard evidence.[28][29] __________________ You are fabricating, seattle, just making stuff up. There remains nothing on the left with which to compare the long record of political violence on the right.

- roidubouloi

January 13, 2011 at 4:24pm

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Roidubouloi and Mice: I’m virtually at the point of repeating myself but will venture a few comments arising from my sense of your posts. And I’ll say, generally, that Mice I of course defer to your professional and clinical expertise and Roi, well, generally, I’m not inclined to defer to you as such but do weigh carefully (and with some trepidation :)) the analytic sharpness and moral consciousness that inform your posts. Mice, I believe, in a sense, you go some way to make my argument. The bulk and gist of your post go to the idea that, as you put it, “the shape crazy takes is in part a product of the times.” That’s precisely the issue, though I'd tend to say say more than "partly". I’ll argue as vociferously as you and Roi about the terrible consequentiality of explosive, aggressive, militant right wing rhetoric, and as, I mentioned before I agree with Roi, and I presume you, that the right has a virtual monopoly on this poisonous commodity. But, crazy is crazy; and sane is sane. I can't put it better than Chait when he says, succinctly but tellingly: “…But the fact is that Jared Loughner does not grow even loosely out of this movement. He could just as easily have undertaken his rampage in 2008 or 1998 or 1988. And I continue to believe that entangling this incident with the broader problem of right-wing apocalypticism is intellectually problematic and practically unsound.” (http://www.tnr.com/blogs/jonathan-chait). Roidubouloi, I’ll make the same general point contra you post. But let me not argue the evidence. Let me stipulate that Loughner’s insanity was significantly infused with right wing hysteria (though the evidence seems somewhat thin on that from accounts I have read, but I’m not arguing that.) You acknowledge in your post a couple of times that it’s essentially indeterminate as to what if any correlation that hysteria as such had with his insane mass murder. “Is it possible that even without any influence or encouragement from the extremist right this individual would have picked up a Glock and shot a bunch of people? Certainly it is. But we can never know whether that would have happened.” and “Given the inability to say with certainty that any particular violent act with clear right-wing political overtones is the result of such rhetoric, or that the same person would not have committed some violent act even without the political influences..” From that indeterminacy, you move to a judgment: “That is as much proof of causation as we are ever going to get, and it seems to me to be enough.” Underlying that judgment, I say respectfully, runs a flaw in your argument: an inclination to run to much together, but short of conflation, the sane on the right wing (even as we call them “whackos” or “nut jobs”) and people who are truly clinically insane, which I presume Loughner is. The consequence of that running together is what I see as you being overly binary in posing as the only alternatives: either we assimilate Loughner’s insanity to consequentiality or we give up the critical ghost: “One can also make the point this way: If one wants to retreat behind the impossibility of knowing whether extremist rhetoric has any consequences, why should we be the slightest bit concerned about pounding the extremist right for its rhetoric? We will never know if there is any harmed caused thereby.” I say in contrast that seeing correlation in Loughner’s case is not a necessary condition for being able to speak about consequences, which is to say, one can, as does Chait in what I cited, survey a host of consequences while distinguishing between the sane and the clinically insane, from whom we may exempt, as without suffcient agency, from judgments otherwise flowing from rational connections between right wing hysteria and right wing actions. Finally, not a logical point but a perhaps tactical, or even strategic, one to be made here as well: given at a minimum the nexus indeterminacy I noted, from you noting it, does it not emasculate the clear critique of that purposely ginned up hysteria by making it coterminus with an at best indeterminate nexus between it—the hysteria, that is— and the actions of a clinically insane person such as Loughner?

- basman

January 13, 2011 at 8:00pm

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Roid, I trust that the Amy Bishops of this world, the Joe Stacks, the SDS, the black panthers at polling places with billy clubs, those in jail for possessing molotov cocktails at the RNC, the hundreds arrested at the G20 summit in Toronto, the Hummer dealerships vandelized on Portland, the $2.5M in arson in Cali SUV dealers, the $2.5M in property damage from the Seattle WTO riots, the 350 foot AM antenna destroyed by ELF... Just like the first list, you can cite reasons why each of these weren't actually left violence, but something else. I get it. The left is never violent. Ever.

- seattleeng

January 13, 2011 at 8:32pm

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You keep not seeing the point, seattle. We've almost all agreed that there are left wing crazies too, but the difference is (1) they almost all hate the Democratic Party as much if not more than they hate the Republicans, and (2) they are not echoed, winked at, or amplified by the mainstream political leadership as the rightwing nutters are by the likes of Bachman and Angle, not to mention the actual opponent of Giffords's who held an election event with her picture as a target for actual shooting practice. Until you admit this, you're just blowing smoke.

- ironyroad

January 13, 2011 at 9:18pm

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No, you don't get it, seattle. Yes, there are violent extremists of right and left. No, the mainstream left does not encourage or even have contact, rhetorically or otherwise, with the extremist left. The extreme right in contrast has completely taken over the right with multiple media outlets and an audience in the millions. The numbers are vastly different. The extremist left consists almost entirely of this handful of nuts. The extremist right has consumed the Republican party. The right is paranoid, agitated, and talks ceaselessly about violence. Inevitably, there will be some who, inspired by that toxic stew, step over the line. The larger and more vociferous the pool, the more will step over that line. We have the results to show for it. The point is that decent Republicans and conservatives, if there are any left, ought to be deploring this extremist speech, not egging it on. Speech does have consequences. The authors of the First Amendment did not adopt it oblivious to the reality that speech has consequences. Basman, I take your point, but I think we are employing different notions of causation. I am not talking about proximate or final cause. Rather, a bit like micelf, I think that the form that craziness takes, for those who are not completely hallucinatory and imagining themselves being worked over by martians, and the manner in which it expresses itself does not lose contact with the cultural environment and is stimulated by it. If the guy's particular obsessions overlap with those of the extremist right, and they appear to, then I find that sufficient cause to hold the intemperate right responsible. If their extremist incitement had some positive social value, then one would demand a higher level of evidence. To me it is a simple cost-benefit analysis in both the practical and moral realms. In the end, I don't think we are disagreeing about causation so much as inference and what action is appropriate based on what inference. That is a judgment, not a law of physics.

- roidubouloi

January 13, 2011 at 9:20pm

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Roidubouloi: Okay thanks. I'll leave it that. I enjoyed the exchange.

- basman

January 13, 2011 at 11:00pm

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Roid writes: "No, the mainstream left does not encourage or even have contact, rhetorically or otherwise, with the extremist left." Good grief. The president has been to Bill Ayers house more than once. And Ayers isn't sorry for what he's done. Try again. Roid writes: "The right is paranoid, agitated, and talks ceaselessly about violence. Inevitably, there will be some who, inspired by that toxic stew, step over the line." But the left and right both have their toxic messengers. Malloy, Shultz, Olberman are just as toxic as Limbaugh, Beck, Hannity. Audience sizes are different, of course. But does that mean if Limbaugh's audience was the same size as Malloy's or Olberman you'd be OK with his rhetoric? Or does that mean you condemn the toxic messengers on the left too? You still haven't mentioned anything about the comments from the dem leaders I posted, and why those aren't considered incendiary. You know, the "They bring a knife, we bring a gun" and "Instead of running for governor of Florida, they ought to have him [sic] and shoot him. Put him against the wall and shoot him" And take a stab at this that I read today: The 60's and 70's saw incredible amounts of civil unrest in this country, with many assassination of our leaders (government, religious, etc). There was no talk radio then. Media was tightly controlled. If all this talk is causing violence, then wouldn't' we see far more violence now than in the 60s and 70's and early 80's?

- seattleeng

January 14, 2011 at 3:28am

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Seattle, You have a completely ahistorical and unrealistic view of the world. Yes, there was leftist violence in the 60s and 70s. That was forty and fifty years ago. Which doesn't mean that it can never recur, but that it has nothing whatever to do with our current problems and nothing to do with current political violence. Plus, at that time, there was a pretty ferocious response by the broad society to those extremists. They did not find themselves with syndicated TV and radio shows and an audience of millions. They were hunted down and killed or imprisoned. That is what is significant here that you just want to skip over. Yes, it matters a great deal that there are a host or rightwing extemists with a large audience who preach nothing but hate and encourage violence. There simply does not exist at this time, and not for decades, anything remotely comparable on the left. And we have the results to show for it. A series of deaths, assassinations, at the hands of rightwing terrorists and none at the hands of leftwing terrorists. Reality matters, seattle, not your truly ridiculous libertarian abstractions. Today we have the report that a Republican leader in Arizona resigned because of threats from rightwing extremists. If we do not summon the will as a society to express the same revulsion for rightwing violence and hate speech and admiration for violence, we are going to have a serious terrorism problem in this country. In fact, when political figures start resigning out of fear for their lives, we already do. Obama went to Bill Ayers house? That is only of tremendous significance to the very extremist nuts who think nothing of preaching violence today, right now. Takes one to know one, I guess. You gotta come back to earth, seattle. The crap you are pissing and moaning about is either ancient history or of no consequence precisely because THERE IS NO AUDIENCE ON THE LEFT FOR EXTREMISM. Extremists nuts will always exist. What makes the difference is whether they are treated as outlaws, as the are on the left, or welcomed as "the people," as they are on the right. There is good reason why the FBI issued a report about the threat of rightwing extremist violence, that naturally then became the target for the same vicious sons of bitches, Limbaugh, Hannity, Beck, who are a big part of the problem. There is no time like the present to abhor them. Why don't you add your voice to that of decent people rather than advance silly arguments about a non-existent parity between left and right?

- roidubouloi

January 14, 2011 at 8:10am

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Much of what you say is well taken Roid. On the other hand, I trust that Seattle agrees that revolutionary/incendiary rhetoric is a problem, but is simply objecting to making this a left vs. right issue. I am persuaded that, in current times, most of the danger is coming from what we call the "right," but how is it constructive to have this debate? Doesn't it in fact tend to exacerbate the problem?

- NR143296

January 14, 2011 at 8:33am

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I forget, is that dhurtado? Maybe, but to the extent that we fail to see where the actual, concrete, very threatening problem lies, we are not going to solve the problem. By all means, deplore violent rhetoric on the left when it arises. But, realistically, what is necessary is that we deplore such rhetoric and the people we are going to be identifying if we do so are entirely on the right. The right is loaded up with guns, talks non-stop about using them, and makes threats against those it disagrees with. There is a report today of a Republican leader in Arizona resigning in the face of death threats from rightwing extremists. That is the problem. Terrorism is here, now, and in America it is a rightwing phenomenon. If we cannot be realistic in talking about where the problem lies, I don't think there is much hope of addressing it, and we may just wake up one day and discover we have turned into a very different society. Bottom line, I think the talk about this being other than a rightwing problem is simply meant to distract us from what is the problem.

- roidubouloi

January 14, 2011 at 9:13am

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Basman, Thanks indeed. I can honestly say that I would not want to face you in a courtroom.

- roidubouloi

January 14, 2011 at 10:06am

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Seattle: your distinction is just reiterating Mill's "corn-dealers are the starvers of the poor" argument for limited restrictions of speech to a mob. That is, you are making an argument that is at least 150 years old, and that does not, imho, take into account the vast increase in the ability of the media and political actors to shape public opinion. I think that at a minimum there are elements of the Tea Party that resemble Mill's mob in a way that the "left" no longer has; Palin and the gang are shouting Mill's incitation, though in less florid terms. One cannot assign specific responsibility, but one can identify trends and make distinctions. Your continued arguments - and especially the Obama/Ayers point - reminds me so much of how Hamas supporters justify their violence. "Irgun", "the Kind David Hotel", the false equivalences, etc. Heard it all before. I find it amusing, frankly, how easy it is for someone like to you adopt logical tactics of terrorists to absolve your side of any responsibility for the climate of violence that exists in the US.

- icarusr

January 14, 2011 at 10:54am

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roid, I really am having trouble following you here. Some simple questions for you: 1) Does the left-wing have their version of Limbaugh et al in Malloy, Shultz, etc? 2) Do these hosts have listeners and are the listeners left leaning in their politics? 3) Does the left celebrate and embrace their leaders that speak with violent imagery (" Put him against the wall and shoot him" and "they bring a knife, you bring a gun"), as I posted above. Please, one word answers.

- seattleeng

January 14, 2011 at 11:54am

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icarusr: " Heard it all before. I find it amusing, frankly, how easy it is for someone like to you adopt logical tactics of terrorists to absolve your side of any responsibility for the climate of violence that exists in the US." I am not disputing heated speech on the right. I am merely asking for folks to acknowledge heated speech on the left. The right and the left act the same here. I posted a long list of crimes by those that lean left. With each, Roid had an answer why they weren't left wing, or part of the party. And yet that exact same baramoter isn't applied to the right due to some strange mechanism at play in the head of Roid. I'm just asking we hold everyone to the same standard.

- seattleeng

January 14, 2011 at 11:59am

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1) No 2) See 1) above 3) No, no one is celebrated for this sort of rhetoric, it is not repeated, amplified, nourished or embraced. And it does make a difference whether you talk with violent metaphors to people who are sitting in an expensive restaurant in Washington or New York or in a rally in front of a bunch of people with pistols on their hips. The people sitting in the expensive restaurant understand the metaphor and would be stunned and start leaving in embarrassment if the speaker insisted that it was meant to be taken literally. The people with the pistols don't. They think they are heroes-in-waiting. Context matters, history matters, the nature and size of the audience matters. That's why you cannot yell fire in a crowded theater. In that context, it is dangerous. It's why one black guy can call another black guy a nigger and no one is offended. In that context, it is inoffensive. Just the reverse. The claim that the left and right are the same in this regard ignores all current reality. They are not.

- roidubouloi

January 14, 2011 at 2:27pm

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If you believe left wing talk show hosts are not as inflammatory as right wing talk show hosts, then there you go: that is our disconnect. I laugh a bit because for as much as Beck and Limbaugh are on the air, you really didn't have anything that damning, except for 1 or 2 sentenches. And 1 or 2 in 5 or 10 years of running a talk show can be chalked up to a mistake. For violent rhetoric to really influence someone, it'd would have be almost daily. And yet you have to go back more than 5 years to find something offensive. Kind of deflates you point. I'll point out that in a Quinnipiac poll today that only 15% of the country thought heated rhetoric was to blame for the AZ event, and 36 to 32% people found the speech from the left more 'inciteful' than the right. So, you are doubly out of sync here: A very small minority believes rhetoric was to blame here. Including Obama. And the general population, the believes the left is nastier than the right. BTW, please don't use that word. I really enjoy going weeks on end without seeing or hearing that word. It's that offensive to me. PS. If you believe people are susceptible to incitement, what do you think about rap music, violent video games and violent movies depicting things such as killing, rape and torture? Honestly, rap music has probably done more to fuel a culture of killing than Limbaugh. So, if you were kind would you ban that and Limbaugh and movies depicting violence? Or would you only go after speech you didn't like?

- seattleeng

January 14, 2011 at 8:15pm

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I am not in favor of banning any speech. Only a fascist wants to do that. But free speech emphatically includes the right and duty to criticize other speech for its content and values. That is the competition of ideas that the authors of the First Amendment had in mind. No, there is nothing whatever on the left, nothing, to compare to Beck, Limbaugh, Hannity, Coulter, and on and on. And you cannot find a thing. There is a website with a lengthy list of the offensive incitement to violence by Beck. I neglected to save it and I am not going to bother further even if that helps you maintain your delusions about the parity between leftwing and rightwing rhetoric. You are going to maintain that delusion in any case as you always do when confronted with facts that make nonsense of your claims. At some point, there is no point. That some larger percentage of the population believes that there even exists any leftwing incitement, let alone that it is "nastier" than the right, is simply the result of the "epistemic closure" within the extremist right. Of course they think this because Limbaugh tells them so. That it has no referent in the real world is meaningless. These people are already foaming at the mouth, batshit insane. Their opinions can hardly be taken as a useful guide to reality.

- roidubouloi

January 14, 2011 at 8:37pm

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PS I did go back and read that document you linked to about income distribution and it flatly contradicted your claims about it. Why was I not surprised?

- roidubouloi

January 14, 2011 at 8:38pm

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Almost 22 million Americans watched NCIS this past Tuesday. Totally dwarfing the combined audiences of ALL news and radio political talk programming. Does it not occur to anyone that several elements of Loughner's planned massacre can be directly traced to plotlines from NCIS, and the three CSI crime tv shows? I am not looking forward to the next round of blame-blogging now that the police have let it be known that Loughner spent the night before his carefully planned massacre in a motel room, taking photos of himself posing with his Glock19, wearing only a red g-string.

- K2K

January 15, 2011 at 1:25am

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roidrage: have you lost your mind? Or are you in the advanced stages of cognitive dissonance? Or, just a sore loser as liberalism is losing in the marketplace of ideas? 1. You dismiss the only actual fact cited in this blog trail -- Poll data --- because it doesn't match your pre-conceived notions. Your reason -- Limbaugh got the names of the random polled population and told them what to say. Really? 2. You have never watched MSNBC at night. But then again no really does. They do have some pretty outlandish liberal hosts. But then again if you are a moonbat fanboy - they probably seem even tempered. This reminds me of the 'every Tea Party support is a racist' meme that was proved stupidly wrong. I guess the real question is whether every liberal is an idiot?

- mr_rationale

January 15, 2011 at 2:02am

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roid writes: "No, there is nothing whatever on the left, nothing, to compare to Beck, Limbaugh, Hannity, Coulter, and on and on." Left wing talk radio quotes: "You rat bastards are going to cause another Murrah federal building explosion, maybe at that point Beck will do the honorable thing and blow his brains out." "Maybe then O'Reilly will just drink a vat of that poison he spews out on America every night and choke to death" "Am I a racist to feel alarmed by [Mohammed becoming the most popular name in Britain] because I am. And it’s not because of the race, it’s because of the religion. I don’t have to apologize, do I, for not wanting the Western world to be taken over by Islam in 300 years?” “…that’s right, he’s 62 years old, he’s gonna f*** [Willow Palin] right there on stage…it would be very wise to keep her, very wise, yes. You know, I’d worry a little more about the 18-year old hockey players who knock up your daughters.” ""If somebody had a big rifle scope with your daughter's face on it, what would you think about that? You f---er! You c--t!" “The Republican Party needs to be executed as quickly as possible.” "Do you not understand that Glenn Beck and Sean Hannity and Rush Limbaugh and Bill O’Reilly are as complicit of the September 11, 2001 terror attack as any one of the dumbass 14 who came from Saudi Arabia?" "[Dick] Cheney, by the way, looks very ruddy. I couldn’t get over that. Like, he must have feaster on a Jewish baby, or a Muslim baby. He must have sent his people out to get one and bring it back so he could drink its blood." So, let's recap: I've shown the minions are left are just as crazy as the minions on the right. No dispute there. What with the Abort Sarah Palin bumper stickers and all. I've shown above that the left-leaning talk radio hosts are just as nasty as the right. And I think I've shown that the leaders on the left are nastier than the leaders on the right with their statements. And you reject it all, and claim this is all one-sided. Hmmm.

- seattleeng

January 15, 2011 at 10:18am

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roid: "PS I did go back and read that document you linked to about income distribution and it flatly contradicted your claims about it. Why was I not surprised?" Refresh my memory: Which point specifically? Good doc, though, no?

- seattleeng

January 15, 2011 at 10:19am

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As I've noted, I don't think the left vs. right finger-pointing in this matter is very helpful. I do think the revolutionary ideology and militaristic rhetoric that is currently embodied by the Tea Party is potentially dangerous and those of us that speak against it are right to do so. However, though some Republican politicians have cynically co-opted the Tea Party movement, I think it has little to do with mainstream conservatism, which is the opposite of revolutionary. So instead of pointing to "right-wingers," we should point to those who actually hold and express the revolutionary ideology. That said, SE, I cannot help but ask you how "36 to 32% people found the speech from the left more 'inciteful' than the right" translates to the general population believing "the left is nastier than the right"? Dhurtado

- NR143296

January 15, 2011 at 11:56am

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...inciteful?... I think not. No such word.

- basman

January 15, 2011 at 7:14pm

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The point about income inequality in the US compared to Europe. The document itself makes clear that the US is an outlier in this regard.

- roidubouloi

January 15, 2011 at 9:14pm

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You need to identify who said those things, seattle. Otherwise it is impossible to evaluate your claims.

- roidubouloi

January 15, 2011 at 9:16pm

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basman: "No such word." That's why it's in quotes. I used incite earlier in the sentence. Consider it a literary flourish. If Palin can do it, then hell yeah... Roid, you can copy the text I pasted. For example, I paste "You rat bastards are going to cause another Murrah federal building explosion" into google, and you can see about 4 links down that you can listen to Mike Malloy go off on the larger rant. Lather, rinse, repeat for the others. So, I ask: Is left talk radio just as nasty as the right? You aren't being honest if you claim otherwise. You can claim it doesn't have a larger audience, that's true. But if heated rhetoric is motivating, then the difference between 1M listeners and 10M listeners is academic. PS. I'm still laughing that you claimed this comment from Limbaugh is hate speech, or heated rhetoric, or the least bit controversial: "Liberalism is the greatest threat this country faces." Is the converse of that statement heated rhetoric? I'd not consider it so. Provocative, sure.

- seattleeng

January 16, 2011 at 1:49am

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That said, SE, I cannot help but ask you how "36 to 32% people found the speech from the left more 'inciteful' than the right" translates to the general population believing "the left is nastier than the right"? How about "more people in the general population found the rhetoric from the left nastier than the rhetoric from the right".

- seattleeng

January 16, 2011 at 1:55am

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...That's why it's in quotes. I used incite earlier in the sentence. Consider it a literary flourish. If Palin can do it, then hell yeah... I refudiate its use, though I admit I missed the q. marks.

- basman

January 16, 2011 at 12:59pm

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