Posted on 01/10/2011 11:47:51 AM PST by Scythian
Within an hour of Saturday's tragic shooting in Arizona, the Twittersphere had quickly seized on a map put out by Sarah Palin's political action committee last year that had gun-sight images over the congressional districts of House Democrats she wanted to win for the GOP in 2010.
Among her targets: Gabrielle Giffords of Arizona, who was critically wounded by a gunman Saturday. His motives, authorities say, are not fully known. But friends of the suspect, Jared Loughner, have suggested that he had held a grudge for at least three years against Giffords dating back to when he met her in 2007.
Still, some believe that incendiary rhetoric like Palin's bears some responsibility in the tragedy. Giffords herself had previously raised concerns about Palin's map: "The way that she has it depicted has the cross hairs of a gun sight over our district. When people do that, they have got to realize there are consequences to that action."
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
Please be serious. If instead, you take the Left seriously, Sarah Palin is infinitely powerful, as President Bush was, and therefore is responsible for everything bad that happens—including events before she was born.
There is no possible set of circumstances under which Sarah would not be blamed by the cyber-Stalinists and the alphabet media for the shooting death of any Democratic political figure. Get used to the fact that they say things because they are untrue. Otherwise, they are not satisfied that they are being sufficiently urgent and hysterical. In fact, lying makes them feel almighty, reigning supreme over reality itself. They do not need an unanswered query about "surveyors" in order to get there. For them, any route will do.
That spin, put out by Palin's spokesman, is an insult to everybody's intelligence.
Sarah Palin's image is not about "surveying". It's about hunting. The marks were a politically dumb attempt to be cute by mixing up her hunting image with her political image.
Did Palin's map with a hunting scope reticle pattern cause a "Left-wing pothead" with an obvious mental illness who listed Karl Marx as a favorite author to shoot a Congresswoman who described herself as a "Bluedog Democrat"?
No. He probably never saw it. But Palin's map did give the Left a gift-wrapped issue to beat her over the head with.
I already had this discussion on another thread.
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Notice how Palin’s ‘sight’ has crosshairs that extend past the outer circle? That’s a map-coordinate marker, not a gun scope.
You imply that, since the image has "crosshairs that extend past the outer circle" therefore, it cannot be a rifle scope because the crosshairs cannot extend beyond the scope itself. Therefore, it must be a "map-coordinate marker" like those orange tear-drop things on Google map.
The "crosshairs that extend past the outer circle" are not the physical impossibility of crosshairs extending beyond the "outer circle" that represents the scope.
The image is a "Reticle Pattern".
A "reticle pattern" is the the pattern of lines, circles, squares, etc., that you see when you look through the sniper or hunting scope and the pattern is limited only by the imagination of the scope designer.
If you want a hunting scope with a reticle pattern where the crosshairs "extend past the outer circle", try this one: (Click the images to enlarge the images of the reticle pattern)
But, we are really up to our eyeballs in technicalities right now, aren't we?
Do you think that the general public knows the difference between "rimfire" and "centerfire" or has the slightest clue what different reticle patterns are used in hunting scopes?
No, they do not.
All they know is that the particular reticle pattern used as an image in Sarah Palin's map represents a sniper or hunting scope.
This is where Sarah Palin utterly fails as an electable Presidential candidate:
Palin is fantastic at "preaching to the choir" and engaging in all the "inside jokes" that the choir loves.
However, Palin is totally tone deaf in regards to what plays outside of her choir.
We, who grew up learning to shoot, who engage in so-called "blood sports" and who have military service are pretty matter-of-fact about guns and gun analogies.
"Yeah, Sarah's targeting liberals as if they were caribou. Ha, ha!"
That mindset, however, does NOT hold true for the majority of the voters who will choose the next President of the United States.
Sarah Palin tried to be "cute" about mixing her hunting image with her political image and she has now given her political opponents a huge issue to beat her over the head with.
If Sarah Palin had wanted to use "map-coordinate markers", she should have had the common sense to use a symbol other than the gun scope reticle pattern that is most commonly associated with a rifle scope in the mind of the general public.
27 posted on Monday, January 10, 2011 10:58:53 AM by Polybius
You are right. How this all plays out is really up to Sarah. Every single time she is bashed, she is out right then and there to put the BS sign up. This time she is not and that is weird.
So now they are making political organizing to oppose a particular officeholder the equivalent of making a death threat?
I hope you are right.....you probably are.
Be comforted: he’s not a tea partier.
He’s left wing, gay, atheistic and wants to be a woman. The nearest Jared ever got to the Tea Party was the one in Alice in Wonderland.
She’ll be on Fox News tonight I’m sure ... How sad for her, I’m sure she feels terrible for all those killed and injured, and now her political enemies try to make her the 2nd shooter. It’s sickening honestly.
You're 180 degrees off. Her political opponents have just given her a huge issue to beat them over the head with. This is (or at any rate can be if Sarah plays her cards right) the moment when the deranged Palin haters break cover, come out in the open and utterly discredit themselves. The effort to tie her to the Arizona shootings is so crass, so nutty and so nasty that it will raise questions about the whole effort to portray Palin in a negative light. Andrew Sullivan may be crazy enough to obsess about some marks on a map, but nobody else is likely to care. Maybe you and Andy can get together and hang out. You might have some trouble finding any other congenial company.
It is sickening. I look forward to seeing her on Fox News. I think she should have been on Fox Morning or something on Sunday. But Monday Night will be fine.
Even if they were, in politics, military symbols and symbolic speech are used all the time. Targets, bullseyes, crosshairs, "ground-game", "attack", "hired-gun", "campaign", are all military terms co-opted for use in politics. Was it not Carville who said politics is WOAH!
We need to stop denying that we use war symbols and speech because we do, they do, and we should retain the right to continue to do so.
Yeah, she should drop the inflammatory graphics, hide the map, and just relabel her plan SIOP-12 or something (and just grin if anybody asks).
You mean because of the reasons I posted?
"Did Palin's map with a hunting scope reticle pattern cause a "Left-wing pothead" with an obvious mental illness who listed Karl Marx as a favorite author to shoot a Congresswoman who described herself as a "Bluedog Democrat"? No. He probably never saw it."
Outside of Free Republic or Drudge, have you seen ANY site with a wide circulation spreading those facts around?
No. Because the Left controls most of the media.
In this case, not even FOX is pushing the "surveyors marks" spin.
Sarah Palin's hard core base is not very large in comparison with the U.S. population. The ratings of her reality TV series did not even warrent renewal of the series and the ratings plummeted after the curiosity of the first episode passed.
Most of the voters will not research the facts of this case very deeply. All they will know is that Sarah Palin was politically dumb enough to use a hunting scope reticle pattern in a political campaign.
But Palin's map did give the Left a gift-wrapped issue to beat her over the head with. ... Polybius
As napscoordinator posted:
" She needs a ton of Independents who probably are finding these stories disturbing at best."
The average Independent will not waste a single minute of his or her time trying desperately to believe that Sarah Palin's marks were intended as "surveyors marks".
The average Independents will think those marks mean exactly what these marks from my post 43 mean.
Did Sarah Palin "mean" to have somebody get hurt?
No, of course not.
Did Sarah Palin "mean" to use hunting scope reticles in order to be cute about "targeting" her political opponents and mixing up her hunting image (popular when preaching to the choir) with her political image.
Yes.
Was that an incredibly stupid political blunder because hunting scope reticles are not considered "cute" in political debate among the Independents that outnumber Democrats and far outnumber all Republicans?
You betcha!
As I said in Post 43:
"This is where Sarah Palin utterly fails as an electable Presidential candidate: Palin is fantastic at "preaching to the choir" and engaging in all the "inside jokes" that the choir loves. However, Palin is totally tone deaf in regards to what plays outside of her choir."
Independents will think, "No, she did not mean for anybody to get hurt. But, yes, she was politically stupid enough to bring hunting scope reticles into political debate and that could have influenced that nutjob or some other nutjob."
Saint Michael the Archangel, defend us in battle, be our protection against the malice and snares of the devil. May God rebuke him we humbly pray; and do thou, O Prince of the Heavenly host, by the power of God, thrust into hell Satan and all evil spirits who wander through the world for the ruin of souls. Amen.
Well, it didn’t take long for Freepers to pal up with the commie propaganda against Palin.
What complete and utter wimps.
Is it any wonder why we have Republicans in office with no spines?
Onyx, do you have a link to the thread last fall where the marks were explained as surveyors marks??
TIA
Onyx, do you have a link to the thread last fall where the marks were explained as surveyors marks??
TIA
To have somebody "in the crosshairs" is an old expression; Democrats and Republicans alike have used it for years as a macho-sounding way to denote their political targets.
It's never been a big deal before, and really shouldn't be a big deal now.
Except that Palin's brainless spokesman tried to tell us they're "surveyor's marks" ... if it wasn't an issue before, this transparent and silly fib made sure that it would become one. Now it looks like Palin is running away.
I'm sure that if you ask pretty much anybody on the "Palin caused it" bandwagon, they'd admit that they don't actually believe Palin was calling for people to shoot the folks whose districts were in the crosshairs.
In reality, this "issue" is really just something they've latched onto, as a way to express a pre-existing unsease about Sarah Palin -- they simply don't trust her, and see her as a rabble-rousing loose cannon. Her tendency to use aggressive rhetoric has not helped her in this regard.
Whether or not it's fair -- and it's not remotely fair, IMO -- this is going to define Sarah Palin in the eyes of a lot of people.
What Sarah Palin needs to do, is convince people that she's a serious and sober person. But I see little indication that she's willing to give up her schtick.
Good grief, FR’s MSM water-boys have shown up.
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