The unseemly rush to blame Sarah Palin, the Tea Party and Republicans for murder in Arizona

Daily Telegraph ^ | January 9, 2011 | Toby Harnden

[Cincinatus' Wife]

Paul Krugman of the “New York Times” suggests darkly that Giffords was shot because she was “a Democrat who survived what was otherwise a GOP sweep in Arizona” and “violent acts are what happen when you create a climate of hate” (those reponsible for such a climate being, of course, Republicans).

[snip]

Jane Fonda pins it on Sarah Palin, Glenn Beck and the Tea Party.

Even the local sheriff (a Democrat) has been getting in on the act. Sheriff Clarence Dupnik (a Democrat) said:

"When you look at unbalanced people, how they respond to the vitriol that comes out of certain mouths about tearing down the government. The anger, the hatred, the bigotry that goes on in this country is getting to be outrageous. And, unfortunately, Arizona I think has become sort of the capital. We have become the Mecca for prejudice and bigotry."

[snip]

what are the facts we know so far? From what we know about Loughner, he was a deeply disturbed young man who railed about literacy rates, spoke of flag burning and creating a new currency.

Former classmates talk of “nonsensical outbursts” and a person “on his own planet”. ....My colleague Jon Swaine has a summary here of the raving of a person who most people would judge to be a complete nutcase even if he hadn’t gone out and shot people.

Oh, and another former classmate said he was “left wing, quite liberal”. .................

[snip]

This is highly inconvenient for certain people on the Left so they ignore it. They would much prefer the shooter to have been a white male in his 50s, the description the sheriff gave of a second person of interest (we’ll see if such a person materialises) but they’ll still try to make hay with a weirdo like Loughner.

[Cincinatus' Wife]

Below is material from a link in the blog post above (there is more good commentary in Toby Harnden's piece along with several good links).

----

"Memo to Paul Krugman and Rep. Van Hollen: My Search Was Not in Vain (Updated)" --Posted by John on March 31, 2010 at 8:37 am

In last Thursday’s column, Paul Krugman admitted to having fun watching “right-wingers go wild.” One of the things that apparently delighted him was this map which Sarah Palin posted on her Facebook page:

Each of the cross-hairs represents a Democrat from a conservative district who voted in favor of health reform. Immediately after highlighting the map, Krugman wrote:

"All of this goes far beyond politics as usual…you’ll search in vain for anything comparably menacing, anything that even hinted at an appeal to violence, from members of Congress, let alone senior party officials….to find anything like what we’re seeing now you have to go back to the last time a Democrat was president."

Really, Paul? I’ll search in vain?

The map appears on this page of the Democratic Leadership Committee website (dated 2004 during the Bush years). I guess we could argue over whether the DLC counts as “senior party officials” but they’re certainly as much a part of the party as Palin who, after all, currently holds no elected office.

Granted these are bulls-eyes instead of gun-sights, and the targets are states not individual congressmen. But we’re really splitting hairs at this point. This map and the language it uses (Behind enemy lines!) are, if anything, more militant than what Palin used in her Facebook posting.

But wait, there’s more!

When Palin’s map became an issue, Rep. Chris Van Hollen, leader of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC), rushed on MSNBC to denounce it, telling Chris Matthews:

" I really think that that is crossing a line…In this particular environment I think it’s really dangerous to try and make your point in that particular way because there are people who are taking that kind of thing seriously."

Really, Chris? So what do you think about this map?

Each one of those red targets represents a “Targeted Republican” like this one:

There’s even a helpful legend that makes it clear that’s precisely what the little red targets represent:

You’ll never guess where I found this map. That’s right, it’s on the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) website. They launched the site and the map on February 23rd of this last year, making it just over a month year old. And yet Van Hollen was quoted by Politico just today denouncing Republicans for “pouring more and more gasoline on the flames.” Right back at you, pal.

Rep. Van Hollen used MSNBC to claim Palin’s map was dangerous. In fact, the website of the organization he runs has a nearly identical map. Rep. Van Hollen should be asked to explain the differences between the two maps. Specifically, what makes Palin’s map “dangerous” and his map not so much?................. Source found in Toby Harnden's piece above

[Cincinatus' Wife]

[TigersEye]

They are all liars. Period.

[deks]

The author sums it up rather well.

[hitkicker]

Interesting how, even though almost no facts are available about the shooter other than his gibbering internet rants, the libs all “just know” his motives and motivations for the shooting. I guess being an “enlightened liberal” makes one a mind reader.

[hitkicker]

And, for crying out loud, everybody in politics and in the chattering classes uses terms like “targeted” or “targeting” in political contexts like elections and legislation, with no violent meaning whatsoever. Don’t any of these knuckleheads own a friggin’ dictionary?

[AlexW]

You can spend all day castigating the Marxist like Krugman and Mathews, but to them it is water off of a duck’s back.
They do the hit and run and get ready to do it again.
They could not care less about the facts. They are just part of the Commie propaganda machine.

[Clink]

Isn’t it odd that Democrat (and Hillary’s campaign mgr.) Mark Penn’s statement from just two months ago that “the President and the Dems needed another Oklahoma City type occurrence” has vanished down the memory hole of the MSM?

[Erik Latranyi]

You can spend all day castigating the Marxist like Krugman and Mathews, but to them it is water off of a duck’s back.

You are absolutely right, because they will wait for the next tragedy, hoping-upon-hope, that the perpetrator is linked to conservatism.

These are wolves waiting for one incident that they can use to silence those they cannot debate.

[Cincinatus' Wife]

Another view of this from a writer at the Daily Telegraph (of course front page linked not buried inside)

[snip] “.....In Miss Giffords’ neighbouring state of Nevada, Sharron Angle, the Republican Senate candidate, called for “Second Amendment remedies”, referring to the constitutional clause stating the’ right to bear arms.

When Congress begins work later this month, Republicans will attempt a repeal Mr Obama’s landmark healthcare bill, which has become an emblem for everything the Tea Party opposes due to its apparent attempt to inflict European-style “socialised medicine” on the US.

Their move is likely to fail, which may only inspire more passionate campaigning by Republican activists to elect a president and new congressmen in 2012 who can finish the job.

Jimmy Carter, the former US President, said recently that Washington was more polarised “even maybe than the time of Abraham Lincoln and the initiation of the war between the states.”

The hundreds of people who gathered in South Carolina last month for a Secessionists Ball, celebrating the confederate states’ attempt to break away from the north 150 years ago, may well agree.”

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/us-politics/8248442/Gabrielle-Giffords-shooting-Americas-political-divide-exposed.html

[Cincinatus' Wife]

“When will America’s sanctimonious liberal elites stop whining about the Tea Party and finally accept they lost the midterms?”

[Excerpt ].......The second monumentally ignorant attack came from House Majority Leader Stenny Hoyer (D-Md) just before he was demoted to House Minority Whip. Here’s what the diplomatic Hoyer had to say (hat tip: Investors Business Daily):

“There are a whole lot of people in the Tea Party that I see in these polls who don’t want any compromise. My presumption is they have unhappy families. All of you have been in families: single-parent, two-parents, whatever. Multiple parent and a stepfather. The fact is life is about trying to reach accommodation with one another so we can move forward. That is certainly what democracy is about. So if we are going to move forward compromise is necessary.”

And what’s the evidence for Hoyer’s silly claim? Absolutely zero. Hoyer quickly backtracked on his statements, but the fact remains this has to be a candidate for most ridiculous political assertion of the year.

What drives this great animosity towards the Tea Party? Undoubtedly anger, resentment and envy. But above all it is a reflection of the Left’s declining power in America, at a time when the nation is moving strongly to the Right. As Gallup’s recent survey showed, conservatives now outnumber liberals by nearly 2.5 to 1.

The Left’s hatred of the Tea Party is born out of a frustration that the American people clearly prefer the message which the movement is sending rather than the increasingly discredited Big Government policies of the liberal elites. Their anger is also based on fear that the Tea Party, and small government conservatism in general, represents the future of America. For all the talk of the Tea Party as an anachronism, it represents a powerful vision of a revitalised United States based on free enterprise principles, individual liberty, and a deep-seated belief in American exceptionalism – everything the Left abhors. [End Excerpt]

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/nilegardiner/100070991/when-will-americas-sanctimonious-liberal-elites-stop-whining-about-the-tea-party-and-finally-accept-they-lost-the-midterms/

[monocle]

Liberals, progressives and Democrats have been fervently proselytizing diversity and class warfare and when regretable events occur they try to place responsibility on conservatives.

[Cincinatus' Wife]

Houston Chronicle AP story excerpt:

“......”He was a guy in high school who definitely had his opinions on stuff and didn’t seem to care what people thought of him,” said Grant Wiens, 22, who told The Associated Press he went to high school and had a class at Pima Community College with Loughner.

[snip]

On his MySpace page, Loughner spoke of how he liked to read and he also wrote repeatedly about literacy, complaining that the rate was especially low in the congressional district where he lived.

“The majority of people, who reside in District-8 are illiterate hilarious. I don’t control your English grammar structure, but you control your English grammar structure,” he said.

In an interview with The Associated Press, Wiens also said Loughner used to speak critically about religion. He also talked about how he liked to smoke pot.

“He wasn’t really too keen on religion it seemed like,” Grant Wiens, 22, told The Associated Press. “I don’t know if floating through life is the right term or whatever, but he was really just into doing his own thing.”

Loughner’s MySpace profile indicated he attended and graduated from school in northwest Tucson and had taken college classes. He did not say if he was employed.

Tamara Crawley, director of the Marana Unified School District in Tucson, said Loughner attended Mountain View High School in Tucson for three years but withdrew after completing his junior year in 2006. Crawley did not know why Loughner had withdrawn from Mountain View High and it was not clear if he had transferred to another school in the area.

Lynda Sorenson said she took a math class with Loughner last summer at Pima Community College’s Northwest campus and told the Arizona Daily Star he was “obviously very disturbed.”

“He disrupted class frequently with nonsensical outbursts,” she said.

In a Dec. 15 YouTube video, Loughner describes himself as a U.S. military recruit.

The Army released a statement indicating Loughner was not accepted.

In October 2007, Loughner was cited in Pima County for possession of drug paraphernalia, which was dismissed after he completed a diversion program, according to online records.

A year later he was charged with an unknown “local charge” in Marana near Tucson. That charge was also dismissed following the completion of a diversion program in March 2009, the Daily Star reported.....[end excerpt]

[Cincinatus' Wife]

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/ap/top/all/7372853.html

Link to Houston Chronicle AP story.

[sarah palin rocks]

Thank you so much for this post! Glad to see Freepers fighting these lies.

A sad day when the Telegraph is more reliable and unbiased than the US Lame Stream Media. Our Media is so dishonest and corrupt.

[Gene Eric]

>> They are all liars. Period.

They’re much worse than liars. They’re effectively excusing the actions of a mass murderer and opportunistically deflecting blame onto an innocent person for whom they harbor uncontrollable hate.

This is the ‘Wellstone Memorial’ on steroids.

[Bluebird Singing]

One could just as easily blame Van Jones with his “top down, bottom up, inside out” urgings for violence that happens in our times.

[Erik Latranyi]

“When will America’s sanctimonious liberal elites stop whining about the Tea Party and finally accept they lost the midterms?”

Never.

Liberals blame Bush, the media, Diebold, their message didn't get out, etc, etc, etc, hence, liberals are trying to silence the Tea Party by painting it as violent, silence talk radio for fomenting violence, silence Sara Palin for using surveyors' marks on maps.

Liberals cannot debate the issues, so they hope to silence the opposition. You could see their hopes yesterday that this shooter was connected to the Tea Party or conservatism in some way......it is sick.

[KeepUSfree]

bump