lol
Posted on 01/12/2011 5:42:46 AM PST by reaganaut1
Sarah Palin, who had been silent for days, on Wednesday issued a forceful denunciation of her critics in a video statement that accused pundits and journalists of “blood libel” in their rush to blame heated political rhetoric for the shootings in Arizona.
“Acts of monstrous criminality stand on their own,” she said in a video posted to her Facebook page. “Especially within hours of a tragedy unfolding, journalists and pundits should not manufacture a blood libel that serves only to incite the very hatred and violence that they purport to condemn. That is reprehensible.”
Ms. Palin’s use last year of a map with crosshairs hovering over a number of swing districts, including that of Gabrielle Giffords, had increasingly become the symbol of that overheated rhetoric. In and interview with The Caucus on Monday, potential 2012 rival Tim Pawlenty, the former Republican governor of Minnesota, said he would not have produced such a map.
But in the video, Ms. Palin rejected criticism of the map, casting it as a broader indictment of the basic political rights of free speech exercised by people of all political persuasions.
She said that acts like the shootings in Arizona “begin and end with the criminals who commit them, not collectively with all the citizens of a state.”
“Not with those who listen to talk radio,” she added. “Not with maps of swing districts used by both sides of the aisle. Not with law abiding citizens who respectfully exercise their first amendment rights at campaign rallies. Not with those who proudly voted in the last election.”
(Excerpt) Read more at thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com ...
“Death panels and blood libel are perfect, like cut diamonds, in the war of words.”
I would like to add “palling around with terrorists”, the verbal construct and theme that should have won the 2008 election.
I think that is exactly what the MSM wants. Inciting a lynchmob with false accusations. I even put it on my blog.
http://tyrannysentinel.blogspot.com/2011/01/attempted-assassination-of-sarah-palin.html
Guess what, bucko? That image is a complete manufacture of the MSM - and you are joining in on it. Typical. It's pretty pathetic that you are joining in the line of attack on the Tea Party instead of defending it here.
I'd think you might want to change that, rather than whining to me about how mean the MSM is to the Tea Party.
And another direct parrot of the MSM on your part. It isn't whining to tell the truth about how the MSM lies.
You may have the last word, weasels like you are a waste of time once they have shown their true nature.
There's stupidity afoot but it doesn't come from Palin. Blood libel is not, I repeat, NOT an anti-semitic term. The first clue is the word libel.
“blood libel” is also used to describe CURRENT Muslim conspiracies about Jews, so there’s another common use.
Let’s take a vote on who’s spouting nonsense.
Well, our young_conservative friend's postings show that he has an inflated sense of his own importance. He has large opinions, and calls for large things, much like my children (and I, also) did when in the throes of high dudgeon.
He's young, in the most embarrassing sense of the word.
But there's hope.
Yeah, I don't know why anyone would come to that conclusion. Other than liberal blog posts that say they want Palin dead.
Take your MSM and liberal apology show elsewhere.
According to the definitions rattling around on this stupid thread, you're guilty of "blood libel," son.
Don't make it worse.
Wow
lol
when you add in the death of a child and trying to lay that on the tea party - yes, you can see how it applies.
Although it will be interesting to see the jewish reaction to this.
In other words, it’s a full frontal attack on all of US.”
It will only backfire.
TEA Party enrollment will increase with these media attacks, IMO.
Wow, she makes that sorry sod in the WH look even sorrier.
I watched the video. A wonderful statement well delivered.
And, as you said, very presidential.
“libel” requires a FALSE accusation.
I’ll withdraw the word “every” from my assertion,
but the rest of it stands.
Glenn Reynolds column Monday apparently started use of the term in relation to this event:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703667904576071913818696964.html
“So as the usual talking heads begin their ‘have you no decency?’ routine aimed at talk radio and Republican politicians, perhaps we should turn the question around. Where is the decency in blood libel?”
I never what to be a moderate Republican riding in a gulf cart. never
im a free spirit. i know where I come from. Appalachia, old coal towns.. i will never buy into the morally destructive big city version of politics.
I believe that is a Dipstick to Dipstick communication.
I agree with you on that. “blood libel” is not an anti-semitic statement. Blood libel is the term used for anti-semitic actions.
Which is where I think Palin runs into trouble; it’s not that it makes her anti-semitic; it’s that the term refers to false attacks against jewish religious belief and practice, and to use it to describe an opportunistic political attack seems “off”.
Is Palin saying that the left is making the false accusations as the first step of rounding up right-wingers and sending us to death camps?
I understand her frustration — I’m frustrated too. It seems the height of inappropriate political speech to accuse your opponents of complicity in murder, simply to score political points.
But I would never describe that act as “blood libel”; it seems an over-the-top attack on speech to do so, like the left calling people “racists”, or the attack on people who use the word “retarded” in political speech.
To many jews, “blood libel” meant death. None of us are dying here because the left is playing politics with the language. What the left is doing is hateful, and beneath civility. They are accusing us of desiring, or provoking, a violent attack that killed people.
But we shouldn’t respond by accusing them using a term that suggests their speech is going to lead to violent attacks on people. Which is what “blood libel” implies.
I’ve been trying to think of a bood term to use instead. Blood sport isn’t it — that refers more to attacks that are harsh and personal, that would “draw blood” if we were talking physical combat.
I think “libelous” itself was a good word to use, because these are false accusations. And I see how “blood libel” gets chosen, because “blood libel” was a false accusation that someone killed someone else; but since the “blood libel” was that the person actually killed someone, and for their own purposes, it doesn’t apply to what the left is accusing US of.
We are being accused of being unwilling accomplices to murder and violence because we aren’t being careful enough with our words.
Sometimes, serious ideas can’t be reduced to two-word sound-bites. I’m guessing that’s what the use of “blood libel” was — a failed attempt to take that well-known phrase and re-appropriate it to gain sympathy.
But it isn’t working, and it was doomed to fail from the start.
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