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 ...
The above is some real information to take away from the NYT article. Pawlenty is not worthy of consideration....he's sounds like a groveler.
"Blood libel" in my understanding is the kind of libel that results in serious injury (blood) to someone. I don't see it as a matter of race or ethnicity. That would be "blood vendetta" as with Islamics killing Christians.
I'm guessing now that Pawlenty has something on his record that would make the NYT like him.
My frontrunners remain Governor Palin or Governor Perry, Texas.
Who made you the judge on those issues ? Do you know you sound like a snob saying that ?
I would put her up into a debate with Bill Clinton or Jimmy Carter any day. And she would win.
I think the term was against the media. in that case. she was perfect. it was a sharp reply.
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Oh, pointing out what the left will say makes me part of the left? Get a grip. You actually help make my point which is simply that Palin handed them another hammer, and that they will use it. Show me where I'm wrong in that.
I'd say its a tad early for that statement and I very much doubt even you believe it. You and others seem to find the power of Palin’s words threatening. Your reaction to Sarah's speech strongly suggests you believe the exact reverse of what you claim to believe — that the speech will work very well indeed and help propel Palin into a dominant position in the 2012 nominating contest. My guess is that this speech in general and the phrase “blood libel” in particular will mark a milestone in here ascent to such a position. A large number of people who did not previously consider her presidential material will start to reconsider and her upward trajectory will get steeper.
Time will tell. Let's revisit the discussion in about six months.
Wow that JOURNOLIST talking point went out really quickly....same exact thing AOL said....way to go journolista’s.
Sarah is right.
thanks, didn’t know that.
YOu don’t have to choose your words carefully.
A good politician will always choose their words carefully, assuming the goal is to get a majority of the people to vote for you.
In 2006, Senator George Allen, cruising to victory in his re-election bid, looked at a dark-skinned guy filming a speech, and said the guy’s name was “macaca”.
A word with no meaning; a likely throw-away mistake of minor consequence. But in the end it cost him the election, and his chance of being President.
Is it fair, just, or logical? No. It just “is”.
If you walk up to a black thug on the street, and say he is behaving “niggardly”, your protests that you meant no harm and the word is appropriate will be of little consequence to your survivors after he kills you.
You choose words for impact, but you want that impact to be positive.
Now, I don’t have a crystal ball, nor do I assert that I am some genius in political maneuvering. It sure looks like a mistake to me, given the reaction and how people are arguing over the term rather than rallying to victory based on what she said.
But obviously it has attracted attention, and I suppose there may be some way she can turn the current strongly negative reaction into a positive. If so, I will be proven wrong in my assessment.
But right now, the initial response to me has been harshly negative toward our cause. I thought we had essentially won this battle already — the public was rejecting the claims, and the more came out about the shooter, the more clear it was that pretending he was influenced by speech was itself a losing argument.
(Remember there are two separate arguments, and the 2nd undercuts the first: The first is that we shouldn’t have to nit-pick our political speech simply because someone crazy person might mis-interpret what we say and act violently. The second is that there is no evidence that the crazy person WAS influenced by our speech. That second argument suggests that if there WAS evidence, it would matter, which the 1st argument rejects).
But now whatever sympathy our side had from being falsely accused of being complicit in murder is being lost as the common uninformed person just sees that our side is claiming equivalence with jews being accused of killing children, with jews being brutally murdered for these false accusations.
The analogy was a good one, used as an analogy, but the claim of the exact words has weakened the argument.
JOURNOLISTA talking point.
You are devisive hateful people.
Ain’t gonna work.
Just watch out for the reaction of the left.
That will tell you more than anything.
From what I see, they’re reacting as expected,
like a bunch of undead sprayed with holy water.
Then it's funny that one of the lead "hicks" uses terms that many people seem to have only have a passing understanding of, if any at all....
If these same people would....
stop...
think...
& looked up the full usage for the term
and not rely on their passing understanding of the term...
Or ASSUME they, and only they, have a full knowledge of the proper use in context for the term...
they would learn the term, as used by Ms Palin , was not only in perfect context...
but also it use was perfectly appropriate in the context of the despicable and vile charges being made by some in the aftermath of the AZ shooting
And at the risk of using an inappropriate term here.......
Bullseye, Ms Palin, Bullseye
No problem. Many of the really good quotes from modern-day leaders are taken from the great works of the past. I wouldn’t be surprised if Madison took the phrase from someone else — when we discuss famous quotes, it is generally accepted to stop when we find the oldest recorded use that made it to common knowledge, always knowing that we could find an earlier use if we had perfect knowledge of all that was said.
From what I see, the more effective it is,
the more the left and other Palin haters demand that it not be used.
You betcha!
LOL, they all watch Free Republic. How else would all the politicians and media outlets (conservative and liberal) keep up with the fast moving news cycles these days?
Good one IT!
BTW as you probably know, Palin loves Free Republic.
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No, to pretend that blood libel is not historically and primarily an anti-semetic phrase is just dishonest and/or exhibitive of a basic ignorance regarding the phrase....which is it?
I think the speech was a good one except for the use of these two words in the way they were used, and I wish the speech would lend her credibility in the 2012 race but I see the two words getting in the way of that.
But as you say, time will tell. Just don’t think I have some bizarre ulterior desire and am incapable of rational thought.
Heres a newsflash. Sarah Palin is not perfect. she will never be a perfect candidate. and you will never find a perfect candidate..
I think it took guts to give that speech.
Or, she’s most likely expanding on defenses of her by people such as Glenn Reynold’s in the WSJ who’ve called the attacks against her “blood libel”.
The Arizona Tragedy and the Politics of Blood Libel
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703667904576071913818696964.html
Followed up by Ed Driscoll of Pajamas Media, in The Politics of Blood Libel
http://pajamasmedia.com/eddriscoll/2011/01/10/the-politics-of-blood-libel/
Thou shall NOT bear false witness still applies, even though the left has been successful in having that law removed from their public square.
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