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 ...
Their goal is not to redefine the term. Their goal is to hijack the thread, and they are succeeding. The best course of action is to ignore them. We all know they would criticize Palin no matter what she says. If not "blood libel", then something else. Arguing with them is pointless, and prevents any meaningful discussion from happening, which is exactly what they want.
Headlien fail by the NYT. Plain didn’t call criticism blood libel, she called blood libel blood libel.
Mistake? This has completely shifted the debate today, from whether the Tea Party is to blame for Tucson to whether the baseless liberal attack on the Tea Party is blood libel. Something all you hand-wringers could only dream of doing.
I agree, and have argued the same to no avail.
It is up to the site’s managers if they want to allow the left’s water-boys to remain.
Well, it may not be used often, but it certainly applies here. The MSM is blaiming us for the death of a child and they know for a fact we had nothing to do with it.
Like the MSM, you believe your lies.
There are more than that just on this thread.
More people agree this was a good move on Palin's part than watch Matthews, Maddow and Olbermann all together
Snob is mild to describe you.
Maybe your own words, simple minded.
Not sure who you think is dead, but, Clinton and Bailey are both alive as of yesterday.
F. Lee Bailey: Dog Walker Would Have Shown O.J. Simpson Wasn’t a Murderer
Can you give me a link on that?
Second!
Insanity at it's finest. Palin can't hold her own against the Jindals, Bachmans, DeMints, and Pences in the party. She's pretty, she's charismatic, but that's about it. She's a supremely qualified weather girl, and little more. The pity is that the voting public is so dim that she's taken seriously. Luckily, I have faith that she's not taken seriously by nearly enough to actually win, because God himself only knows the damage that someone chock full of ideas but low on intellect could do in a few short years.
I always hesitate to eliminate someone from contention for one statement, but if this is an accurate portrayal of what he said, Pawlenty is about as presidential as Clarabelle the Clown. The media is falsely accusing millions of Americans of helping kill six people and all he has to say is that he wouldn't have had a map like that? Wuss.
Or - we could all just ignore them and not take the bait.
Edited to describe you Mel as.
So tell us what large organizations you have run in your life, dipweed.
My bad. I assumed he was dead without checking. He must be getting up there. I seem to remember him as being old when I was young, and I’m getting old.
Grow up.
What is the literal meaning of the phrase?
It means libeling someone with a charge of murder.
What has the media done to Palin specifically and conservative Americans generally?
Libeled us with a charge of murder.
Good grief, can you PDS types think for yourselves anymore?
That seems to be indicative of all of your posts on this thread - that you are just pulling all of them right out of your ass.
At a time when the MSM is out for blood against Palin, what do you do?
Why, join right in.
Which makes you just as big an ass as the liberals attacking the Tea Party.
Um...even if your silly point was accurate, you’re using “anti-Semitic” as if it means the opposite of what it means. Blood libel is a phrase used in the past to describe anti-Semitism, not an anti-Semitic phrase.
Gee, I wonder how many shootings will occur because Palin said the word (gasp) BLOOD!
Red meat for her followers. They will follow her anywhere. Her movement is no longer about what is best for this nation, if it ever was. It is a kool-aid cult of personality.
She should have stayed quiet at this time, but she just could not. It always has to be about her.
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