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 ...
Actually, I contest the notion that Levin disagrees with me. He hasn’t addressed my point. He’s said that it wasn’t inaccurate to compare it to blood libel, and I don’t disagree. It was however, a politically stupid thing to say, and demonstrably so.
If you would but bother to read my statements, I don’t believe that Palin intended to be inflammatory. I’m not saying that there isn’t a certain allegorical correctness in the use of blood libel. What I am saying is that even a journeyman politician running for a state office should have been smart enough to realize that it could and would be easily spun, and that the resulting political fallout was going to be substantial. Yet we have a woman who allegedly aspires not to the state assembly, but to the highest office in the land, who wasn’t quick enough to avoid this potential landmine.
I repeat myself: Palin’s conservatism, values, and intentions are not in question with me. Her intelligence however is very much question. A politician of even average intelligence in her place could have easily made the same charge while avoiding the incendiary phrase that is being so easily used against her. There must have been a thousand ways to challenge the spurious accusations that she was in any way responsible for the shooting in Tucson that would have politically savvy, yet she chose none of them.
I repeat, she’s not ready for prime time. Let her go on to become a Coulteresque bomb thrower. She’s suited for such, but not to be the leader of the free world.
2. I think for myself, always have. I do not watch, read or listen to MSM in any format. My opinions about palin and, in this case, the stupidity of using this phrase are completely my own.
Never speak ill of any Republican? That must be you I see always bringing this up on the trash Rudy, Mitt, Rove, Huck....threads. No, what you want is that every freeper be in lock step with you and never dispute the wisdom of St. Sarah.
And, as to my point on this Blood Libel topic, I'll say it again because you clearly missed it the first twelve times....
It was stupid because it gave her opponents a hinge-point upon which to turn the argument back on her. The very fact that out of a three page statement all enybody is talking about is those two words proves my point.
Finally, I could not care one bit less than I do if you were "offended" and "disgusted" by my expression of my opinion.
Nobody is really going to be swayed by your spoutings. But, it WILL give a lot of us a chance to reinforce our opinions of her. It also shows us the type of cretins who have nothing better to do to get through their day. Enjoy!
Elect Sarah Palin for President 2012
Re-Elect President Sarah Palin 2016
How about you try this....explain, in detail, how Palin's use of blood libel did NOT give her opponents the opportunity to turn her statement in an anti-palin rant. Since out of three pages these are the only two words anyone is talking about I'd really like to hear your spin.
btw...how can one be both anonymous (what is your real name?) and an attention whore at the same time?
Oh, and see if you can do it without resorting to the usual palinite name calling. I bet you can't.
Elect Sarah Palin for President 2012
Re-Elect President Sarah Palin 2016
I knew you couldn't do it...thanks for proving my point.
Have a nice day.
I don't need to respond to your screeds. If you wish to find out more from Gov. Palin's thoughts, I will refer you to her FaceBook page. Her positions are clear and concise. So far she has a lot more going for her, and a whole lot of FRiends!
You're just an attention whore and can't give it up. It's a behavioral problem which can best be treated by professionals...
Elect Sarah Palin for President 2012
Re-Elect President Sarah Palin 2016
Sarah Palin has shown herself to be intelligent, articulate, and, above all, principled and solidly grounded in the values that made this country great--and she has a proven track record to boot. That is the source of her appeal to conservatives--and it's also what drives the Giulianians, the Romneybots, the Hucksters, and the McCainiacs crazy.
McCainiac now? That’s a new one. Yep Fiji, I supported John McCain. He was and is a good man. Palin was his biggest error in judgment, and although I can’t prove it, I’d bet money that he chose her because of undue pressure from campaign staff who insisted he needed someone younger and sexier on the ticket. If you have a problem with that, tough.
IOW, you have nothing but an opinion based on your "feelings". I wouldn't buy a lottery ticket. You are just another PDS attention whore. Just like the MSM and Dumbocraps, you wish to see her gone. You trade on her name and popularity to get clicks. Sorry. She's going to be in the White House... and you'll still be in mom's basement!
Elect Sarah Palin for President 2012
Re-Elect President Sarah Palin 2016
However, I do not think that she is qualified for the toughest job on the planet (very light CV, and, positions, tweets, reality TV and FB posts do not experience make) nor do I think that she could get the 65-70 million votes needed to win. IMO, if we nominate her we lose.
So should he have chosen Joe Lieberman, the man he really wanted as his running mate?
I agree with you that his staff probably urged him to choose Palin, insisting that they needed someone who was an intelligent, articulate and principled conservative to balance the ticket.
I just now noticed your post. You are a shameless liar.
The whole time he spews invective and calls names......
When you give him good analysis, he then runs away and calls you names.
He's really just plain stupid and juvenile, nothing else. He's not worth the effort.
Projection, Lakeshark.
Now just who is it that's projecting?
The man who is being held for the killings had in his possession -- in a safe, in his house -- a letter from Congresswoman Giffords, dating from 1997, before even most FReepers had even heard of her, let alone a druggie nutcase in Arizona. The letter had the handwritten words, "Die, bitch" on it.
His problems with Giffords predate Sarah: therefore she cannot have caused it.
In the days before Palin's video, leftists were crawling out of the woodwork, taunting her that she was responsible for the killings. People including the Sheriff of Pima County. You know, when was the last time you heard of a Sheriff on national TV commenting on a still-open crime scene before trial, and openly assigning blame to people other than the accused, in a political fashion, rather than a terse "No comment, there's an ongoing case"?
You think people are used to it, because of the 24x7 politicization, started by Bill Clinton's (ahem) "War Room" as illustrated by the trashing of Ken Starr during the Lewinsky scandal: Starr was forbidden by federal law from defending himself, and the Marxist vermin in the press were only too happy to poison the body politic by allowing the Lanny Davis and James Carville types to spew venom, hate, lies, and propaganda.
But this is different, since it is the prime Law Enforcement official *with original jurisdiction* doing this.
It is also different, in that his remarks were (by his own admission, on the 2nd day or so) totally without foundation, and only his own opinion: but his invective gave SOCIAL permission for the Mau-Mauers to pursue their craft.
It is even more different, in that the Sheriff's office had prior knowledge of the young moonbat, in that he had made death threats which had been reported to the Sheriff's office, but which were brushed aside because the young man's mother worked for Pima County and it would have engendered anti-liberal scandal to do anything about it.
Add to that the fact that this Sheriff has openly *refused* to enforce duly-enacted state law in Arizona regarding illegal aliens, and you have someone in a position of official authority abusing their office for political favoritism, quite similar to Eric Holder and the Black Panthers.
Only this time, people DIED.
And instead of the Sheriff being removed from office, for dereliction of duty, instead, the deaths engendered by HIS incompetence and left-wing ideology are used to attack politically a woman who lives several thousand miles away, who had publicly stated that VOTES were the way to change things, MONTHS before the shooting.
And when she did not respond personally to the attacks, she was attacked by leftists such as personal friends of George Tiller, the abortionist (this person is IIRC a cousin of the actress Gwyneth Paltrow, and a long-time leftist), and openly blamed by nutcases (including those on "networks" such as MSNBC).
Only after she released a video -- with no adoring teeny boppers, no teleprompter, no souvenir T-shirts -- was she attacked, this time for having the NERVE to defend herself, and to accurately describe the character assault; and then for making the whole story about HER.
Which is odd, since, as you point out, the "only two words anyone is talking about" are almost the only part of her (seven-and-a-half minute long) speech which are concerned with her.
And even then, there are cracks in the leftist meme against her: even a noted world-famous Jewish intellectual, tenured law professor of Harvard Alan Dershowitz, has defended her use of "blood libel" as accurate. (So much for the attempted meme that only idiots are defending her.) Democrat pollster Pat Caddell has openly excoriated Paul Krugman for the attacks; and even The Nation is quoting ABC News that Palin herself is the subject of death threats. In spite of Obama's calls for civility, The Nation is not joining in addressing the gravity of the idea that Palin is subject to death threats; rather, it is blaming her for not contacting the proper authorities about it. (And who should she contact? The Holder Justice Department, which gave orders to ignore videotaped violations of the Voting Rights Act by Black Panthers, and thereby drop a court case against them which the government had literally won already? Or Sheriff Dupnick, who blamed her FOR the shooting despite his own foreknowlege of the shooter?)
The point is, ANYTHING Sarah Palin said, or says, will be used against her: the trick is to do just what you do on this thread, which is to change the rules continually, so that they always favor the last thing *you* said. Comment on the silence, then on the fact of the response, then on the verbiage of the response, then on a nonexistent "climate of hate" against Gifford (there is a literal Facebook page full of thousands of people signing in on public that they want Palin DEAD -- but I haven't found any such page about Gifford).
In other words, it's because Palin's critics are utterly dishonest.
Why do you persist in blaming the victim of death threats, when they have been proven unwarranted?
Sarge, 50mm, etc -- can you please take a look at wtc's posting history?
You also accused him of saying somethings he didn't say, such as:
Why do you persist in blaming the victim of death threats, when they have been proven unwarranted?
As for Palin's use of the term "Blood Libel", I support her. And you can verify that by reading some of my recent posts.
Incorrect.
His question was as follows:
explain, in detail, how Palin's use of blood libel did NOT give her opponents the opportunity to turn her statement in an anti-palin rant.
In order to answer that, I had to lay out the situation concerning the accusations about Palin prior to her speech, the other statements made by her detractors leading up to the speech, and the actual facts of the situation.
In doing so I demonstrated that Palin's detractors were willing to lie through their teeth, demonstrating means, motive, opportunity, and giving the names of other public-figure Democrats who nonetheless defended Palin, showing that even among liberals, the charges against her were not accepted: thereby showing the animus on the part of the anti-Palin crowd was in fact a pretext.
Given that it is established that Palin's attackers were willing to attack in advance of the facts, to continue to attack after the facts came out, showing them to be liars, and that they didn't even listen to their own erstwhile leaders (pollsters and Harvard professors), it therefore follows that no matter WHAT Palin said, or didn't say, she would still be subject to character assassination by the moonbats: falsity is of no consequence to them.
Therefore, NOTHING she did (not even silence as she exhibited for a few days) would be sufficient to prevent the attacks upon her.
First question answered, QED.
You then wrote to me:
You also accused him of saying somethings he didn't say, such as:
Why do you persist in blaming the victim of death threats, when they have been proven unwarranted?
The answer to this is his own question to the other poster, to wit,
"explain, in detail, how Palin's use of blood libel did NOT give her opponents the opportunity to turn her statement in an anti-palin rant."
akin to blaming a rape victim for wearing provocative clothing: since it has already been established that those attacking Palin were doing so without any regard to the facts.
Cheers!
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