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 ...
Wow. This might have been a better speech than I first thought... and I thought it was a great one (and it was the one to finally convince me to support her).
How is one supposed to react when being publicly accused by many in the media of being responsible for the blood of six innocent people including a nine year old girl? Seems like the term “blood libel” is quite appropriate.
It was a bold choice of words, certainly accurate enough for me, and hopefully this will spark some debate in America about how people on the left frequently make libelous statements about conservatives and get away with it because of the complicity of the MSM.
Maybe you could overstate things a little bit more. Say that Wolf Blitzer knocked on your door and spat in your face. He seems like the kind of guy who would do that.
Also, there’s more embellishment possible with Palin. Because *you* have been accused of MURDER, her action has directly prevented *you* from being executed. She has, single handledly, saved millions of patriotic American from the brownshirt firing squads which were already gathering to take them into custody. Luckily, brownshirts always check Facebook before giving the final “Go” order (the code word was your username, as you were the first on the list), and the pogram was called off before anyone was killed.
It's frustrating, I know. But I take some comfort in the fact that if Palin runs for president, she will be tested in the rough-n-tumble of the campaign. She'll first have to get by her Republican opponents. Then, if she wins the nomination, she'll have to deal with Obama and his down-and-dirty Leftist Chicago machine. So far she's been able to skate by on celebrity alone. She won't be able to do that much longer; a few more months at the outside.
Say what? I don’t think he overstated anything there. The left-wingers are accusing the Tea Party of indirectly inciting mass murder. That is libel against the Tea Party.
I saw the exact opposite. The speech was her best to date. She came off extremely well polished. Her words carefully crafted to calm and unify. Clearly she's leaving all options on the table.
Sorry, I don’t see it either. Sarah is answering fire with fire. The SRM gins up accusations using inappropriate descriptive terms to paint a picture in a succinct way. She doing the same, back at them.
Sarah’s awesome.
BTW did ya’ll hear Sarah, from Alaska, call into Rush today? Commented on the hypocrisy of the SRM attacks on Rush, saying he’s an irrelevant entertainer and in the next breath a person of such power that he has mind control over millions. They want it both ways.
Palin is Still the Israel of American Politics
By Aaron Goldstein on 1.12.11 @ 3:25PM
I watched and listened to Sarah Palin’s Facebook video concerning the Tucson shootings.
Now the liberal media is up in arms over Palin’s use of the term “blood libel.” Or more precisely the liberal media is upset that Palin accused them of manufacturing one.
Yet this is exactly what the Krugmans, the Fondas, the Olbermanns and others have done. They took a horrific situation and cast the blame for it at her door in an effort (in Olbermann’s words) to dismiss her from politics and public life. All Palin has done is call them to account and has done so in her usual candid and vivid manner.
But for those who reservations about Palin’s use of the term “blood libel” then please consider the following. Shortly after the 2008 presidential election, I wrote an article which appeared at Intellectual Conservative titled, “Sarah Palin is the Israel of American Politics.” By that I meant to say, “If Sarah Palin were a member state of the UN she would be condemned daily by the General Assembly for transgressions both real and imagined.” Allow me to elaborate:
Those who hate Israel are prepared to believe any unkind word said about it. If Israel-haters are told that Israelis use the blood of Palestinian children to make Purim pastries they accept it as the gospel truth. Those who hate Sarah Palin are prepared to believe any unkind word said about her. When unamed sources from the McCain campaign were alleged to have said Palin didn’t know Africa was a continent, the Palin haters accepted it as an article of faith. Never mind that Palin led an effort to have Alaska divest its holdings in the Darfur region of Sudan. Those who hate Palin are not interested in the truth. They are interested only in seeing grievous harm come to her.
Well, more than two years have passed and as the events over the past several days have demonstrated Sarah Palin is still the Israel of American politics. There is a strong segment of the American electorate prepared to believe any negative word about Palin at face value. And as we have seen that includes everything up to and including being responsible for mass murder.
But then again being the Israel of American politics isn’t entirely a bad thing. Given that a majority of Americans support the State of Israel and that a majority of Americans don’t think Palin (or for that matter Glenn Beck or Rush Limbaugh) bear any responsibility for what happened in Tucson there is every reason to believe that Palin will come away from this only stronger.
You and the other few Palin haters here are the cult with slavish devotion to your dislike of Palin.
Your whole premise if faulty, so it is not debatable at all.
Virtually every Palin supporter here is knowledgeable and so un cult like it is laughable to see those talking points still used.
Come up with something new.
No wonder you never debate, just post your sycophantisizing as if it is gospel.
Conservatives are on to you lady.
I don’t think so. She appears to measure every word uttered in the public forum for how it will be taken by the SRM and those with PDS.
Remember her VP acceptance speech, she pointedly singled out the SRM as being the problem, not the solution.
If a filthy lib tries to frame the debate and turn it into an exercise in semantics, run them over and keep on going. If libs don't like words like "targeting" or "destroying the enemy", up the rhetoric to target them and destroy them.
They left keeps throwing up ever more words, subjects and thoughts which are politically incorrect. Pretty soon the only speech permitted to the people will be the shouting of "Amen!" after every utterance of the chicago messiah.
I reject that!
The media is practicing blood libel and I hope Palin kills her opponent and that we slaughter the dems in 2012. Eff anybody who doesn't like it.
You of course are correct.Behemothpanzer"I believe that this is the first clear signal we’re getting that Sarah Palin is not going to run for President in 2012"I saw the exact opposite. The speech was her best to date. She came off extremely well polished. Her words carefully crafted to calm and unify. Clearly she's leaving all options on the table.
You are posting to one of a small group of noisy posters that will post anything they think will undermine Sarah Palin.
And by extension the TPM, Conservatism and Free Republic.
Many, not all but most, of you have responded with the usual palinite insults...no surprise and no big deal. But, there have been no fewer than five threads here today that address the MSM attacks against her for using the phrase. That is the fact of it. And, who knows how many discussions were prompted in places that are not over-populated with Sarah-can-do-no-wrong folks.
The phrase reduced her three page statement to a damaging sound-bite (really clever). She once again handed them another hammer with which to hit her. She turned the higher rhetorical ground over to them, giving them the opportunity to once again take her to task in front of the inescapably vital middle...and that my friends is stupid.
I don't hate Palin. There's much I like about her. I'm just not convinced she is presidential material. However, I am open to being convinced. An open mind is a healthy thing. You should try it some time.
We are witnessing history!
Palin stands alone against the liberal horde... and WINS!
Well... she wont stand alone anymore! Because I will stand with her to the end!
GOD BLESS SARAH PALIN!"
Right on. And that was a great video by Sarah; albeit too long, imo. Powerful though.
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