I think the Sarah Palin target map is being blown out of proportion. Her other statements are bad (e.g., reload) and I think her relative silence and her aides claim that they weren't gunsights were lame. Fess up and move on. There were other acts that were far worse:
Here's a report from 2009, GOP Candidate Shoots At Target With Wasserman Schultz's Initials "Robert Lowry, a businessman running against Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL), stopped by a local Republican event that was held at a shooting range. Lowry stepped up to show his marksmanship, and fired at a human silhouette target -- with the letters 'DWS' written next to the head."
Matt Taibbi wrote The Crying Shame of John Boehner and tells this story: "Another Ohio Democrat, Steve Driehaus, clashed repeatedly with Boehner before losing his seat in the midterm elections. After Boehner suggested that by voting for Obamacare, Driehaus "may be a dead man" and "can't go home to the west side of Cincinnati" because "the Catholics will run him out of town," Driehaus began receiving death threats, and a right-wing website published directions to his house.
Driehaus says he approached Boehner on the floor and confronted him. "I didn't think it was funny at all," Driehaus says. "I've got three little kids and a wife. I said to him, 'John, this is bullshit, and way out of bounds. For you to say something like that is wildly irresponsible.'" Driehaus is quick to point out that he doesn't think Boehner meant to urge anyone to violence. "But it's not about what he intended — it's about how the least rational person in my district takes it. We run into some crazy people in this line of work." Driehaus says Boehner was "taken aback" when confronted on the floor, but never actually said he was sorry: "He said something along the lines of, 'You know that's not what I meant.' But he didn't apologize."
Fox News President Roger Ailes said "I told all of our guys, shut up, tone it down, make your argument intellectually. You don’t have to do it with bombast. I hope the other side does that." That sounds more sensitive than the rest of the interview, and I'm not sure he's actually done it or that it will have an effect on Fox. And while Fox is big, they aren't the only leaders on the right and others don't seem to have gotten the memo:
Asked About AZ Shootings, Gingrich Pivots To Slamming Liberals For Ignoring Threat Of ‘American Islamists’
Michelle Malkin posted The progressive “climate of hate:” An illustrated primer, 2000-2010 as a demonstration to not "let the media whitewash the sins of the hypocritical Left in their naked attempt to suppress the law-abiding, constitutionally-protected, peaceful, vigorous political speech of the Right." Of course if you read it, it's all examples of random blogs and photos of crazy signs from rallies and something from comedian Sandra Bernhard.
The real difference between the left and right is that the leaders of the right endorse this behavior, explicitly or tacitly. Their VP candidate said these things not a random anonymous blogger.
David Corn put it well, When It Comes to the Rhetoric of Rage, the Right Has the Edge "The Republicans have institutionalized their side's craziness. Rep. Labrador, and others who equate left and right extremism, have it wrong. When it comes to such excess, there's not an even-steven trade-off between the right and the left."
George Packer in the New Yorker It Doesn’t Matter Why He Did It. "This relentlessly hostile rhetoric has become standard issue on the right. (On the left it appears in anonymous comment threads, not congressional speeches and national T.V. programs.) And it has gone almost entirely uncriticized by Republican leaders. Partisan media encourages it, while the mainstream media finds it titillating and airs it, often without comment, so that the gradual effect is to desensitize even people to whom the rhetoric is repellent. We’ve all grown so used to it over the past couple of years that it took the shock of an assassination attempt to show us the ugliness to which our politics has sunk."
David Dayen writes Tea Party Leaders Strike Back at Left Over Giffords Incident. He points out that in claiming victimhood from the left they are reinforcing what the left is actually saying about them.
"'Revolting', 'disgusting,' 'scumbags,' and 'evil' are the modifiers used. And Jared Loughner is simply called a “leftist,” based on Sal Russo’s quick sketch of the evidence. I think these statements stand for themselves, and really indict the leaders on the right. There have been a lot of attempts at false equivalencies (the last Republican Vice Presidential candidate of the United States is exactly the same as a random Daily Kos diarist) and a lot of attempts to explain away incendiary political rhetoric with a wave of the hand and something like “both sides do it.” But the responses above on their own refute this. They resort to the pretty common rhetoric of demonization to make their points."
I do wonder if blogging this stuff is contributing to the divisiveness but I don't think so. I haven't said and don't think that the right's rhetoric had much to do with the shootings, but the shootings are certainly something that could be used to tone down the climate of debate so that progress could be made and this country needs that.
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