It Is Not About the Rhetoric

"We must reject the idea that every time a law's broken, society is guilty rather than the lawbreaker. It is time to restore the American precept that each individual is accountable for his actions." - Ronald Reagan

As has been pointed out in other places, the immediate leap of the media and elected politicians on the left was to imply that it was the fault of the Tea Party people or conservative politicians that Congresswoman Giffords and others were shot. It was entirely predictable, this reaction, given recent history. There was attempt by the reporting media to bend over backwards to not mention this attacker was a Muslim extremist, until the explanation had to come out. Not a peep was heard from the left when Democratic strategist Mark Penn told advisers to President Obama that he needed an event "like 9/11" to beef up his support, following the shellacking of the November mid-term elections. The first comments from NYC Mayor Bloomberg after the attempted bombing in Times Square was that it was, no doubt, someone angry over Obamacare.

A screenshott of a far left website shows that the rhetoric on both sides of the political aisle have room for improvement.

"I am from the Tucson area and live in Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords' district," BoyBlue wrote. "Today, just a little while ago, I saw on Andrea Mitchell Reports that Giffords voted against Nancy Pelosi as our minority leader. … Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords is dead to me now."

We are led by a President who does nothing to tamp down the vitriol. Are we no longer all purple state friends, but to be at each other’s throats—and quite literally? Thus the great healer Obama just warned of impending “hand-to-hand combat” if the Republicans take over. He once declared of Sean Hannity that one of his supporters would “tear him up.” He thought he was a Chicagoan Sean Connery in the The Untouchables boasting that “if they bring a knife to the fight, we bring a gun.” He advised Latinos “to punish” their Republican “enemies.” Not long ago candidate Obama pontificated that his supporters just had to confront Republicans and Independents and “get in their face.” We remember his “whose ass to kick” or his relegation of Republican opponents to “hostage takers” and suicide bombers: “Here’s the problem: It’s almost like they’ve got—they’ve got a bomb strapped to them and they’ve got their hand on the trigger. You don’t want them to blow up.” Some believe the quick pointing of fingers - proven false each time - is a result of frustrations felt on the left, now that the policies and hopes held by them have been soundly rejected by the American populace.

I understand the desperation that Democrats must feel after taking a historic beating in the midterm elections and seeing the popularity of ObamaCare plummet while voters flee the party in droves. But those who purport to care about the health of our political community demonstrate precious little actual concern for America's political well-being when they seize on any pretext, however flimsy, to call their political opponents accomplices to murder.

The fact is, this blaming of conservatives for heinous acts has been going on for decades. When JFK was killed, it was a popular meme to blame the killer as a right-wing wacko gone wild. I don't recall the same leaping of conclusions when Ronald Reagan was shot.

The logical conclusion should be that the shooter is mentally ill. That is what all of them have in common. Not political ideology.

It seems that Palin derangement syndrome has replaced the Bush derangement syndrome. Why didn't the media bother to make note of the DLC's map, similar to Palin's using target marks in 2004? The slobbering press is only too happy to go along with it. The media was certainly only too happy to report the opinions of Pelosi and Reid and other Democrats - the majority party in Washington at the time - that the Tea Party members were fascists, Nazi loving propagandists, astroturf, racists, fear mongers and so on. One black Congress person felt emboldened to lie about being spit on and yelled racial insults to by Tea Party crowds. When he was challenged to prove some evidence of those charges, he retracted his charges. Is that responsible behavior?

Barbara Walters, producer and star of The View - an all-female hate fest against conservatives, especially conservative women - weighed in on the blame game:
Walters added she hoped this might offer time for introspection in terms of political rhetoric, but told viewers that this wasn’t the time to place blame.

“Whether that speared him on or whether he is just a very sick person, we don’t know,” she continued. “We don’t know what his motives are and we can hope that all the vitriol calms down. But to blame Sarah Palin as some are doing I think is very unfair to her. She issued a statement offering her condolences and hasn’t said more. But I don’t think this is the time now to start finding – you should excuse me – other targets to blame.”

Nice try, Barbara, but no cigar. She is capable of hiring decent people for her show and its roundtable discussions that dominate the beginning of each show. She doesn't. Plus, her idea is like that of other liberal news people - a token conservative voice is enough. In the case of The View it is a conservative that is not too bright and not consistent, either. She hires the very vile Joy Behar and previously Rosie O'Donnell. Nothing is too hateful for either of these two to say when it comes to Republicans or conservatives.

Freedom of speech brings the good and the bad. It is a freedom, however, that must not be squashed.