We knew it was coming, and sure enough, the left wing zealots in this country are turning a national tragedy into a reason to attack conservative values. As you may have heard, on Saturday, Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-AZ) was shot in the head by a deranged individual who was so focused on ending her life that he killed several more people in the process, including a federal judge and a nine-year-old girl. Now, the blame game begins as the media and liberal politicians point the finger, not at the man who pulled the trigger, but at talk radio, the Internet, and any conservative source of information.
According t0 the AP story on GOPUSA, Giffords was hosting what she called a “Congress on Your Corner” event outside a local Tucson-area grocery store. The shooter opened fire, hitting Giffords in the head, killing at least six people, and wounding others.
The suspect is now in custody and is identified as 22-year-old Jared Loughner. The Associated Press reports that Loughner was a “disturbed young man” who often “kept to himself.” A classmate of his in a community college math class last summer said he was “obviously very disturbed.” She added that he “disrupted class frequently with nonsensical outbursts.”
Federal law enforcement officials poured over versions of a MySpace page that belonged to Loughner and over a YouTube video published weeks ago under an account “Classitup10 and linked to him. The MySpace page, which was removed within minutes of the gunman being identified by officials, included a mysterious “Goodbye friends” message published hours before the shooting and exhorted his friends to “Please don’t be mad at me.”
On his MySpace page, Loughner spoke of how he liked to read and he also wrote repeatedly about literacy, complaining that the rate was especially low in the congressional district where he lived.
In October 2007, Loughner was cited in Pima County for possession of drug paraphernalia, which was dismissed after he completed a diversion program, according to online records.
A year later he was charged with an unknown “local charge” in Marana near Tucson. That charge was also dismissed following the completion of a diversion program in March 2009, the Daily Star reported.
And so… those are the facts as they now exist. A crazy person targets a congresswoman, nearly killing her and killing others in the process. That’s what we know. Apparently, those on the left know even more, because after only a day following the shooting they were filled with plenty of comments and plenty of accusations as to the cause of this man’s actions. The Washington Times notes that Democrat Rep. Raul Grijalva made the following comments to CNN on SATURDAY, the day of the shooting: “It is hard because you’re in the middle of shock but at the same time you have to as members of Congress, our speaker, our leadership has to understand that the tone and tenor of what we say as elected officials and how we debate, and how that discourse happens has to contribute to a place where it is civil it is human and it is protective of each other.”
The Times’ story makes a good point: even before the data were collected, liberals were passing judgement.
The Atlantic’s Andrew Sullivan immediately tied in former Republican Governor of Alaska Sarah Palin to the Arizona shooter’s motive. In a Saturday 2:46 PM post, he writes: When a congresswoman is shot in the head in the very act of democracy, we should all pause. This is fundamentally not a partisan issue and should not be. Acts of violence against political figures destroy democracy itself, for both parties. We don’t know who tried to kill congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords (she appears to be still alive) and we should be very cautious in drawing any conclusions yet about why. But we can know that, whoever tried to kill her and for whatever reason, political rhetoric involving words like “target” and “gun-sights” is inherently irresponsible.
What??? We can’t say the word “target” any more? Is he serious? It’s just a perfect example of free speech under attack. Liberals can and do say anything, but given the opportunity to stifle what they perceive as contrary thought, they will. The Times’ author notes that Democrats have used similar terms, but apparently it’s ok for them to do so. Check out this link to a page on the Democratic Leadership Council’s web site in which certain “targeted” districts were marked with, guess what? Yep… targets.
Daily Kos (a left wing blog) founder Markos Moulitsas went on a rant against Palin, Sharron Angle, and all things conservative. As the Times’ points out, Moulitsas was soon reminded that on Thursday, on his own web site, a blogger posted the headline “My CongressWOMAN voted against Nancy Pelosi! And is now DEAD to me!” The headline was in reference to Giffords! At this link, readers can see the web page as a screenshot, because it was removed from the Daily Kos web site.
The Pima County Sheriff who is investigating the shootings went off on Sunday against the “vitriolic” rhetoric that is in the air. As Fox News reports, “Pima County, Ariz., Sheriff Clarence Dupnik sparked much of the debate during a press conference Saturday evening in which he blamed talk radio and television for a decline in America.” Of course, when questioned about whether talk radio or anything similar had anything to do with this case, the sheriff could not support his claims:
It’s just so typical. The left complains about Palin using crosshairs in an ad, but they use targets. They shove government programs at Americans who don’t want them, but when Americans complain, they say, “Whoa, your rhetoric could incite crazy people.” Everyone just needs to calm down and let the investigation take place. Blaming the right for the actions of a crazed individual is simply pathetic… and yet it happens time after time after time. When one of the shooter’s favorite books is The Communist Manifesto, liberals might want to take a step back and keep quiet. (Not that I want to stifle free speech or anything like that.)
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