Tone Versus Substance

About Tucson: Stupid people and crazy people may not know they are, but dishonest people sure do
According to today's Borowitz Report (see below), "Calls for a reduction in violent political Rhetoric have plunged the Fox News Channel into chaos, with a Fox spokesperson warning today that such a move 'would leave us with 24 hours to fill.'” by Ken I thought Paul Krugman said what needed to be said about the political climate that made Tucson ineviteable very well indeed in the NYT column today, "Climate of Hate," from which Howie quoted extensively this morning. As a footnote, I'd like t...

Memo For File CXXVIII
Memo For File CXXVIIIMonday, January 10th, 2011 So back to the Arizona shooting. We’re all split squarely down the middle on this thing; our pinhead columnists and authority figures are convinced it was an act of political Extremism, whereas the red-blooded people with whole brains, are leaning toward the gunman being just-plain-nuts. The evidence is falling in behind the ideas of the people-with-whole-brains. But the jump-to-conclusions people have fancy titles and big, big names. I gue...

Monday Big Blue Smurf Blogging: What They Said
Giving credit where credit is due, today's honoree is Melissa, for putting the ultimate nail in the coffin of the "Both Sides Are The Same" doctrine. And as long as we continue to play this foolish game of "both sides are just as bad," and rely on trusty old ablism to dismiss Jared Lee Loughner as a crackpot—dutifully ignoring that people with Mental Illness are more likely to be Victims of violence than perpetrators; carefully pretending that the existence of people with Mental Illness wh...

Right of Revolution
In the wake of the Tucson massacre, the left is attributing the violence at least partially to a “climate of hate” encouraged by anti-government Extremists on the right—the phrasing used by Paul Krugman in his latest column—a reaction made easier by Conservatives’ frequent use of violent and intimidating Rhetoric since 2008. Conservatives have responded by alleging the politicization of a random act of violence by a lunatic, and sought to place themselves in the ra...

Palin e-mails Beck claiming to hate violence, war
By Michael J.W. Stickings Politico: Sarah Palin reached out to Glenn Beck over the weekend, and Beck read some of their email exchange on his Radio Show this morning. "Sarah, as you know, peace is always the answer. I know you are felling the same heat, if not much more on this," Beck wrote. Beck expressed concern about Palin's safety, and urged her to hire the same Los Angeles-based security firm that he uses. The rhet...

What To Say?
Before stepping into this thicket, I'll begin by reviewing the apparent ground rules for discussing political Rhetoric and whether it has anything to do with the tragedy in Tucson. The acts of a mentally unbalanced man bear no connection to the political climate around him. Once you draw any such connection, then you are hurling accusations of incitement. Any critique of American political discourse must paint the excesses at both ends of the political spectrum as equal. And as soon as you try...

Very Succinct Analysis of the Current Hate-Fest
Comment by cakes: I agree that we need to fight back against the left/media’s Assassination (pun intended) on the right’s character. We need to fight back against the hypocritical lies they have gotten away with for a decade because Bush/Republicans/McCain wanted to show more “decorum”. Being “above it all” did not work out well for us. That being said, the examples of hypocrisy from the Progressives, while necessary to point out at every turn, are only fodder for us.

Inflamed, Honest Rhetoric vs. Calm, Civil Smears: Which Is Preferable?
For any sane person, to ask the question is to answer it. I’ll take inflamed Rhetoric that is honest any day, over a pack of lies and smears — no matter how calm and restrained. As an observer of decorum and civility, I would just like to calmly ask you right-wingers to stop inciting mass Murder with your hateful and violent rhetoric. Thank you. Conservatives who have watched liberals blame them for an awful shooting understand exactly what I mean when I say this: that issuing a brut...

Was the Arizona Shooting Sheriff Dupnik's Fault?
By RightKlik It's pretty clear at this point that Jared Loughner was the Lone Wolf shooter solely responsible for the carnage in Tuscon, Arizona on Saturday. But without a shred of evidence, liberals in this country want to blame the "usual suspects," including Sarah Palin, the tea partiers and conservative Talk Radio. Let's cast the net wider. On Saturday, we began asking pointed questions about Tuscon Sheriff Clarence Dupnik: A congresswoman got shot point-blank in the head in Pima County, A...

Our permanent culture of political violence
In the wake of Jared L. Loughner’s attempted Assassination of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords -- part of a shooting rampage that has claimed six lives -- Americans are going through much hand-wringing and some honest soul-searching, while politicians and media pundits have loudly condemned this heinous act of political violence and bemoaned its occurrence. All of these heartfelt expressions are necessary. Words are the only way we can truly express our national grief and sorrow. But much of what i...

Megyn Kelly to Democrat Sheriff Clarence Dupnik: Why are you politicizing this tragedy?
Why is Democrat Sheriff Clarence Dupnik politicizing the Assassination attempt on Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords? It’s almost as if he’s channeling Doug Henning, minus the skin tight body suits and 70s curls, creating a loud and noisy distraction over to the side so no one pays attention to what’s happening on the other side of the stage, where the really interesting story is happening. You know, like the reality that Sheriff Dupnik knew for at least the past year that Jared ...

The Arizona Shooting: The Last Assassination of the 60s
Ben Johnson, FloydReports.com As the media and left-wingers spin the attempted Assassination of Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords as an act of Tea Party violence, perhaps even they have a nagging little voice telling them they are overlooking the factors that really led to this tragedy, which claimed the lives of six people — including three septuagenarians and a nine-year-old girl. While the Left has predictably tried to use this attack to smear its political opponents, Conservatives hav...

Snippets of Revelation.
Snippets of Revelation by digby Anderson Cooper interviewed Bill Maher tonight, playing Devil's Advocate to Maher's strong denunciation of Right Wing violence. It's worth watching on the rerun if you care to. This was a highlight: Cooper: I'm reading biographies of Lincoln and Jefferson and Lincoln had horrible things said about him when he was president, really vicious, vicious stuff. Maher: Sure, and look what happened to him. Cooper: well... Maher: yeah, and we saw how that ended. I guess ...

Searching for answers to Tuscon tragedy
Image via CrunchBase IBD: From New York newspaper columnists to an Illinois senator, the liberal left is blaming the Tea Party and conservative stars for the shooting of an Arizona congresswoman. How about blaming the Communist and Nazi-loving shooter? It didn't take long for New York Times columnist Paul Krugman to blame the Tea Party and Sarah Palin for the shooting outside a Tucson Supermarket that seriously injured Congresswoman Gabriel Giffords and left six others, including a 9-year-old,...

Sri Lanka flood toll rises to 13; 120,000 homeless
Sri Lanka's government says the death toll from floods and Mudslides over several parts of the country has increased to 13, with four more people reported dead since the weekend. The Disaster Management Center said Tuesday more than 120,000 people have been forced from their homes and are living in camps. The government has deployed the Air Force and Navy to drop food and rescue marooned residents mainly in worst-affected eastern district of Batticaloa. 'Internet ID?' No thanks, say on...

Compare and Contrast: Palin Posts a Map and Obama Said This
Which one is more likely to incite violence? ** Obama on ACORN Mobs: “I don’t want to quell anger. I think people are right to be angry! I’m angry!” I eagerly await the MSM’s strong denunciation of Obama’s “vitriolic” Rhetoric. Click here to cancel reply....

Newspaper review
With the Bonus season upon us, City pay packets preoccupy many of the papers. It is a case of "game, set and match" in the City for the Guardian, which says Chancellor George Osborne's tough words proved to be hot air. Similarly the Daily Telegraph says "Cameron admits defeat over bonuses" and according to the Daily Mail, Downing Street appears to have run up the white flag. Meanwhile the Times' headline gives a "Grudging go-ahead for bank bonuses". Polit...

Jon Stewart on the Shooting: "Draw a Distinction"
Jon Stewart opened his show tonight to give a short, serious Speech about the shootings in Arizona, but he didn't cite political discourse as somehow responsible for the tragedy. "I wouldn't blame our political Rhetoric any more than I would blame heavy metal music for Columbine," he said, adding that "Boy, would it be nice to draw a straight line from this horror to something tangible, because then we could convince ourselves that if we just stopped this, then the horrors...

Big News Events Make Blatherers of Us All
The New Yorker, reputedly one of America's smartest magazines, exemplifies (and not always in a bad way) some of the incoherence created amongst the chattering (and, alas, governing) classes with big news events that seems to DEMAND REACTION!! and yet are at the same time either too impossibly overdetermined or too obvious--like the decision by one deluded ass to open fire on a crowd--for there to be much fresh, interesting, or relevant to say, or do. First, George Packer takes one tack. Of cou...

Jared Loughner and the National Football League
Something has been bothering me about the left’s programmed response to Jared Loughner’s mass Murder, and it’s not what you think. Oh, I’m plenty bothered that Progressives have quite deliberately and with all malice aforethought called me a murderer to advance their totalitarian Speech codes, but that’s not what’s really been bugging me. See, the ridiculous notion that the metaphor — a linguistic device at least as old as ancient Sumer where Gilgamesh s...

WikiLeaks: Don't Call for Our Murder, Either
There have been many public calls to assassinate Wikileaks' founder Julian Assange. Pima County Sheriff Clarence Dupnik, Fox News Chief Roger Ailes, Democratic Rep. Steny Hoyer and Republican Sen. Lamar Alexander have all called for calmer, saner Rhetoric out of politicians and pundits in the wake of the assasination attempt on Rep. Gabrielle Giffords and the Murder of six individuals. The alleged shooter, Jared Loughner, has been described as a lone, mentally disturbed gunman. WikiLeaks fou...

The narrative of the hateful left
The Murder of six people, the shooting of twelve more, including Congresswoman Giffords, and the politization of the incident: Andrew Klavan writes about The Hateful Left Where incendiary political Rhetoric truly resides in America Indeed, the Left’s hysterical response to all who disagree with it—that they are Racist or sexist or “phobic” or somehow reminiscent of Hitler—has become so predictable that satirists, from the Libertarian Greg Gutfeld to the liberal Jon Stewart, h

Late Night: Not the Best Day to Be Sarah Palin
As Jane noted earlier today, Sarah Palin awoke on Sunday to find herself at the fiery center of the debate about increased violent political Rhetoric in this country. And as usual, Palin — scratch that — Palin’s handlers paint her as the real Victim of the Arizona tragedy. Everyone makes mistakes. But anyone waiting for Sarah Palin to acknowledge she might have made one here is going to have some time on their hands.  Following the Tucson shooting, Palin’s aide disingenuou...

Finger-pointers miss the mark: Ariz. shooter is to blame
Deranged gunmen are usually just that. Unhinged and homicidal. Periodically these lunatics unleash mayhem, make headlines and then, if they haven't killed themselves, spend the rest of their lives in Prisons or mental institutions. Sadly, they also become part of our national narrative. If you're older than 20, you're familiar with the perpetrators of several heinous incidents. The Virginia Tech murderer. The Fort Hood killer. The Oklahoma City bomber. The Beltway snipers. The Columbine shooters...

Jared Loughner Is a Tragedy, Not a Nut Job or the Embodiment of Evil
I'm haunted by last week's episode of ABC's "Grey's Anatomy," in which a disturbed young man opens fire on dozens of people on a college campus. Several doctors are put to the ultimate test when they realize the man they are trying desperately to save is the shooter. Back in the waiting room, relatives of the many Victims are comforting one another – except for a tearful woman sitting alone in a corner. Dr. Jackson Avery walked out of the operating room rather than help save the perpetrato...