Jesse Kornbluth: The President Called For A New Civilility, So I'm Canceling Sprint

Bill Donohues Lesson from Tucson: More Censorship, More Smears
Catholic League President Bill Donohue’s time in public life has been centered on pushing anti-gay Bigotry, ridiculing progressive Christians, and promoting Censorship and Boycott campaigns. He most recently won a notable victory when, with the help of GOP leaders and other social Conservatives, he convinced the Smithsonian to censor an exhibit on the marginalization of gays and Lesbians in America. The Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery removed a film by the late artist David W...

PBS Host Tavis Smiley Bizarrely Claims 'You Lie' Comment to Obama Our 'Greatest Moment of Incivility'
This would seem to be skipping incidents like Rep. Preston Brooks of South Carolina savagely beating Sen. Charles Sumner with his cane over Slavery in 1856. The History Channel says "Brooks became an instant hero in the South, and supporters sent him many replacement canes." (Or there's the Puerto Rican Terrorists shooting up the place and wounding five House members in 1956...) But Smiley was adamant: Clearly, no one was shot, nobody lost his or her life in this process, but it...

Hes back
The politician who spoke during the Presidential Campaign of 2008 with extraordinary charisma and wisdom returned last night in Tucson, Ariz., after a long absence. The right probably thought the president had turned soft and could be ignored as the political force he seemed to be in 2008. Many on the left thought he’d lost his groove, and that maybe his aura had been exaggerated. But before 14,000 people in Tucson, and a watching world on television, the old Obama was back. Like his thought...

The Right Wing Can't Survive Without Stoking Anger
What's going to be fascinating to watch in the weeks and months ahead is how the Right adjusts to the new "kinder, gentler" rhetorical environment everyone - but them - is demanding. If you have been a Student of the new Right you understand that the gains they've made in American politics have come in direct proportion to a rising level of anger. Some of that anger was there just waiting for affirmation, but much more of it has been ginned up by rightwing talkers like Limbaugh, Beck and FOX New...

Look it up: Wikipedia is turning 10
Wikipedia is 10 years old Saturday. It is the fifth-most-visited site on the Internet. About 400 million people use it every month. What is extraordinary about this free encyclopedia, which contains more than 17 million articles in more than 270 languages, is that it is written, edited and self-regulated almost entirely by unpaid volunteers. All the other most-visited sites are multibillion-dollar businesses; Facebook, with just 100 million more users, has been valued at $50 billion. Visit Googl...

Kirsten Powers: Why did Healer-In-Chief blame America for Tucson tragedy?
Liberal pundit Kirsten Powers, writing in today’s Daily Beast, makes some interesting points I didn’t think of in the aftermath of Obama’s Speech at Wednesday night’s “Together We Thrive” memorial service for the Victims of last Saturday’s shooting rampage in Tucson. I guess I was so wrapped up in just making sure that he didn’t turn it into a campaign rally a la the Wellstone “memorial service” - and I was also tuning in to see ...

A Lincoln without a Gettysburg: Obama speaks at Tucson
Whatever others may make of him, Barack Obama continues to see himself as a statesman standing above party and Partisanship, one who, unlike his opponents, is actuated by a lofty civic vision. This vision was on display in Tucson on Wednesday evening. Mr. Obama rose above tacky surroundings to deliver the best Speech of his career. It was the best because it was the most Lincolnian. The problem was that Tucson wasn’t Gettysburg. The event, Together We Thrive: Tucson and America, was quite ...

Are All These Calls for Civility Really Just Calls for Censorship?
Yes. Let's just look at how things progressed this past weekend. Within moments of the news of the shootings various members of the left, aided by the idiot Sheriff Dumb*** of Pima County and many in the Mainstream Media, began to claim that people like Sarah Palin, Rush Limbaugh, the Tea Party, and others were somehow complicit in this shooting because of their "heated political Rhetoric". None of those accusations were deemed to be uncivil. However, when Palin and Limbaugh responded to those ...

Obama Tries to Distance Himself From Hateful Loons on Left
President Obama distanced himself from his hateful base on Wednesday night. President Barack Obama called on the nation to resist the temptation to assign blame for a shooting rampage here that may never fully be explained, but to emerge from the tragedy a more thoughtful, civil nation. Concluding a memorial service for the Victims of Saturday’s violence, Mr. Obama urged: “Rather than pointing fingers or assigning blame, let us use this occasion to expand our moral imaginations, to ...

The incivility of the right left
Remember this? It’s from an entire website that was developed solely to apologize to the world for re-electing George W. Bush. Say, that right-wing Incivility that the pundits are all decrying? Backatcha, pals. In this one, “get the bastards” is obviously a prelude for inviting the other side to sit down and have a meaningful dialogue about politics, without any eliminationist Rhetoric. In this example of left-wing civility, a sign proclaiming “The good in this country wi...

Obama to Be Nation's Consoler at Memorial Service
WASHINGTON (AP) — Searching for unity out of tragedy, President Barack Obama will honor the Victims of the Arizona Mass Shooting in personal terms and remind those in grief that an entire nation is with them. The president is again stepping into his role as national consoler, a test of leadership that comes with the job. His mission at Wednesday's memorial is to uplift and rally, not to examine political Incivility. [Photo Gallery: Gabrielle Giffords Shooting in Arizona.] Set to speak du...

Obama to be nation's consoler at memorial service
(01-12) 07:28 PST WASHINGTON, CA (AP) -- Searching for unity out of tragedy, President Barack Obama will honor the Victims of the Arizona Mass Shooting in personal terms and remind those in grief that an entire nation is with them. The president is again stepping into his role as national consoler, a test of leadership that comes with the job. His mission at Wednesday's memorial is to uplift and rally, not to examine political Incivility. Set to speak during an evening gathering in Tucson, Ari...

We've seen America's vitriol. Now let's salute Wikipedia, a US pioneer of global civility | Timothy Garton Ash
Wikipedia is 10 years old this Saturday. It is the fifth most visited site on the Internet. Some 400 million people use it every month. I bet most readers of this column are among them. You want to check something, you Google it; and then, as often as not, you choose the Wikipedia link as the best way in. What is extraordinary about this free encyclopedia, which now contains more than 17m articles in more than 270 languages, is that it is almost entirely written, edited and self-regulated by unp...

Sen. Mark Udalls call for Congress to sit together at the State of the Union
Symbols do matter. Appearances do matter. TV visuals certainly do matter. Sen. Mark Udall (D-Colo.) is urging his colleagues to sign a letter to the leadership of the House and Senate calling for members to sit together, not divided by party, for this year’s State of the Union Speech.   More and more, these spectacles of one party sitting, one party clapping; one party cheering, the other stone-silent; one party rising for a standing ovation, the other anchored to their seats, have not exac...

Abbreviated pundit round-up
New York Times: It is a president’s responsibility to salve a national wound. President Obama did that on Wednesday evening at the memorial service in Tucson for the six people who died in last weekend’s terrible shooting. It was one of his Most Powerful and uplifting speeches. Mr. Obama called on ideological campaigners to stop vilifying their opponents. The only way to move forward after such a tragedy, he said, is to cast aside "point-scoring and pettiness." He rightly focused pr...

Climate Change
The eruption of wild accusations after the shootings in Arizona illustrate once again that those who talk about civility the most practice it the least. Pious calls for the restoration of civility have come from a parade of pundits and pols famous for celebrating or rationalizing the most egregious violations of it.   Civility is a political, not moral concept, in the minds of many on the left. "Civility" means to them peaceful submission to Liberalism and "Incivility" means annoyingly effectiv...

Blankley: Tucson is a teaching moment for the media
In the aftermath of the shootings in Tucson, the media instructed us that we needed to have a series of national conversations — on “extreme Rhetoric,” gun, and more appropriately on the handling of the mentally ill.  Tony Blankley, former editor in chief at the Washington Times, says that the conversation that needs to take place is about the media: Because even though the Tucson shooting did not cause the media irresponsibility — this time — continued media misreportin

The UAW Deputizes Itself to become Human Rights Police
And they’ll decide when a human right is violated, thank you very much. Adam bit.ly: Speaking on Wednesday, Bob King the President of the UAW, announced that it would be aggressively moving forward on organizing workers at Honda, BMW, Toyota, and Hyundai, among others. Seeking to come off as a benevolent representative of the typical “disenfranchised employee”, he informed the automakers that he seeks to be a friend and not a foe. But all hope of King and the UAW being a friend to th...

Obama Brings It Home
By Gail Collins NYT Maybe President Obama was saving the magic for a time when we really needed it. We’ve been complaining for two years about the lack of music and passion in his big speeches. But if he’d moved the country when he was talking about Health Care or bailing out the Auto Industry, perhaps his words wouldn’t have been as powerful as they were when he was trying to lift the country up after the tragedy in Tucson. “Our hearts are broken, and yet our hearts also have reas

Hypocritical demands for civility and baseless smears follow Tucson tragedy
Although the Tucson shooter was mentally erratic, did not listen to Talk Radio or Fox News, and loved the Communist Manifesto, liberal lawmakers and Newspapers like the New York Times immediately insinuated that his actions resulted from an “atmosphere of hate” or “climate of hate” created by Conservatives. Now, after baselessly accusing conservatives of complicity in Murder, they are suddenly calling for “civility.” But what they mean by “IncivilityR...

Obama memorial: 'Lack of civility' didn't cause tragedy (video)
Though many Americans agree with President Obama, in the past days, the   "Incivility" of political Rhetoric has been blamed by some on the left for igniting the  insane passions of an alleged mentally deranged gunman, causing him  to head to a corner in Tuscon, Arizona - to commit atrocities that have brought a nation to its knees with grief. When a country is in need of a "Nation's Chaplain," as Brit Hume labeled the historical role of a president  during times of grea...

Carl Paladino: Right (Including Me) Not Responsible For Actions Of Arizona Gunman
Former GOP Gubernatorial Candidate (which is why I'm blogging about him, guys) Carl Paladino not only went off on the Buffalo Board of Ed this week, but he's also speaking out on the tragedy in Arizona: Specifically, he says "progressive pointyheads" are misguided (and dopey) for blaming the Tucson shootings on right-wing Rhetoric. (The BN, in an editorial about overheated Beck-Limbaugh-Coulter rhetoric sending American political discourse over the edge of Incivility, wrote: &...

It's NOT about civility
Here's Steve Benan on Rush Limbaugh on Monday: QUOTE OF THE DAY.... Rush Limbaugh actually said this on the air today. He wasn't kidding. "What Mr. Loughner knows is that he has the full support of a major political party in this country. He's sitting there in jail; he knows what's going on. He knows that a Democrat [sic] Party -- the Democrat [sic] Party -- is attempting to find anybody but him to blame. "He knows if he plays his cards right that he's just a 'Victim.' He's the latest in a n...

Letters to the Editor: Jan. 14, 2011
Re: "Paul Krugman's totalitarian temptation," editorial, Jan. 11 Liberal columnists like Paul Krugman have sought to scapegoat Conservatives for the recent shootings in Tucson. But the shooter was once described as a "liberal pothead," and the "Communist Manifesto" was one of his favorite books. There is no evidence he was influenced by any contemporary political Rhetoric. Moreover, harsh rhetoric comes mostly from liberals like former Rep. Paul Kanjorski, D-Pa., who said of Florida Gov. Rick S...

How Obama got conservatives to listen to him
Did Obama's Speech "rebuke" the left? So argued a number of people on the right, who hailed the President's Speech because in their view, Obama called on the left to stop blaming the shooting on incendiary Rhetoric. Conservatives are right to point to Obama's claim that Incivility did not cause the shooting, because it's important. But it's not important for the reason conservatives think it is. Among those who have claimed Obama's Speech stiff-armed the left are Rich Lowry, Marc Thiessen, and...