Best headline of the day, via The Daily Mail in Britain:
How America’s elite hijacked a massacre to take revenge on Sarah Palin
The substance of the article makes points you have heard before regarding the murderous rampage by Jared Loughner:
Rahm Emanuel, Mr Obama’s former chief of staff and a figure compared to Labour’s Alastair Campbell, once said: ‘You never want a serious crisis to go to waste.’
And those on his side of the political divide have clearly seen the Tucson tragedy as an opportunity to score points and settle scores.
None more so than with Sarah Palin, a politician who is almost as divisive as the President. The former Republican vice-presidential contender has become a spiritual figurehead for many Tea Party supporters, but is loathed by many on the Left.
While the column itself says nothing new, the headline articulates a feeling many of us have.
When I first heard of the shooting, I did not immediately take to blogging. As with most people, I wanted to find out what had happened, who was killed or injured, and who the gunman was.
Even after my first blog post at
3:22, more than two hours after the
news first broke (times in link are 2 hrs behind E.S.T.), all I did was post information regarding the shooting as it became available.
But almost immediately, it became clear that there was a full scale attempt in the left-blogosphere to blame Palin.
As far as I can tell,
Matthew Yglesias of Think Progress was the first person to spread the so-called Palin
target map at 1:45 p.m. [see update below] The now infamous Markos Moulistas “mission accomplished, Sarah Palin”
tweet did not take place until 2:19 p.m. Yglesias’ tweet was retweeted a total of
271 times and the image of the map he posted
883 times as of this writing.
By late afternoon on the day of the shooting, like much of the right-blogosphere, I began to address the Yglesias and Moulistas smears which were spreading like wildfire on the internet, and into the mainstream media.
Paul Krugman posted his column blaming right-wing hate speech and suggesting a Tea Party connection at 3:22 p.m., the exact minute of my initial informational blog post.
The massacre had been hijacked for political purposes not based on facts, but on a desire for retribution against Palin specifically, and the Tea Parties and conservatives in general. A
point I have made time and again, is that there was and is no evidence that the shooter ever saw the Palin map.
The Palin connection was a complete fabrication created in the minds of Messrs. Yglesias, Moulitsas, and countless others with an axe to grind.
Rather than us focusing exclusively on people like Christina Green (image), the young girl murdered by Loughner, we had to deal with a full-out media assault intended to falsely pin the cause of the shooting on Palin, Tea Parties, and conservatives.
Of all the despicable aspects of this shooting, the conduct of the left-blogosphere and mainstream media in hijacking this event ranks just behind the murder and mayhem itself.
Update: Here is a montage of anti-Palin death threats and other true vitriol spread throughout Twitter as a result of the false accusation that Palin’s electoral map was connected to the shooting (h/t):
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QxgJKNpjSNI?fs=1]
Update 1-13-2011: The Palin map was referenced in another persons tweet at 1:31 p.m. that day, but as far as I can tell Yglesias was the first one to spread the map. (h/t)
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Ron Coleman
Comments
If the libs want to take it outside (of the ballot box)… that works for me.
http://reformaliberal.wordpress.com/2011/01/12/busting-ours-to-kick-yours/
My mother-in-law called yesterday to say she didn't like Sarah Palin, "she's mean". She asked who is this "Glen Beck guy? He's nasty". I asked my wife, where all this was coming from? Well, she's been watching the coverage of the Arizona shooting on TV. She did not say, "oh, those poor people who were dead or injured, or that sweet little girl who was killed… No, she went right for Sarah Palin. Mission accomplished for the Democrats!!!
Frankly this has nothing to do about party. I am a moderate and I hate Palin and everything she stands for. I think she is hated by the left the right and the middle. The only people who don't hate her are the people who are too dumb or too nice to do so. It is not about party at least for me. It is merely about knowing who you are and how public your life and the things you say or post are and then checking that before you post a map with cross-hairs on it. I am not saying there was a link. I am just saying she needs to (since she still hasn't) apologize for recklessly posting something with violent imagery and using violent rhetoric such as "don't retreat….reload".
p.s. all of you people are doing the exact same thing the democrats did. That includes Mr. Jacobson, the writer of this article. You are just playing the blame game by assuming all democrats have this all planned out as a time to get back at the republicans. Of course we all care about those who died. We mourn for the loss that the families have suffered. The blame game only comes from the grief we feel. We feel someone must be to blame. I dont think it belongs solely to Palin. I hate the shooter far more than her. I am just tired of her silly stupid mistakes. If she wants to be someone taken seriously in the political world she still has a lot to learn.
Sorry, @Adam, your argument is just completely disingenuous.
Once again, go and read the comment posted above on this thread by commenter, Mo.
Take the time to read the post he linked to, the one posted by Markos Moulitsas, at the Daily Kos back on June 25, 2008:
Here is the link so you can just click on it, which was entitled:
"2010 will be primary season
by kos
Wed Jun 25, 2008 at 09:45:23 AM PST
Scroll down to the list of Democrat Members of Congress who Markos was politically attacking from the left.
What Markos — one of Sarah Palin's chief accusers on this issue — said about those Democrats was the following:
"Who to primary? Well, I'd argue that we can narrow the target list by looking at those Democrats who sold out the Constitution last week. I've bolded members of the Blue Dogs for added emphasis."
"Target list . . ." Hmmmmmmm!
Read on. The list, including several Members of Congress who Markos put in bold were ones he specifically said had "sold out the constitution" when they voted for final passage of H R 6304 on 20-Jun-2008, the FISA Amendments Act of 2008.
You'll see among those names, this one:
"Giffords, Gabrielle (AZ-08)".
Then, notice what else Markos Moulistas said back in 2008 about those Democrats, including Rep. Gabby Gifford.
"Not all of these people will get or even deserve primaries, but this vote certainly puts a bulls eye on their district."
A "bulls eye", huh?
Wait, wasn't what he and others like you have accused Sarah Palin of doing? And he quite obviously did it first, no?
So Markos himself put a "bulls eye" on Representative Gabby Giffords way back in 2008!
That illustrates the hypocrisy of those of you on the left who are now outrageously accusing others of complicity in murder, claiming that for Sarah Palin to cast a political campaign post in "metaphorical" military terms, as has been done by politicians, consultants and newspaper reporters in this country, and elsewhere for as long as anyone can remember, somehow now makes her in any way responsible for the tragic death of several people at the hands of an obviously insane person?
Why should I not conclude that by trying to now give a literal meaning to Sarah Palin's obviously metaphorical characterization, you are simply being a hypocrite, just like the other accusers — including good old accuser number one, Markos Moulitsas?
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