A shameful week for America's liberal elites. The top 10 most ridiculous left-wing attacks on US conservatives following the Arizona shootings
By Nile Gardiner World Last updated: January 14th, 2011http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/nilegardiner/100071922/a-shameful-week-for-americas-liberal-elites-the-top-10-most-ridiculous-left-wing-attacks-on-us-conservatives-following-the-arizona-shootingsThe Arizona shootings were not caused by rhetoric (Picture: REUTERS)
This has been a hugely shameful week for sections of the American Left, who have exploited a horrific tragedy that claimed six lives, in order to advance political attacks upon some leading conservative politicians and media commentators, as well as an entire political movement in the form of the Tea Party. The vitriolic and hate-filled attacks have marked a low point for liberal media elites in America in the 21st century, even to the extent that President Obama himself, probably the most liberal US president of modern times, felt the need to rebuke this undignified and crass display of left-wing finger-pointing in his memorial speech in Tucson on Wednesday night.
And after all the accusations against an array of prominent public figures from Sarah Palin, Bill O’Reilly and Glenn Beck, to Rush Limbaugh and Roger Ailes, it emerged that the deranged shooter, Jared Loughner, was in no way influenced by political rhetoric, and indeed had no interest at all in politics. As Charles Krauthammer noted in The Washington Post, “rarely in American political discourse has there been a charge so reckless, so scurrilous and so unsupported by evidence”.
I have compiled below a list of some of the most egregious examples of Leftist hysteria over the past week. It is by no means an exhaustive list – this list could easily be expanded to 20 or 30 further instances, especially crude statements from liberal politicians. New York Times columnist Paul Krugman was among the very first to link the mass shooting to conservatives, and two of his hugely irresponsible pieces feature in the list below. The list also includes a major article from American Guardian writer Michael Tomasky, as an example of how the Left-wing vitriol of the last week emanated not only from the east and west coasts of the United States, but also in some cases from across the Atlantic.
So here is my top 10 list, which Telegraph readers will no doubt wish to add to in their comments.
1. Paul Krugman, The New York Times, January 8, 2011
We don’t have proof yet that this was political, but the odds are that it was. She’s been the target of violence before. And for those wondering why a Blue Dog Democrat, the kind Republicans might be able to work with, might be a target, the answer is that she’s a Democrat who survived what was otherwise a GOP sweep in Arizona, precisely because the Republicans nominated a Tea Party activist.
You know that Republicans will yell about the evils of partisanship whenever anyone tries to make a connection between the rhetoric of Beck, Limbaugh, etc. and the violence I fear we’re going to see in the months and years ahead. But violent acts are what happen when you create a climate of hate.
2. Keith Olbermann, MSNBC, January 8, 2011
This morning in Arizona, this time of the ever-escalating, borderline-ecstatic invocation of violence in fact or in fantasy in our political discourse, closed. It is essential tonight not to demand revenge, but to demand justice; to insist not upon payback against those politicians and commentators who have so irresponsibly brought us to this time of domestic terrorism, but to work to change the minds of them and their supporters – or if those minds tonight are too closed, or if those minds tonight are too unmoved, or if those minds tonight are too triumphant, to make sure by peaceful means that those politicians and commentators and supporters have no further place in our system of government.
If Sarah Palin, whose website put and today scrubbed bullseye targets on 20 Representatives including Gabby Giffords, does not repudiate her own part in amplifying violence and violent imagery in politics, she must be dismissed from politics – she must be repudiated by the members of her own party, and if they fail to do so, each one of them must be judged to have silently defended this tactic that today proved so awfully foretelling, and they must in turn be dismissed by the responsible members of their own party.
3. Pima County Sheriff Clarence Dupnik, Press Conference, Tucson, January 8, 2011
When you look at unbalanced people, how they respond to the vitriol that comes out of certain mouths about tearing down the government. The anger, the hatred, the bigotry that goes on in this country is getting to be outrageous. And unfortunately, Arizona I think has become sort of the capital. We have become the mecca for prejudice and bigotry.
4. Michael Tomasky, The Guardian, January 9, 2011
Republicans and even Tea Partiers will have the sense – again, for a while – to steer clear of directly gun-related rhetoric. We won’t be hearing much in the near term about “second amendment remedies” and insurrection and so forth. But this will be temporary. Guns are simply too central to the mythology of the American right, as is the idea of liberty being wrested from tyrants only at gunpoint. For the American right to stop talking about armed insurrection would be like American liberals dropping the subjects of race and gender. It’s too encoded in conservative DNA.
… Direct responsibility for what happened Saturday? No. Mentally ill people are mentally ill. The Beatles weren’t responsible for the messages that Charles Manson heard in their music. But there’s a difference. Paul McCartney had no earthly reason to think that an innocent song about a fairground ride (Helter Skelter) would lead a man to commit barbarous acts of murder. Today’s Republicans and conservative commentators, however, surely understand the fire they’re playing with. But they do it, and a tragedy like Saturday’s won’t stop them, as long as they can maintain a phoney plausible deniability and as long as hate continues to pay dividends at the ballot box.
5. Paul Krugman, The New York Times, January 9, 2011
it’s the saturation of our political discourse — and especially our airwaves — with eliminationist rhetoric that lies behind the rising tide of violence.
Where’s that toxic rhetoric coming from? Let’s not make a false pretense of balance: it’s coming, overwhelmingly, from the right. It’s hard to imagine a Democratic member of Congress urging constituents to be “armed and dangerous” without being ostracized; but Representative Michele Bachmann, who did just that, is a rising star in the G.O.P.
And there’s a huge contrast in the media. Listen to Rachel Maddow or Keith Olbermann, and you’ll hear a lot of caustic remarks and mockery aimed at Republicans. But you won’t hear jokes about shooting government officials or beheading a journalist at The Washington Post. Listen to Glenn Beck or Bill O’Reilly, and you will.
… So will the Arizona massacre make our discourse less toxic? It’s really up to G.O.P. leaders. Will they accept the reality of what’s happening to America, and take a stand against eliminationist rhetoric? Or will they try to dismiss the massacre as the mere act of a deranged individual, and go on as before? If Arizona promotes some real soul-searching, it could prove a turning point. If it doesn’t, Saturday’s atrocity will be just the beginning.
6. Michael Daly, The New York Daily News, January 9, 2011
But anyone with any sense at all knows that violent language can incite actual violence, that metaphor can incite murder. At the very least, Palin added to a climate of violence.
And, now that Palin may have the blood of more than some poor caribou on her hands, I wonder if she will continue putting people in cross hairs and calling on folks to RELOAD!
7. George Packer, The New Yorker, January 10, 2011
But it won’t do to dig up stray comments by Obama, Allen Grayson, or any other Democrat who used metaphors of combat over the past few years, and then try to claim some balance of responsibility in the implied violence of current American politics. (Most of the Obama quotes that appear in the comments were lame attempts to reassure his base that he can get mad and fight back, i.e., signs that he’s practically incapable of personal aggression in politics.)
In fact, there is no balance—none whatsoever. Only one side has made the rhetoric of armed revolt against an oppressive tyranny the guiding spirit of its grassroots movement and its midterm campaign. Only one side routinely invokes the Second Amendment as a form of swagger and intimidation, not-so-coyly conflating rights with threats.
Only one side’s activists bring guns to democratic political gatherings. Only one side has a popular national TV host who uses his platform to indoctrinate viewers in the conviction that the President is an alien, totalitarian menace to the country. Only one side fills the AM waves with rage and incendiary falsehoods. Only one side has an iconic leader, with a devoted grassroots following, who can’t stop using violent imagery and dividing her countrymen into us and them, real and fake. Any sentient American knows which side that is; to argue otherwise is disingenuous.
8. Arizona Congressman Raul Grijalva, in an interview with The Huffington Post, January 8, 2011
“The climate has gotten so toxic in our political discourse, setting up for this kind of reaction for too long. It’s unfortunate to say that. I hate to say that,” Grijalva said in an interview with The Huffington Post. “If you’re an opponent, you’re a deadly enemy,” Grijalva said of the mindset among Arizona extremists. “Anybody who contributed to feeding this monster had better step back and realize they’re threatening our form of government.”
Grijalva said that Tea Party leader Sarah Palin should reflect on the rhetoric that she has employed. “She — as I mentioned, people contributing to this toxic climate — Ms. Palin needs to look at her own behavior, and if she wants to help the public discourse, the best thing she could do is to keep quiet.”
9. Harold Meyerson, The Washington Post, January 12, 2011
The primary problem with the political discourse of the right in today’s America isn’t that it incites violence per se. It’s that it implants and reinforces paranoid fears about the government and conservatism’s domestic adversaries.
Much of the culture and thinking of the American right – the mainstream as well as the fringe – has descended into paranoid suppositions about the government, the Democrats and the president. This is not to say that the left wing doesn’t have a paranoid fringe, too. But by every available measure, it’s the right where conspiracy theories have exploded. A fabricated specter of impending governmental totalitarianism haunts the right’s dreams.
… That doesn’t make Beck, Erickson, Rupert Murdoch and their ilk responsible for Tucson. It does make them responsible for promoting a paranoid culture that makes America a more divided and dangerous land.
10. Jane Fonda, Twitter, January 8, 2011
And finally, Oscar-winning actress and liberal darling Jane Fonda emerged from hibernation and delivered some of the most tasteless tweets in the brief history of Twitter, brazenly exploiting the shooting of a Congresswoman to make a monumentally shallow political attack. (hat tip: NewsBusters)
@SarahPalinUSA holds responsibility. As does the violence-provoking rhetoric of the Tea Party 2:51 PM Jan 8th via Echofon
@glenbeck guilty too. Shame. It must stop! 2:20 PM Jan 8th via Seesmic Web
Progressive Arizona Rep Gabrielle Giffords is shot. In her ads, Sarah Palin had her targeted in a gun site. Inciting to violence. 2:11 PM Jan 8th via Echofon
Tags: Arizona shootings, Barack Obama, Bill O'Reilly, charles Krauthammer, Clarence Dupnik, Erick Erickson, Fox news, Gabrielle Giffords, George Packer, Glenn Beck, Harold Meyerson, Jane Fonda, Keith Olbermann, Michael Daly, MIchael Tomasky, MSNBC, New York Times, Paul Krugman, Raul Grijalva, RedState, Roger Ailes, Rush Limbaugh, Sarah Palin, tea party, US politics, Washington Post
