Politico
Violence and politics merge
1675 CommentsRSSEmailPrint
The Capitol flag flies at half-staff Sunday in honor of the legislative staffer slain in Tucson. | AP Photo
CloseBy JONATHAN MARTIN & BEN SMITH & ALEXANDER BURNS | 1/9/11 1:28 AM EST
A few days, or at the very least, a few hours – in an earlier era, people would have taken a breath before plunging into a remorseless debate about the political implications of an obscene act of violence.
Not in this era.
Continue Reading Text Size
-+reset Listen VIDEO: Post-shooting politics
Sheriff on Ariz.: 'mecca' for bigotry
Latest on POLITICO
Loughner photo released
Another year of 'drill baby, drill'?
Surgeon: No change for Giffords
Brewer sets aside fiery rhetoric
Accused gunman appears in court
DeLay sentenced to 3 years in prison
POLITICO 44
Within minutes after a gunman’s shots—bullets that killed a federal judge, a nine-year-old girl and four others, and left a congresswoman clinging to life—activists of all stripes were busy, first on Twitter and blogs, then on cable television, chewing on two questions that once would have been indelicate to raise before the blood was dry:
Who in American politics deserves a slice of blame for the Tucson murders? And what public officials find themselves with sudden opportunities for political gain from a tragedy?
By day’s end, the argument that the political right—fueled by anti-government, and anti-immigrant passions that run especially strong in Arizona—is culpable for the Tucson massacre, even if by indirect association, seemed to be validated by the top local law enforcement official investigating the shooting of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D).
“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,” said Pima County Sheriff Clarence Dupnik, an elected Democrat, at a news conference Saturday evening. “And unfortunately, Arizona, I think, has become the capital. We have become the mecca for prejudice and bigotry.”
Some Republicans responded with indignation—why should the alleged act of an apparently deranged young man with a record of barely coherent, and only vaguely ideological rantings get charged to their account?
Others acknowledged what they called an unavoidable reality—flamboyant or incendiary anti-government rhetoric of the sort used by many conservative politicians, commentators and tea party activists for the time being will carry a stigma.
A senior Republican senator, speaking anonymously in order to freely discuss the tragedy, told POLITICO that the Giffords shooting should be taken as a “cautionary tale” by Republicans.
“There is a need for some reflection here - what is too far now?” said the senator. “What was too far when Oklahoma City happened is accepted now. There’s been a desensitizing. These town halls and cable TV and talk radio, everybody’s trying to outdo each other.”
The vast majority of tea party activists, this senator said, ought not be impugned.
“They’re talking about things most mainstream Americans are talking about, like spending and debt,” the Republican said, before adding that politicians of all stripes need to emphasize in the coming days that “tone matters.”
“And the Republican Party in particular needs to reinforce that,” the senator said.
Read more:
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0111/47294.html#ixzz1Ag6TsHsoHERE YOU GO DUMBASS
