If Joan Walsh obsessed over the facts of the Tucson shooting case as she does over every word which falls from Sarah Palin’s mouth, one might be able to take her as a credible contributor to general political discourse. As it is, she’s just a rude lady who believes that calling people names (as she has me, my favorite is “moron”) suffices as critical thinking.
If that passes as critical thinking we are truly on our way to a real life “Idiocracy.”
I haven’t had enough alcohol to read Walsh’s entire Trapper Keeper diatribe, but a few points did jump out at me and I would be remiss to ignore them.
Incredibly deep quotes after the jump.
Palin talked about her shock at learning she was being mentioned, “along with your name, Sean” and Rush Limbaugh and Mark Levin and other right-wing blowhards. And so she had to stand up for these victims. She continued: “I know that a lot of those on the left hate my message, and they’ll do all that they can to stop me” – emphasis on “me,” and her voice rose there, even though she said repeatedly it’s not about her.
No, she named names and also mentioned the too-many-to-name conservatives across America who were called accessories to murder simply because … they want smaller government. I know. It’s the same wayward reasoning that drives cousins to sleep with cousins but passes as a legitimate editorial in Salon. I digress.
Palin said:
“I will continue to speak out, they’re not going to shut me up, anyone up … “
Palin is sought for interviews by the same outlets who later accuse her and half of the country of being accessories to murder but when she defends herself she’s making it ABOUT herself.
“It had nothing to do with an apolitical or perhaps even left-leaning criminal who killed these innocents and injured so many, I didn’t have a problem having it taken down…if in fact it got taken down.” Got that? Whatever she said? Whether it was taken down or not? By whomever?
Her actual quote:
“I believe that someone in the PAC – in fact the contract graphic artist – did take it down. I don’t believe that was in appropriate … if it caused heartache, I didn’t have a problem with that.”
[…]
” … an apolitical or perhaps a left-leaning criminal …”
And this from Walsh?
Like the way she slipped in with no evidence the fact that Jared Loughner might have been left-leaning?
If Walsh is suddenly against rushing to judgment, does this mean she’s going to apologize for rushing to judgment just a few days ago?
Sadly, to my knowledge, no conservative leader has yet called for dialing back the rage on the right in the wake of the Giffords shooting.
This sentence only makes sense if you believe that Jared Loughner is a conservative controlled by other conservatives. Maybe he works for the Kochs! Of course, we now know that Loughner was no conservative, at least, in the real world, not the make-believe world where The Communist Manifesto and Mein Kampf are the favorite books of, hating Bush, burning flags, and being a troofer are the favorite pastimes of “conservatives.” But what a great plot for a quasi-“Inception”-esque movie!
Sarah Palin sent condolences to Giffords’ family, but said nothing about her unconscionable SarahPAC map putting 20 House members, including Giffords, in actual crosshairs for supporting healthcare reform
Does this mean that Walsh condemns the Daily Kos target list and Democratic Leadership Committee map wherein the latter is the same Palin map but with bullseyes?
or her infamous Tweet telling conservatives “don’t retreat, reload.”
Does Walsh now condemn the President’s quote: “If they bring a knife to the fight we’ll bring a gun?”
Towards the bottom of the article Walsh reveals that her column is completely without fact:
Although there’s no evidence Tea Party rhetoric had anything to do with Giffords’ shooting,
[…]
There’s no evidence tying Loughner to any of the right-wing rhetoric used against Giffords, but it would be crazy not to notice that such rhetoric has already claimed victims, and will almost certainly continue to. I’ll never apologize for suggesting that Bill O’Reilly’s crusade against Dr. George Tiller – and his dozens of segments labeling him “Tiller the Babykiller” – might have created the context in which Tiller was murdered in May 2009. It shocked me watching cable news all day Saturday that almost no one talked about anti-tax nut Joe Stack flying his plane into an Austin IRS building as the Tea Party’s anti-tax crusade took off, or Glenn Beck fan Byron Williams driving into San Francisco locked and loaded to shoot up the obscure left-wing Tides Foundation, which Beck had repeatedly railed against on Fox.
So this is vengeance, the sloppy insinuation, vengeance without basis?
1) There is no proof that Bill O’Reilly caused Scott Roeder to shoot George Tiller. Roeder was a government-hating militant.
2) Joesph Stack was a documented Bush-hating communist.
3) Byron Williams listened to the Glen Beck show but didn’t (in the very short little audio excerpt from the same organization that screeches about editing tapes) at all mention that he heard Beck talk about the Tides Foundation. If he did and it just was omitted from the excerpt for whatever reason, I’d love to hear the audio of it.
Walsh needs to do a better job of researching what she’s talking about before attempting to falsely malign the right.
If Williams had, say, been quoted as being inspired by Beck – as Discovery shooter James J. Lee was by “Inconvenient Truth” was:
Lee said at the time that he experienced an ”awakening” when he watched former Vice President Al Gore’s environmental documentary ”An Inconvenient Truth.”
… I’d concede that point.
We have no idea why Loughner allegedly tried to kill Giffords Saturday. But the fact that a well-liked, centrist, pro-gun rights Democrat like Giffords faced threats and attacks for her healthcare vote, or that she was targeted with violent imagery by the 2008 Republican nominee for vice president as well as her 2010 GOP opponent, ought to make conservatives pause.
We have tea party leaders receiving death threats (I’ve received more than five in just the past week) from liberals preaching civility but Walsh thinks that conservatives should pause? Pause from what? Defending themselves against libel? Defending themselves against the biased accusations of someone like Joan Walsh who pays the hackneyed penance of admitting she has no fact just so she can build a case against her political opponents from opinion and speculation?
More than pause, it ought to make them denounce those in their ranks who are using extremist, eliminationist rhetoric.
Who is using “violent, extremist, eliminationist rhetoric?” Does she have examples to cite or is this just her prejudice shining through? How can Walsh demand a concession she herself refuses to meet?
It fascinates me that people who think Palin’s map or language is offensive but the behavior towards conservatives, the death threats, the persecution, the witch hunt, is perfectly fine. Regardless what your self-aggrandizing politics are: if you are not disturbed by the persecution of Sarah Palin or her children simply because she speaks her opinion, there is something very, very wrong in this society that transcends “rhetoric.”
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