A Tragedy followed by Exploitation

Posted by Lawrence W White MD

On Saturday, a 22 year old mentally unstable individual, set out to kill Gabrielle Giffords, a Democratic Congresswoman from Tucson Arizona. In the melee that followed, twenty persons were shot, including six who were killed. This included a Republican judge, and nine year old Christina-Taylor Green.

The killer, Jared Loughner, was clearly paranoid and mentally ill. He has a long history of bizarre behavior, and has been described by a classmate as “left wing” and a fancier of conspiracy theories. He is linked to no coherent ideology, and has never been a Tea Party or any other kind of activist. He believes that the government is imposing “mind control” on the public via “grammar.” He is a fan of both "The Communist Manifesto" by Karl Marx, and "Mein Kampf” by Adolf Hitler.

This is an unspeakable tragedy. Wise words have come from both sides of the political aisle. Both Democratic President Barak Obama and Republican Speaker John Boehner have expressed shock and sadness.

Unfortunately, there are two dark sides to this episode. The first is the attack itself, which is, simply stated, a tragedy. People were murdered, and others are struggling for their lives.

The second dark side, addressed here, is the response, an unfortunate rush to judgment. .

According to Abe Greenwald writing in Contentions,

“Less than 24 hours after the story of the Arizona shooting first broke, Americans woke up to Responsible-Rhetoric Sunday. Every newspaper and news-analysis show piously raised questions about the country’s overheated political rhetoric and its relationship to yesterday’s massacre. This was nothing short of the immediate and seamless political hijacking of a senseless tragedy”.

And who is to blame for this tragedy? If this were three years ago, it would have been blamed on George Bush. But this is 2011, so we now know that it is really the fault of Sarah Palin.

During the recent Congressional campaign, Sarah Palin posted a map showing locations in which Democrats were running for re-election. The New York Times solemnly informs us that

“Those Democrats were noted by crosshairs symbols like those seen through the scope of a gun. Ms. Giffords was among those on Ms. Palin’s map.”

(Never mind that far left Daily Kos publisher Markos Moulitsas also used the term "bull's-eye." in reference to Rep Giffords. Moulitsas stated “I'd argue that we can narrow the target list by looking at those Democrats who sold out the Constitution last week." According to Moulitsas, "This vote certainly puts a bull-s-eye on their district.")

Despite this equal opportunity use of the bulls-eye, this political action served to tie Palin to responsibility for creating a climate of hate.

The intended victim, Rep Giffords, is a Democrat who has been described as both a liberal and a conservative. None of this should matter. No one should be subjected to violence because of political beliefs.



Nonetheless, the usual suspects in the media and punditocracy swarmed forth to explain this event. According to left wing conventional wisdom, the Tea Party and many other critics of President Obama, are simply hate-filled crazed extremists rather than persons exercising their right of dissent.

The New York Times ran a headline "Bloodshed Puts New Focus on Vitriol in Politics.", and claimed that "it was hard to separate what had happened from the heated nature of the debate that has swirled around Mr. Obama and Democratic policies of the past two years."

The Times implied that conservative criticism of President Barack Obama and his policies may have been at the root of this weekend's violence, and they included tea party criticisms of Obama's healthcare plan. They also claimed that the fact that Palin's political action committee had targeted Giffords for defeat may have played a role. (Hello? Isn’t this the way that the political process works?)

Arizona Congressman Raul Grijalva told us that “The Palin express better look at their tone and their tenor.”

Despite his own admission that his thoughts were premature, Paul Krugman opined “We don’t have proof yet that this was political, but the odds are that it was …. And yes, she was on Sarah Palin’s infamous “crosshairs” list.”

Daily Kos founder Markos Moulitsas "Mission accomplished, Sarah Palin."

The National Jewish Democratic Council asserted: “It is fair to say — in today’s political climate, and given today’s political rhetoric — that many have contributed to the building levels of vitriol in our political discourse that have surely contributed to the atmosphere in which this event transpired.”

The New Yorker’s George Packer, wrote that “It doesn’t matter why he did it.”

One of the first out of the starting gate, only a few hours after the tragedy, was the Bay area’s very own malignant narcissist, Michael Lerner, chair of the “Network of Spiritual Progressives”, with the identity of the perpetrators; none other than the “vast right wing conspiracy”. According to Lerner, this is clearly one more action by this conspiracy.

“Why does … the vast right-wing conspiracy get a free pass when its rhetoric can easily be seen to contribute to the climate of hate from which the actions of this "lone gunman" can be easily understood to have emerged? Isn't it time for us to demand that our government investigate the violence-generating discourse of the racist and the haters?” (Note that he puts the words “lone gunman” in quotes; no subtlety regarding a conspiracy here)

And less you miss his agenda, he spells it out clearly; “So don't think of this action as a mere "irrational event," because it fits very well with the agenda of those who want to give the country back 100% to the corporate powers and their Republican agents in Congress while scaring those who might wish to participate in helping build any kind of progressive alternative”.

And then Lerner deliberately twists the major sources of anti-Jewish bigotry in stating that “Right-wing haters particularly hate Jews”, when the great preponderance of anti-Semitism in the world today comes from the twin propaganda mills of the far left and of Islamic extremism. (Lerner has made excuses for both of these).

Clearly there is a double standard in play here. According to Jonathan Tobin,

“As the political left seeks to use the Arizona tragedy to tar all conservatives with the brush of the murderer, there is another point to remember here. In the past few years, there have been several shootings and terrorist attacks carried out or attempted by American Muslims who were clearly influenced by extremist Islam. Yet every time such a crime happens, liberals loudly warn us that an examination of the motives of those who carry out such attacks is beyond the pale, since such ruminations might be prejudicial to Muslims, even if the truth is that those crimes were influenced by Islam.”

Abe Greenwald points out that the New York Times, “has repeatedly refused even to report, let alone editorialize, about the links between Islamist beliefs and terror” The NY Times however, is blaming the Arizona attack on the Tea Party, on conservatives, and on anyone who has ever opposed President Obama on any issue.

But this is not new. Large segments of the media and talking heads have converted every tragedy into evidence of conservative’s evil. The hurricane in New Orleans, the Columbine shooting, a tornado in Greensburg, Kansas, the Duke lacrosse case, the BP oil spill, the earthquake in Haiti; all prove the iniquity of the right. And of course, President Clinton used the Oklahoma City bombing to arrack his critics, including Rush Limbaugh, even though Limbaugh and others critical of Clinton had nothing to do with the organizers of the Oklahoma bombing.

There is little question that the political rhetoric has been heated. But for every Glenn Beck there is a Keith Olbermann. And in recent years a great deal of maliciousness has been directed at bothPresident Obama and President Bush.

The attempt to attack critics of President Obama as violent haters is irrational and wrong. Simply stated, this tragedy can not be used to discredit any legitimate political activity, or as a club with which to halt political debate Such attempts cross all lines of decency.