1. Just because Sarah Palin says to “reload” and “aim” at Democratic members of Congress, this doesn’t mean you actually SHOULD.
2. And even though Sarah Palin and other right wing commentators and candidates engaged in violent rhetoric during the last two, hell, twenty years, they can never be blamed when killers take encouragement or provocation from their words and murder those they disagree with.
3. Meanwhile, it is a horrific crime against humanity and decency to call out the right wing on this rhetoric.
4. It is crime of holocaustian proportions to dare suggest that such rhetoric was perhaps wrong and perhaps provocative.
5. In fact, the most damaging violent statement ever uttered by a politico in the history of the United States, and in fact, the entire known universe and parallel universes was when Delaware Dem said Republicans should be round up and shot back in September 2008.
You know, over the last twenty years, I have wanted my Democratic Party to be as ruthless as the Republican Party. Indeed, I saw, time and again, Republicans and conservatives not only get away with, but be rewarded by, the most vile political statements that could be made and tactics that could be devised.
Half of me wants to follow the Republicans down the rabbit hole. The other half of me feels two things: 1) it is wrong and immoral to do so, and 2) liberals and Democrats are always held to a double standard that says Democrats cannot get away with what the Republicans get away with.
Today, a member of Congress was nearly assassinated. Her condition is critical at this moment, but there are hopeful signs that she will survive. It is without dispute that her attempted assassination was premeditated. Five others are dead, including a child and a Federal judge. And in my mind, it is without dispute that the violent political climate engendered by Teabagger Republicans is responsible for this crime, not because Jared Loughner has the same political opinions (he may have some, that picture is still unclear), but because all the statements of revolution and armed uprising and of Second Amendment remedies made by promiment members of one of the two major political parties in this country were made without shame coming to it. In fact, that political party was rewarded for those statements by winning the election of 2010.
Today’s violent political climate is entirely the making of those like Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh and Sarah Palin. And yes, I have responded to such a climate with a violent statement of my own.
You know what the difference is though?
I immediately apologized for my violent comment. I took it back.
I am still waiting for Sarah Palin to apologize.
I am still waiting for Sharon Angle to apologize.
I am still waiting for Rush Limbaugh to apologize.
I am still waiting for Glenn Beck to apologize.
And I will be waiting for a long time.