Cong. Chaffetz (wikipedia)

The right’s reaction has been varied.  Some, to their credit, such as Jason Chaffetz, Congressman from Utah, said on television we should reevaluate the rhetoric.  He noted that some Utah news outlets had to take down comment sections all together.  Others…not so much.  An aide to Sarah Palin said that the cross hairs on her site were “surveying symbols.”  Members of the tea party offered backhanded condolences.  Among them Judson Philips who made sure to note that Giffords was a “liberal” and that the left will blame the tea party and the right wing for this.  A Pima County based tea party group would not apologize for the over the top tone in Giffords’ last campaign (where her opponent held an event asking individuals to join him in firing an automatic weapon).  At the same time, they worried that this tragedy might be used to divide Americans, willfully blind to their movement’s own divisive tactics.  Contrast these comments to the “Tucson Tea Party” whose leaders, while worried about being too careful in language, realized that sometimes the rhetoric (or threats) goes too far.  Specifically, Patrick Beck (no relation to Glenn, hopefully), the Tucson tea party head took pains to say he did not think Obama (or others) had malicious intent.  He just felt they were wrong and admitted that that fact often gets lost.  BRAVO!

Sarah Palin (wikipedia)

The tea party and Sarah Palin are facing in this crisis their first test of widespread scrutiny since the summer of 2009 when Palin resigned as governor and the tea party took hold.  Up to now, due to the nebulous nature of the tea party (there is no central organization and efforts to nationalize it has raised eyebrows among rank and file tea partiers), they have escaped any direct attack or effective criticism.  Certainly individuals have fired back either in the media or during campaigns, but largely they have been impervious to any real critique until now.  As a result, the nebulous nature now works against itself.  All are grief-stricken, but condolence can cut very differently as the above illustrates.

Death Chamber (wikipedia)

Jared Loughner was marched into a courtroom to answer for  his crimes.  There is no excuse or explanation for his crime, but as the story unfolds expect to see an increasingly sad, if not sympathetic portrait of an isolated loner, clearly troubled by mental problems.  It is all, but unlikely that his mental health will permit him to escape prosecution, but it may be his only shot at shirking the needle.

 Some outside media, including London’s Daily Telegraph noted that the media and politicians had turned too quickly to Palin and those that have used angry vitriolic rhetoric.  He pointed to the tenuous connection politics may have had to the attack.  However, what he and other critics of the critique of America’s political tone is that this is a process that has been building for years and has only reached fever pitch in the last few years.  What is more insidious is that it has become about making enemies or even traitors out of political opponents, a strategy largely discredited thanks to Richard Nixon. 

Heath Ledger as the Joker (wikipedia)

 There has been an effort to dehumanize people as a means to score political points.  While this is not new, the force and power of these efforts have expanded to people that some behind this effort have called enemies.  Public servants became pariahs.  Welfare recipients became leeches.  Politicians…well you would think that they could not sink any lower, but they became caricatures.  How many posters showed Obama, his image altered to appear as the late Heath Ledger did in The Dark Knight?  Let’s go back further.  This blog is no friend to George W. Bush, but claims he was an insidious co-conspirator in 9/11 are ridiculous.  These images are not people.  As Alan Grayson said on the Huffington Post, if politics were an issue at all, Loughner was not shooting “Gabby” Giffords, but some “cartoon version of her” equally wrought from the distorted and destructive view some have painted of her.

Giffords with service member (wikipedia)

 Even if there is no connection whatsoever to Loughner’s alleged attack on Gabrielle Giffords and her staff, the right does itself a disservice by not at least entertaining reflection.  Reflection and self-evaluation are not vices.  It is not weakness to question whether what you say, do and promote is sending the right message, getting the right results, or actually improving the situation.  However you decide in the end, reflection and acknowledgment of that reflection is never a bad thing.  This may be a rare chance for such reassessment, particularly from politicians themselves because this does hit so close to home.  An assassination is a murder of a political figure.

American Flags (wikipedia)

 As we began with Yoda, so will we end with Yoda.  “If you choose the quick and easy path…you will become an agent of evil.”  The use of his quote is hyperbolic.  Still there is a time and a place for charged rhetoric, but it can be tempered without losing meaning.  To call something a war of ideas to save our country is not any weaker than saying its a war to save our country absent an actual declaration against a foreign power.  Unless you want to appeal to the worse of people (and some do), then you can make your point, with passion.  However that may require better, indeed a more effective, on point choice of words.  If you cannot do that, if you reject that conscientious approach and refuse to see your opponents as your fellow man, then you are choosing the “easy path.”  The rest, I think you would agree, speaks for itself.