An AP story just a few minutes old (and being updated) is reporting:TUCSON, Ariz. – Rep. Gabrielle Giffords of Arizona was shot in the head Saturday when an assailant opened fire outside a grocery store during a meeting with constituents, killing a 9-year-old boy and a federal judge and wounding several others in a rampage that rattled the nation.
Giffords was among at least 10 people wounded, and the hospital said her outlook was "optimistic" and that she was responding to commands from doctors. The hospital said a 9-year-old child was among the killed, and a U.S. Marshal said a federal judge was also fatally shot in the attack. ...
The AP story has more information and pictures. The Safeway store appears to be the one at Oracle and Ina Roads, where I have been many times and never imagined what would happen there today.
I had the privilege of voting for Giffords when I lived in Arizona's 8th Congressional District, in 2006. She was re-elected in 2008 and 2010.
If any "silver lining" can be found in this cloud, perhaps it will be that all the talk of "Second Amendment solutions" will end.
Congresswoman Giffords worked for her district and would talk with her constituents.
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Shannyn Moore has a report that SarahPAC took down the cross-hairs list that targeted Rep. Gifford's district TODAY.
Time for Sarah's family to realize what a sick, sick woman she is and get her some help before her vitriol kills anyone else. It may already be too late.
Rebecca Mansour has tried to claim that the cross hairs were sureveyor's symbols. That notion is being shot down everywhere; Palin called them bullseyes, herself.
Sarah Palin is now toxic, whether there is a link between the shooter and her rhetoric or not. It's hard to imagine anyone supporting her candidacy or being concerned that she could win an election, but there are loons out there.
What is going to happen, what has already started, is a look at political discourse and whether things like Palin's cross hairs and Angle's second amendment recourses go too far. Palin's cross hairs will be a major exhibit in that debate, whether or not they inspired the shooter, whether Palin likes it or not.
Of course, people can express themselves like that, but they're likely to be considered extremists rather than serious candidates.
Is it necessary to blog about Sarah Palin anymore? She's done herself in.
You may want to blog about her until the court of public opinion makes it clear that it sees the connection between her rhetoric and real violence. In a just world, she would be shunned and need to find a mountaintop somewhere to contemplate her sins, alone, for the rest of her life.
Until yesterday, she was just a shabby story that had gone on too long.
Gryphen's post "No tweets of SPA tonight" has some very good comments about Palin's end.
Bill Hess of Wasilla, Alaska, by 300 has written "I drive into the night, teeming with rage against the rage."
Can there be anything more scandalous than inciting violence? Than attempting to divide people? It might dim the memory of this tragedy by blogging things like, "Sarah Palin Lied Again," unless the lie were "surveyor's marks" or an attempt to claim that she isn't responsible for what she says.
What will she have to say about this?
An article in Politico, "Tucson shooting marks turning point for Sarah Palin," states:
With a long list of enemies, a taste for incendiary rhetoric and responsibility for a campaign website graphic that placed gunsight logos on a map of targeted congressional districts, it didn’t take long for Sarah Palin to get pulled into the orbit of Saturday’s massacre in Tucson. ...
Whether she defends, explains or even responds at all to the intense criticism of her brand of confrontational politics could well determine her trajectory on the national scene—and it’s likely to reveal the scope of her ambitions as well. ...
... But now, for the first time, Palin is being forced to choose between the public and private spheres she operates in. If she has any intentions of running for the presidency, she must begin to appeal to the country’s broad political center. And that task just got harder in the wake of Tucson. ...
The article states that she has to choose between being Reagan or Limbaugh. She hasn't that choice.
Is this Palin's response? From Politico:
Sarah Palin reached out to Glenn Beck over the weekend, and Beck read some of their email exchange on his radio show this morning.
“Sarah, as you know, peace is always the answer. I know you are felling the same heat, if not much more on this,” Beck wrote.
Beck expressed concern about Palin’s safety, and urged her to hire the same Los Angeles-based security firm that he uses.
The rhetoric of both Beck and Palin has been cited by both liberals and some of the mainstream media as examples of the kind of overheated political discourse that, if not directly connected to the Tucson shooting, has created an environment in which a similar thing might happen again.
“I hate violence,” Palin wrote back. “I hate war. Our children will not have peace if politicos just capitalize on this.”
How will our children achieve peace through massacres?
From USA Today's "Our view: After Ariz. shooting, time to tone down vitriol:"
... With speech comes responsibility, a notion that seems lost on too many players in today's hyperpartisan hothouse. Regardless of Loughner's motivations, his killing spree is a grisly reminder that deeply disturbed people are easily driven to violence, whether by their own personal demons or by others who stoke their anger. When talk-show hosts warn about using bullets if ballots don't work, or candidates speak about resorting to "Second Amendment remedies," they invite risk for the sake of ratings or political gain. As Giffords hauntingly warned in March, after Sarah Palin's political action committee targeted her congressional district using the cross hairs of a gun sight, "there are consequences" to such imagery.
USA Today is #1 for daily print circulation. That isn't "lamestream."
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