Palin proves she’s polarizing and Obama hits a home run

Obama delivered a great speech, the best of his Presidency. His tone reminded me of candidate Obama’s powerfully unifying speech on race which to me was the highlight of the campaign. His speech really contrasts with Sarah Palin’s address which seemed bitter, selfish and divisive. Palin proved she isn’t capable of rising above petty politics even on the day the country was memorializing victims.

Both Palin and Sharon Angle picked the day of the memorial for the victims of the shooting to respond to criticism of the violent rhetoric that they’ve been using by pretending they were themselves victims. But they aren’t victims.

It’s important to note that the person that really first took issue with Palin’s cross hairs was Congresswoman Gabriel Giffords herself, the member of Congress that was the target of the shooter.

"We are on Sarah Palin's targeted list. The way that she has it depicted has the crosshairs of the gunsight over our district. When people do that, they have got to realize there are consequences to that action."

Giffords had reason to be concerned because she and many other Democrats had already been targeted and threatened in many ways. She wasn’t paranoid or looking to score political points. She was deeply concerned and her warning was ignored even though these kinds of shootings happen fairly regularly.

Another critic of Palin, Beck and Sharon Angle's rhetoric is Eric Fuller. A 63-year-old disabled veteran, Fuller had campaigned for Giffords.

How many other people? How many other demented people are out there? It looks like Palin, Beck, Sharron Angle and the rest got their first target. Their wish for Second Amendment activism has been fulfilled—senseless hatred leading to murder, lunatic fringe anarchism, subscribed to by John Boehner, mainstream rebels with vengeance for all, even nine-year-old girls." There was a little girl named Christina Green, nine years old, who is one of the deceased.

I’m surprised that there isn’t more talk about Jesse Kelly’s disgusting flyer that read.

Get on Target for Victory in November Help remove Gabrielle Giffords from office Shoot a fully automatic M16 with Jesse Kelly

Where’s that apology? Is anyone on the right going to say there’s nothing wrong with that?

And let’s not forget that the Secret Service said there was a spike in threats against Obama after Palin's rallies. Palin was telling lies like “he palls around with terrorists” at the time which angered the McCain campaign.

This is when Tea Party Republican leaders were saying there were going to be death panels that would kill people’s grandparents and create a communist tyranny. Ironically the health care bill was a Republican health care bill written largely by health industry lobbyists with lots of Republican amendments.

While the deranged gunman may not fit into the typical political boxes it is inaccurate to say he was not political in any way or that our culture -- which since the past few years now includes extreme and violent political language in the mainstream body politic in a way I’ve never seen -- did not affect his thoughts and actions.

Loghner referred to himself as a "terrorist" which is a term with a political contxt. As Bill Maher said,

I don’t think he was all that apolitical. Yes, he was all over the map. But when you’re talking about, you know, treason and the intrusive big government is the enemy, and the gold standard stuff, I’m sorry, but a lot of this sounds like an afternoon on right-wing hate radio.

We know that at least one would-be mass murderer was inspired by the paranoid and crazy rants of Fox's Glenn Beck. He also inspired this guy and this guy. Here are some quotes from Glenn Beck who has described himself as the "progressive hunter",

"God will wash this nation with blood if He has to." “The war is just beginning," "Shoot me in the head if they try to change our government," "You have to be prepared to take rocks to the head," "The other side is attacking," "There is a coup going on," "Grab a torch," "Drive a stake through the heart of the bloodsuckers," "They are taking you to a place to be slaughtered.”

Beck isn’t the only one talking about this stuff. Bill O’Reilly may have inspired this Tea Partier that threatened a Democratic Congressman because he was afraid his $3 million trust fund. And he also may have inspired the right wing lunatic that shot Dr. Tiller.

People like Beck, O’Reilly and even John Boehner strike me as a bit unstable themselves. To be fair, John Boehner is one of the only Republican leaders that spoke out against this rhetoric. The other is Joe Scarborough.

I have a lot of family members and friends that listen to him and watch him and are frightened by the things that he says every night with the chalkboard, where they really—people that watch him and listen to other people that constantly say Barack Obama is a racist, he’s a Marxist, he is changing America forever, he is killing freedom in America—those words have impact. Now, people don’t go out—I’m not talking about people going out—my mom’s not going to go out and shoot somebody. But my mom and a lot of other people like her that watch him every day start to believe, if they hear every day, every day, that there is this guy in Washington, D.C., this black guy that hates all white people, and he wants to take your money—turn the music down—and that he’s a Marxist, and he wants to destroy the country you grew up in—you feed that vile message to Americans every day, it’s going to have an impact.

Rhetoric from Lou Dobbs and Michael Savage have been linked to violence against Hispanics and illegal immigrants. And hate speech against Muslims causes violent incidents like this.

BTW, Loghner did make a joke about a girl who read an emotional poem about abortion killing babies. And right wing extremists have been inspired by the AZ shooting. They see it as the beginning of a violent revolution. There are a whole lot of crazies out there, lot of guns and an awful lot of violent rhetoric being thrown around.

Palin failed to acknowledge that words matter and gave a speech that was all about her instead of the victims and the harm violent rhetoric an acts cause our nation. Words can dehumanize people and fear can create violence. Too often extremism is not only tolerated but is increasingly being equated with patriotism by many on the right.

Did Palin cause the AZ tragedy? Not directly, but she along with other leaders on the right have whipped up extremism with violent rhetoric and imagery. As Gabriel Gifford warned,“they have got to realize there are consequences to that action." Nobody can say she was wrong to say that, especially Sarah Palin.