Appalling behavior by Republicans that gave the lying left an opening to blame the Tucson mass murder on Republicans and conservatives

When Sarah Palin during last year’s campaign posted a map of the U.S. in which targeted Democratic Congressional districts were put in crosshairs, that was plainly inappropriate. To associate shooting in any way with a political election—to suggest, even metaphorically, that our side should “shoot” our opponents—was wildly immature and to be condemned.

The same is even more true of Jesse Kelly, Rep. Gabrielle Gifford’s Republican opponent in last year’s election. As was reported in the Arizona Daily Star last June 9:

Jesse Kelly, meanwhile, doesn’t seem to be bothered in the least by the Sarah Palin controversy earlier this year, when she released a list of targeted races in crosshairs, urging followers to “reload” and “aim” for Democrats. Critics said she was inciting violence.

He seems to be embracing his fellow tea partier’s idea. Kelly’s campaign event website has a stern-looking photo of the former Marine in military garb holding his weapon. It includes the headline: “Get on Target for Victory in November. Help remove Gabrielle Giffords from office. Shoot a fully automatic M16 with Jesse Kelly.”

And here is an image of the Kelly announcement, from the blog firedoglake:

Of course, there is absolutely no evidence that Palin’s crosshairs or Kelly’s “remove Gabrielle Giffords from office, shoot a fully a fully automatic M16 with Jesse Kelly” had anything to do with Jared Loughner’s act of mass murder. At the same time, Kelly was plainly associating the idea of “removing Giffords” with the idea of shooting an M16. Kelly is at best a complete idiot, at worst a candidate who was deliberately invoking violent impulses against his opponent.

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Paul K., who is a gun owner and is knowledgeable about guns, writes:

This incident reminds us once again that the thoughtless and immature Sarah Palin, who delights in the language of combat, may prove to be a real liability to the Republican Party. How could she be so irresponsible as to approve this graphic with its gun sight imagery?

LA replies:

In other versions of this graphic that I’ve seen, Giffords’s photograph was included with the image of the crosshairs.

With Palin we get the worst of both worlds. We get the tinny appearance of a hardline right-winger, with the gun rhetoric, the lust for killing animals, and all the rest of it; and we get the concrete actuality of a feminist liberal who has allied herself with the homosexualist lobby. On the level of symbols, Palin is a rightist; the right loves her for it, and the left hates her—and hates all conservatives—for it. On the level of reality, she’s a social liberal. All that right-wing excitement, all that left-wing fear and loathing, all that passion tearing our political society apart, and it’s all about nothing, it’s all about an illusion.

Why do I say that Palin gives us the worst of both worlds? Because with her we get the redoubled liberal demonization of conservatives as dangerous extremists, and we get the actual transformation of conservatism into social liberalism.

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June 22, 2011

Alissa writes:

I can’t stand it anymore. My heart is hurting from reading liberal websites and blogs and their never-ending obsession with the Palins. Palin is and has never been a traditional conservative. Palin is not a conservative. Narcissistic? Yes. Opportunist? Yes. Foolish? Yes. Neocon? Maybe. Libertarian? Maybe. Conservative? No. Liberal? Yes. It’s truly sick that she has injected a major Trojan horse into the conservative movement and how the liberal media continues, incorrectly, labeling her as “far-right.” I just wished she fell ill or something and get out of the spotlight. Why don’t Palin and Beck just run away with each other and leave everybody alone in peace. Sorry for writing you this rant. I can’t get Palin out of my head (her haters and her fans) after reading liberal websites and it’s disturbing. I will never again read liberal websites for long.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at January 09, 2011 07:22 PM | Send