January 12, 2011 10:15 PM UTC

Palin Responds to Giffords Shooting, Criticism

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• by: Colorado Pols

We’ve been talking about the relationship between bellicose rhetoric in the recent election cycle, frequently typified by statements and campaign materials from former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, and the attempted assassination of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords in Tucson Arizona this past weekend.

This morning, former Gov. Palin released this response, which you can view for yourself:

Talking Points Memo:

Four days after a gunman attempted to assassinate Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-AZ), former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin responded to criticism over a map she posted before the election that featured gun sights over 20 targeted Democratic districts, including Giffords’s.

“Vigorous and spirited public debates during elections are among our most cherished traditions,” Palin wrote in an early morning post on her Facebook account on Wednesday. “But, especially within hours of a tragedy unfolding, journalists and pundits should not manufacture a blood libel that serves only to incite the very hatred and violence they purport to condemn. That is reprehensible.”

“When we say take up our arms, we are talking about our vote,” Palin says in this video. Does that, if it’s to be accepted as metaphor, apply to Sharron Angle’s talk of “Second Amendment remedies,” or Tom Tancredo’s warning that the President is a greater threat to the country than nuclear war, or any of the other things we’ve discussed in the last week as examples of violent rhetoric employed by highly visible spokespeople on the right?

Or is it only a “metaphor” now that the election is over–and something awful has happened?

There also seems to be controversy building over Palin’s use of the term “blood libel” to describe the association of Palin’s rifle target over Rep. Giffords’ district before the election and the shooting. “Blood libel” referred to lurid, false rumors about Jews in medieval Europe told to justify their persecution. The problem with using that term here is this (beyond simply being offensive to Jews–and Giffords herself is Jewish): what Palin faces is presumption, but with a rationally arguable link to her actions.

Bottom line: isn’t it just possible that, even if Palin is right, and nothing she said or did affected the tragic events in Tucson last weekend, that Americans are becoming sick of the violent rhetoric from the right wing? Sick of the crosshairs, the rage, the endless over-the-top accusations and denunciations, the dire warnings of imminent harm to America that have no basis in reality?

If so, we can’t see how celebrating one’s right to behave that way is going to help.

Folks, that’s what we’ve been saying on these pages for days now. This shouldn’t be about whether or not this heated, violent kind of political rhetoric had any direct connection with the Tucson shootings; the point here is that these tragic events should give all politicos pause to think more carefully about what they say and the imagery and metaphors they use. We say it’s well past time for politicians in every political party to stop using phrases like “take up arms” in a political context–because there just might be a couple of people who hear that who don’t understand that this isn’t a statement to be taken literally.  

Nobody here is saying that Sarah Palin or anyone else shouldn’t have the right to say whatever they want. But maybe they just shouldn’t say these things, by their own volition, and their own sense of restraint, simply because it’s the right thing to do.