Amid the partisan recriminations after the shooting of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-Ariz.), one accusation from Democrats and liberals stood out: it’s Sarah Palin’s fault.
Liberals referred time and again to Palin’s political action committee web page – since taken down – that had once posted a target list of Democrats who voted in favor of health care, one that literally put crosshairs over Giffords’ district.
“If Sarah Palin … does not repudiate her own part, however tangential, in amplifying violence and violent imagery in American politics, she must be dismissed from politics, she must be repudiated by the members of her party,” MSNBC’s liberal commentator Keith Olbermann said Saturday on a special edition of his program, who went on to target comments by Fox News’ Glenn Beck and Bill O’Reilly.
“If they fail to do so, each one of them must be judged to have silently defended this tactic that today proves so awfully foretelling, and they in turn must be dismissed by the responsible members of their own party,” Olbermann said.
Palin posted a statement on Facebook around 3 p.m., calling for “peace and justice.” She did not make any direct reference to the raging debate, which was playing out on her own Facebook page, drawing more than 4,000 comments.
“My sincere condolences are offered to the family of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords and the other victims of today’s tragic shooting in Arizona,” Palin wrote. “On behalf of Todd and my family, we all pray for the victims and their families, and for peace and justice.”
A spokeswoman for Palin, Rebecca Mansour, reacted to criticism of the former Alaska governor on Twitter with a brief message: “Politicizing this is repulsive.”
Yet throughout the day, Palin was at the heart of the liberal outcry about the shooting – as bloggers also referred to Palin’s line about how conservatives should not merely retrench, but instead should “reload.”
The Palin criticism started shortly after the shooting, when liberal blogger and Daily Kos founder Markos Moulitsas fired off a series of tweets citing the Palin website that targeted Giffords’ health reform vote.
“Mission accomplished, Sarah Palin,” Kos tweeted of the website soon after word of the shooting broke.
“How dare people ‘politicize’ a political assassination!” Moulitsas said in another tweet, which came just as most news outlets were pulling back initial reports that Giffords had died, correcting them to say instead that she was badly wounded and in surgery.
Kos’s words were met with pushback from conservative Andrew Breitbart, who tweeted, “For the love of God, @markos. Stop it. Don’t go there, trust me. Trust me. Trust me. You will not like the blow-back, I assure you.”
Those commenting on Palin’s Facebook page were equal parts supportive and casting blame.
“What happened to Fire and Reload? Are your maps updated yet Mrs. Palin?” asked one commenter.
Another said, “You just had to know it wouldn’t take those left-wing loons long to blame it on Sarah. May the Lord be with you Gabrielle. I will pray for you.”
Liberal political consultant and blogger John Aravosis criticized Republican political consultant Patrick Ruffini for praising Sen. John McCain’s statement on the shooting.
“Well, McCain’s running mate did put a rifle target on the woman, so not surprising McCain is forced to make nice,” Aravosis wrote on Twitter.
Other Democrats and liberals expanded their criticism to inflammatory rhetoric of the tea party movement, while Republicans and conservatives accused the left of rushing to judgment and politicizing the shooting.
With the motive and politics of alleged shooter Jared Loughner still murky, conservatives argued that he appeared more mentally unstable than driven by any ideology. Some pointed to an account, from one woman who said she went to high school with him, that he was “left wing, quite liberal.”
But the liberal blogosphere didn’t back down, saying the Palin-led tea party movement had normalized a brand of violent rhetoric that stirs up voters.
That view seemed to win a powerful endorsement from Pima County Sheriff Clarence Dupnik, who called Arizona “the Mecca for prejudice and bigotry.”
“When you look at unbalanced people, how they respond to the vitriol that comes out of certain mouths about tearing down the government, the anger, the hatred, the bigotry that goes on in this country is getting to be outrageous,” said Dupnik, a Democrat.
“Let me say one thing, because people tend to pooh-pooh this business about all the vitriol that we hear inflaming the American public by people who make a living off of doing that. That may be free speech, but it’s not without consequences.”
The New York Post quoted Giffords’ weeping father, who said, when asked if the congresswoman had enemies: “Yeah…the whole Tea Party.”
New York Times columnist Paul Krugman weighed in shortly after the shooting, saying Republicans needed to be held accountable for their tone.
“You know that Republicans will yell about the evils of partisanship whenever anyone tries to make a connection between the rhetoric of Beck, Limbaugh, etc. and the violence I fear we’re going to see in the months and years ahead,” Krugman wrote on the Times website. “But violent acts are what happen when you create a climate of hate. And it’s long past time for the GOP’s leaders to take a stand against the hate-mongers.”
Krugman later disabled the comments section on his blog post. “They would need a lot of moderating, because the crazies are coming out in force, and it’s all too likely to turn into a flame war.”
Atlantic blogger Andrew Sullivan offered a more measured response: “I have no expertise in this at all, but my impression of his writings and web presence does indeed suggest to me that some mental illness is probably a key part of this.”
“But this does not exonerate violent or excessive rhetoric from the far right or far left: it’s precisely the disturbed who can seize on those kinds of statements and act on them,” Sullivan continued. “The danger of violent rhetoric, especially involving gun violence, is its interaction with the disturbed. That was [Rep. Nancy] Pelosi’s message last year.”
Gary Hart, the former Democratic presidential candidate, posted a column on the Huffington Post that pointed the blame at politicians and the media who use and tolerate “inflammatory” rhetoric.
“Today we have seen the results of this rhetoric,” he wrote. “Those with a megaphone, whether provided by public office or a media outlet, have responsibilities. They cannot avoid the consequences of their blatant efforts to inflame, anger, and outrage. We all know that there are unstable and potentially dangerous people among us. To repeatedly appeal to their basest instincts is to invite and welcome their predictable violence.
“So long as we all tolerate this kind of irresponsible and dangerous rhetoric or, in the case of some commentators, treat it with delight, reward it, and consider it cute, so long will we place all those in public life, whom the provocateurs dislike, in the crosshairs of danger.”
On his program, Olbermann apologized for his own use of violent imagery, referring to a 2008 comment about then-Sen. Hillary Clinton. At the height of the Democratic primary battle, Olbermann said she would need to be persuaded to drop out of the race by “somebody who can take her into a room and only he comes out.”
“I apologize for and repudiate any act or anything in my past that may have even inadvertently encouraged violence,” Olbermann said Saturday.
Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.), appearing on CNN, said Giffords had been the target of death threats during the year-long debate on health care.
“I hope that people who are thinking of making intemperate and violent statements will think twice,” Nadler said.
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