12 | January | 2011 | Existential Ennui

Tags

blood libel, Gabrielle Giiffords, gun control, John Boehner, Tucson

Today Tucson will remember it’s dead and wounded. The President will speak. This may turn out to be one of the more important speeches of his political life. If I were a betting woman, I’d put my money on him hitting it out of the ball park frankly, setting exactly the right tone.

There has been much talk in the past couple of days about gun control legislation. Where once, something like 60% of the populace favored it, now only 40% do. That figure no doubt emboldened John Boehner to swiftly slap down the efforts of Pete King (R-NY) to introduce fairly tame legislation that would make it a crime to carry a weapon within 1000 feet of a congressional member.

This makes it highly unlikely that more stringent measures will have a chance. The only bright light is that Cantor was not so dismissive, signalling that he and Boehner, meaning the Tea Party and Boehner are not yet on the same page. Boehner, of course, is widely known to be in the hip pocket of special interests and there is no more special interest that the all-powerful NRA.

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Sarah has finally spoken and by all accounts not well. First she inexplicably used a term that is bound to inflame Jewish folks, “blood libel”. Blood libel is a term used against minorities, usually Jews to accuse them of using the blood of children in religious rituals. It is usually used by persecutors. Jewish leaders have been quick to respond, finding her attempt to claim the media attack against her is a blood libel, unfortunate and calling her to apologize. Even ardent supports find her use of the term utterly wrong.

She denied that there is anything like collective guilt in the tragedy at Tucson, thereby defending herself of any such guilt. Nor should there be any guilt for those who attend rallies and “exercise their 1st amendment rights,” presumably those who attend hers and shout out various invectives against the President and those from the liberal side of the spectrum.

In essence, she attacked her critics, and offered no “presidential” words of coming together. Inexplicably again, she claimed that our rhetoric may be heated but after the election, we “shake hands” and often find means to compromise on issues thereafter. One would have to search hard and without success to find ONE single example of where Palin has done this since 2008.

Her eight minute video amounted to nothing more than a continued attack on the media, an attempt to call them the creators of the problem rather than herself and her violent-prone speech, and another instance where Sarah turns things on their head and makes it about her victimization.

Slate points out that her claim that there is no collective guilt but rather individuals who act heinously, is interesting in that she jumped on the NO Mosque in New York bandwagon with no apparent concern for the collective guilt that was assigned to Muslims in this country.

At no time did Ms. Palin suggest that any of her rhetoric could be responsible for setting any kind of tone that might be wrong. She did however make it clear that by criticizing her, the left was setting a tone that was wrong and was contributing to a toxic atmosphere. Funny how that works. She apparently thought that attaching a terrorist to Obama set some type of tone that the country could not tolerate.

The Salon provides a variety of takes on the video. At the end is a transcript of the entire “speech” from her home, replete with an American flag.

As you will see, there is not the slightest suggestion that toning down anything would be right. She redefines her statement about “taking up arms” as obviously meaning “taking up the ballot.” Yeah sure Sarah. As usual, you play the victim. And guess what? It’s just not presidential. Not by a long shot.

The game is up. It’s over dear. You have played a dangerous and exciting game of gotcha. But you have over played it this time I believe, and you are done. Your Sarah’s Alaska hasn’t been renewed, your books sales lag, your falling in the polls among Republicans.

Congratulate yourself, your grifter work has payed off quite well, but every a good grifter knows when it’s time to move on to another mark. America sees you for what you are. How’s that gun-totey mama crap workin’ for ya girl?