Well, Sarah Palin is sinking... bottom feeding.
Palin cannot acknowledge misjudgment, as she cannot admit error. It would require rising to an occasion, rather than sinking to it. ...Andrew Sullivan
America has been polled and finds conservatives, media, guns not guilty.
Most Americans reject the idea that inflammatory political language by conservatives should be part of the debate about the forces behind the Arizona shooting that left six people dead and a congresswoman in critical condition, a USA TODAY/Gallup Poll finds.
A 53% majority of those surveyed call that analysis mostly an attempt to use the tragedy to make conservatives look bad. About a third, 35%, say it is a legitimate point about how dangerous language can be.
And there is little sense that stricter gun control laws in Arizona might have averted the tragedy. Only one in five say they would have prevented the shooting; 72% say tighter controls wouldn’t have prevented it.
FBI is investigating another threat against another Democratic member of Congress.
A California man has been arrested on charges that he made threatening phone calls to the office of U.S. Rep. Jim McDermott last month. The U.S. Attorney's Office in Seattle said 32-year-old Charles Turner Haberman, of Palm Springs, was taken into custody Wednesday morning. Investigators said he made two expletive-filled phone calls on Dec. 9 threatening to kill the liberal Seattle Democrat and his friends and family, and saying he'd hire someone to put McDermott "in the trash." ...KCRA Seattle
Boehner has the weeps again. Here's just one possible reason for crying.
Adding to the perception of Boehner as more clown than tyrant is the widespread belief on the Hill that he doesn't really have much, if any, control over his Republican members. More than one Democratic aide describes Boehner as a man who in private negotiations is more than willing to work with the other side, and will make promises of Republican cooperation — only to have his even crazier right-wing members, especially the hyperambitious Eric Cantor, go off the reservation with lunatic amendments and resolutions within hours after Boehner has promised that everyone would be cool. "He's all talk," says one Democratic aide with long experience working with Boehner. "He has no ability to control his base. Look at the TARP vote in '08." ...Matt Taibbi, Rolling Stone
As Scott Horton points out, the right is wedded to lock-and-load violence. He quotes from Taibbi's article.
Another Ohio Democrat, Steve Driehaus, clashed repeatedly with Boehner before losing his seat in the midterm elections. After Boehner suggested that by voting for Obamacare, Driehaus “may be a dead man” and “can’t go home to the west side of Cincinnati” because “the Catholics will run him out of town,” Driehaus began receiving death threats, and a right-wing website published directions to his house. Driehaus says he approached Boehner on the floor and confronted him.
“I didn’t think it was funny at all,” Driehaus says. “I’ve got three little kids and a wife. I said to him, ‘John, this is bullshit, and way out of bounds. For you to say something like that is wildly irresponsible.’” Driehaus is quick to point out that he doesn’t think Boehner meant to urge anyone to violence. “But it’s not about what he intended—it’s about how the least rational person in my district takes it. We run into some crazy people in this line of work.” Driehaus says Boehner was “taken aback” when confronted on the floor, but never actually said he was sorry: “He said something along the lines of, ‘You know that’s not what I meant.’ But he didn’t apologize.”
Horton comments:
... As the nation’s highest-ranking Republican, Boehner should be doing more to reduce the temperature of political discourse—it is a normal step in the weeks following an election in any event. Boehner offered a maiden speech as speaker that won praise even from Democratic critics and struck notes of civility appropriate to the moment. This was an important opening. If Boehner faces a test of character at this moment, this is it: will he use his office to shift the tone of political discourse away from the violent hyperbole and hysteria that have so deeply poisoned it?
For Haiti, it's been a year. Not much has changed.
Get right down to it, not much has changed here in the US. Nothing on the horizon promises any kind of constructive change on the right-hand side of the bed Americans have made and are now obliged to sleep in.
It would be nice to think that the Arizona shooting will bring us to our senses. But sense only works if both sides of the political divide behave decently. We have ample proof that we can't expect that from the political right, not even when one of their colleagues is shot at -- not even now.
