The death of Bill Gwatney coming on the heels of the church shooting in Knoxville has only confirmed for us on the other side of the political spectrum how deep the hatred runs.
"I’ll tell you who should be tortured and killed at Guantanamo: every filthy Democrat in the U.S. Congress." - Sean Hannity
"only regret with [Oklahoma City bomber] Timothy McVeigh is he did not go to the New York Times building." - Ann Coulter
Of course, these are just shockingly specific examples of hate speech.
The daily barrage in right wing talk of this generalized anger toward the "libs" and commies and feminazis was a craft perfect by Rush Limbaugh. And this is what it has wrought.
Freerublic.com yesterday in a thread discussing Gwatney's shooting. Here's a sample of some of the comments, and these are ones the moderator didn't delete for being offensive.
To: HAL9000
Does this mean he will only be able to vote a couple of times in Nov?
233 posted on Wednesday, August 13, 2008 5:40:18 PM by rrrod
To: HAL9000
Was the perp wearing an Obama ‘08 t-shirt when he carried out the killing?
230 posted on Wednesday, August 13, 2008 5:33:54 PM by library user
To: HAL9000
HilLIARy?
2 posted on Wednesday, August 13, 2008 1:17:18 PM by Mr. K (Some days even my lucky rocketship underpants don't help
To: Mr. K
Probably just another "suicide".
Nothing to see here.
4 posted on Wednesday, August 13, 2008 1:19:59 PM by counterpunch (John McCain - For the LOVE of Country)
To: HAL9000
Superdelagate, probably voiced support for Hillary and an Obama worshiper listened to the voices in their head...
20 posted on Wednesday, August 13, 2008 1:47:01 PM by Abathar (Proudly posting without reading the article carefully since 2004
To: tacticalogic
Gut says jealous husband/boyfriend.
Yep, a week and a half before the Democratic National Convention, the chair of the Arkansas Democrat Party, who is a Hillary supporter, just happens to be shot due to a relationship issue.
Do I even need a /sarc tag?
56 posted on Wednesday, August 13, 2008 2:06:05 PM by library user
Of course Malkin's response was to make it all about her and play the victim. Seems she couldn't leave the derogatory Democrat party, Luntz approved language out of it.
I shot the Arkansas Democrat Party chairman; Update: Gwatney dies of injuries:
The Arkansas Democrat Party (emphasis mine) chairman was shot today at his office in a horrible attack and is in critical condition. There is scant information about the unhinged shooter, but it seems he was disgruntled over losing his job. There is no indication of his political affiliations, his ideology, or his motives for singling out the Democrat Party chairman.
No matter. I’m already getting blamed for the incident.
Yeah, I did it
Here's a charming comment from one of her readers:
On August 13th, 2008 at 3:31 pm, b-cat said:
Michelle, could you and Hannity pick up the pace a little? There are still so many good targets.
And here's a smattering of commenting from across the RW blogosphere.
Frankly Opinionated Says:
August 13th, 2008 at 3:29 pm
And, don’t we know that they’ll all apologize if it comes out that this was no more than another Dem Politician who was screwing around with another man’s woman. Cigars, $400 haircuts, etc. come to mind.
nuf sed
D. Says:
August 13th, 2008 at 3:34 pm
I guess that’s what happens when we conservatives cling to guns a little too tightly; the trigger goes off.
Jane Austen Says:
August 13th, 2008 at 6:07 pm
I’m sure he was depressed, and probably what sent him over the edge was losing his job - to an illegal alien!
Scrapiron Says:
August 13th, 2008 at 10:34 pm
The left wing freaks aren’t smart enough to know that we can find out who they are and if ‘Limbaugh and Malkin’ directed us zombies to kill we would come after the slime merchants of the left, not some political hack in Ark. See I though it through and agree with the lefties, there will be a lot of deaths in years to come, but then there are a lot of deaths every year. I love it when a plan comes togather and the plan to reveal that all democrats are cowards and anti-americans is well on it’s way.
And then there's this blog post linked to at the bottom of Michelle Malkin's own post as what the rest of the blogosphere is saying. Don't read further unless you have a very strong stomach.
http://word.truthintheword.org/...
Arkansas Democrat Chairman issued retroactive abortion
I’m not glad at all that another Democrat has been sent to Hell prematurely, but I am still in favor of giving all Democrats retroactive abortions since they all seem to think that murder is so freaking wonderful. Oh, I forgot... they think murder is wonderful as long as it’s children being murdered. When Democrats get murdered, that’s bad. DANG, how could I forget the double standard?
Of course what’s even worse than this man being murdered is the Democrat lunacy that blames Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, etc. for inciting violence against enemies of America (in this case, Democrats). Leave it to the insane, deranged liberals to make a case for restricting free speech out of this tragic event.
One more thing: this man owned three car dealerships and seemed to have made his life a great success here in the USA. Why is it that wealthy Democrats work so hard to make sure that the rest of us don’t attain to their level of wealth?
This is what the dark heart of the right wing looks like. After years of propagandistic and systematic demonizing of all of us filthy lib commies on the left, for EVERYTHING that is wrong with this country, this is what it has come to. The right's currency is hate speech. Plain and simple. Given that, and given that now there are examples laid out now to follow, I expect the pace of violence to increase, and I am terrified beyond belief for the safety of our candidate.