If you follow Sarah Palin's logic that is...
June 8, 2011
Jared Loughner, the 22-year-old suspect in the shooting of U.S. Rep Gabrielle Giffords and others at a Tucson grocery, railed against the government on websites weeks ago and had confrontations with community-college police officers.
On MySpace and YouTube web pages, a man who identifies himself as Jared Loughner posted anti-government messages that talk about mind control and suggested he will soon be adopting a new consciousness.
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On both the MySpace and YouTube web pages, Loughner mentions his concern over literacy rates and the fact that few people speak English. He also talks about his distrust of the government and suggests that anyone can call anyone a terrorist.
"I can't trust the current government because of fabrications," Loughner wrote in a YouTube slide presentation. "The government is implying mind control and brainwash on the people by controlling grammar.
Sarah Palin - November 18, 2009
Sarah Palin tells Fox News Channel's Sean Hannity that she thinks the Fort Hood slayings attempted assassination of a member of Congress and murder of 13 soldiers 6 Arizona citizens was an act of terrorism and that the alleged shooter, Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan Jared Loughner, should have been profiled. "I am going to use the word—profile this guy, profile in the sense of finding out what his radical believes were," she tells the host in an interview airing tonight at 9 p.m.
In the wide-ranging interview, highlighted below, Palin says she realizes that her support of profiling will lead liberals to bash her. "But I say profiling in the context of doing whatever we can to save innocent American lives. I'm all for it then."
How can we safely protect our country if we don't profile those that could potentially do us harm?
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While this is obvious snark, the point is clear.
While the media's false equivalency train ramps up, it is important to consider how quickly Republicans politicize every tragic criminal attack that is not perpetuated by a someone they can "relate" to. They even politicize the attempt to discuss or forestall such issues.
Interestingly, there is a Homeland Security report out there that addresses this the potential motivation for this mentally disturbed man.
Rightwing extremism in the United States can be broadly divided into those groups, movements, and adherents that are primarily hate-oriented (based on hatred of particular religious, racial or ethnic groups), and those that are mainly antigovernment, rejecting federal authority in favor of state or local authority, or rejecting government authority entirely. It may include groups and individuals that are dedicated to a single issue, such as opposition to abortion or immigration.
Unfortunately, Republicans saw fit to demonize and criticize this report at every turn. Only to be aided and abetted by the traditional media.
The corrosive nature of false equivalency and continued apologies for Republican rhetoric by those such as Chuck Todd, Harold Ford, Matt Bai, and Howard Kurtz only perpetuates the problem. It gives cover to those who seek to divide. Until this is addressed head on, it won't stop. A group hug won't do it. Even if this had zero to do with politics (which is obviously not true) it is still an opportunity to take on this issue.
Update [2011-1-10 15:9:38 by justmy2]: And Rush Limbaugh is crying about "liberals" assigning blame.
Limbaugh's talking points are a guide to the ways in which the political right -- from establishment Republicans in Washington to the Tea Party at the grassroots level -- will fight back against attempts to tie them to Jared Lee Loughner.
The political coverage of the Loughner story is "childish and immature," Limbaugh said, but apparently threatening enough for the top-rated talk show host to spend his entire show undermining it as best he could.
LOUGHNER IS A LONE NUT. Even "the Obama government" -- the FBI -- calls Loughner a "deranged, insular irrational kid" who acted alone, Limbaugh said. "The kid was evil. He was into the occult. He had an altar with a skull in his yard. Was God in his life? He was stalking the congresswoman."
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But he had no such apprehension during the Ft Hood episode.
On his radio show today Rush Limbaugh blamed the Ft. Hood shooting where 13 soldiers were killed on President Obama. Limbaugh said, "We could almost say this is Obama’s fault, because this guy said that he believed Obama was going to get us out of Iraq and Afghanistan."
Hypocrisy - Thy name is Limbaugh