Stay classy, Tea Party:
Tea Party Express raising money in aftermath of Arizona shooting
The Tea Party Express, a California-based conservative political action committee, sent out a letter to supporters Monday requesting donations in reaction to Saturday’s shooting at a political event in Tucson, Arizona that claimed six lives.
“It is quite clear that liberals are trying to exploit this shooting for their own political benefit, and they used deception and dishonesty to try and smear all of us and our beliefs,” the letter reads. “You know what the truth is? The truth is that the shooter, Jared Loughner is the one responsible for this atrocity. But liberals are trying to place the blame on society for embracing the tea party movement.”
The letter makes the case that the Tea Party movement has nothing to do with the alleged gunman, 22-year-old Jared Loughner. The weekend shooting sparked accusations from liberal groups and pundits that he was motivated by the rhetoric from Tea Party members, although authorities say Loughner acted alone and was not part of a larger movement.
The letter actually goes so far as to suggest that a 2008 post written by Markos was somehow equivalent to Sarah Palin's use of the gunsight imagery and her exhortations to "RELOAD" in the conservative battle against Democrats. Instead of linking to the actual post, the letter links to a photoshopped version, which ads an image of Rep. Giffords and a bullseye, neither of which were in the original post. Even without that dishonest sleight-of-hand, the notion that a three year old post from Markos is equivalent to Sarah Palin's ongoing use of violent imagery is laughable.
It'd be a different story if Markos was one the most important politicians in the Democratic Party and if he made habit of regularly using the images that were photoshopped into his post, but neither of those two things are the case. So not only is the tea party trying to capitalize on tragedy, they aren't even telling the truth while doing it.