In the avalanche of false-equivalence analytical pieces littering the public conversation since Saturday's tragic assault, it is easy to miss one important point.
Those pieces have fallen all over themselves (sometimes abhorrently in error) to make the case that "Democrats do it, too!"
But no one I know of is claiming that there has never been a Democrat since the age of Andrew Jackson to make a war or violence metaphor in politics. That's not the point. The point is that one side does it with exceeding frequency, to the point that it almost seems to be a staple of their political rhetoric. That the other side does it, even if it is just once in a while, is somewhat irrelevant to the larger point.
To illustrate the distinction, note a telling omission from one of the most widely read pieces in the post-Giffords aftermath, yesterday's work by a triumvirate of authors from Politico.
The segment of the larger piece getting the most attention is this one:
A senior Republican senator, speaking anonymously in order to freely discuss the tragedy, told POLITICO that the Giffords shooting should be taken as a “cautionary tale” by Republicans.
“There is a need for some reflection here - what is too far now?” said the senator. “What was too far when Oklahoma City happened is accepted now. There’s been a desensitizing. These town halls and cable TV and talk radio, everybody’s trying to outdo each other.”
The vast majority of tea party activists, this senator said, ought not be impugned.
“They’re talking about things most mainstream Americans are talking about, like spending and debt,” the Republican said, before adding that politicians of all stripes need to emphasize in the coming days that “tone matters.”
“And the Republican Party in particular needs to reinforce that,” the senator said.
Much has been made of that comment. But few have focused on what I would argue is the most telling aspect of that commentary.
Why did the "senior Republican senator" in question feel the need to remain anonymous?
The stated reason (to speak freely about the event) seems a bit silly. Pretty much every elected official in America is on the record with comments about the events.
There would seem to be only two reasons for the Senator in question to wish to leave his/her name out of it. Either the Senator was afraid of political retribution from colleagues for calling out his/her own party on the matter of tone and rhetoric. Or the Senator was afraid of retribution from the political base of the GOP.
Either reason, it would seem, is awfully telling.
A party that doesn't have a problem with the issue would not put one of its own leaders in a position of demanding anonymity to make what is, at the end of the day, an extraordinarily mild rebuke of the party's own rhetoric.