Mike Huckabee, lashing out at criticism of violent rhetoric from the right:
Mike Huckabee: Loughner a 'whack job nut maggot'
Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee lashed out at “left-wing politicians” and the media for their handling of Saturday’s mass shooting in Arizona, saying the rush to blame right-wingers for a shooting spree committed by a “whack job nut maggot” was “reprehensible.”
Speaking on his radio show, “The Huckabee Report,” Monday and Tuesday, Huckabee, a top potential 2012 presidential contender, took up one of the right’s favorite themes in the wake of the shooting: that alleged would-be assassin Jared Loughner’s profile aligns more closely with liberals than conservatives... Huckabee noted that Loughner had been “described by classmates as a very liberal pothead” whose “favorite video shows a burning American flag. That doesn’t sound like any tea partiers I know.”
It's obvious what's going on here: out of one side of their mouth, conservatives are deploring any discussion of violent right wing rhetoric as an unconscionable politicization of the tragedy, and out of the other side of their mouth they are politicizing the tragedy by blaming it on the left.
It's clearly a deliberate strategy: Huckabee's comments mirror those of GOP Rep. Virginia Fox, who claimed Loughner is "the liberal of liberals" while simultaneously condemning criticism of the right's violent rhetoric. It's not at all consistent, but Republican talking points rarely are. They aren't trying to make sense. They're trying to win. They're acting not as if this were a national tragedy, but as if it were another partisan battle. And their number one priority is coming out on top.