The Repugnant Among Us

The Giffords shooting has truly separated the wheat from the repugnant chaff.

Paul Krugman in the NYTimes?  In  a column released on the NYTimes online before the last body was cold, and indeed looks pre-written?  Chaff:

A Democratic Congresswoman has been shot in the head; another dozen were also shot.

We don’t have proof yet that this was political, but the odds are that it was.

Krugman goes on to give no evidence that Loughner was politically motivated in any way.

She’s been the target of violence before.

And in Paul Krugman’s world, correlation equals causation – even if there’s no correlation!

And for those wondering why a Blue Dog Democrat, the kind Republicans might be able to work with, might be a target, the answer is that she’s a Democrat who survived what was otherwise a GOP sweep in Arizona, precisely because the Republicans nominated a Tea Party activist. (Her father says that “the whole Tea Party” was her enemy.) And yes, she was on Sarah Palin’s infamous “crosshairs” list.

Watch for the drumbeat over the coming weeks; “Rhetoric” will be targeted.  Oh, just certain kinds of rhetoric; political “crosshairs” bad, “war” on obesity good.

Just yesterday, Ezra Klein remarked that opposition to health reform was getting scary.

To be fair, Ezra Klein is scared of the Constitution, freedom, and Girl Scouts selling cookies.

Actually, it’s been scary for quite a while, in a way that already reminded many of us of the climate that preceded the Oklahoma City bombing.

And there, finally, Krugman is right.

The left, shredded nationwide in the past election, needs a Reichstag Fire.  Oklahoma City helped give Bill Clinton the horrible, emotionally-wrenching distraction  he needed to regroup after his drubbing in 2004 (and by that I’m calling him an opportinist, not a conspirator); Krugman knows not to “waste a crisis”, too.

You know that Republicans will yell about the evils of partisanship whenever anyone tries to make a connection between the rhetoric of Beck, Limbaugh, etc. and the violence I fear we’re going to see in the months and years ahead. But violent acts are what happen when you create a climate of hate. And it’s long past time for the GOP’s leaders to take a stand against the hate-mongers.

“When did you stop beating your wife”.

Update: I see that Sarah Palin has called the shooting “tragic”. OK, a bit of history: right-wingers went wild over anyone who called 9/11 a tragedy, insisting that it wasn’t a tragedy, it was an atrocity.

And with that noxious tu quoque, we’ll move on to a more local example.

“Matt McNeil” is a “host” at AM950, a liberal talk “radio station” in the Twin Cities.  He popped up on Twitter a few times yesterday:

The rhetoric of the right is playing out. I can’t wait for the righto’s saying “Who could have…”

As we’re all shocked, every Republican is meeting with their staff right now to figure out how they can seem sympathetic but not critical.

Oh screw you – all of those who are now saying “don’t rush to judgement,” We all know where this rhetoric was headed, don’t act surprised

All three before we knew who the shooter was, much less that Loughner is apparently insane.

Never waste a crisis, I guess.  There are enemies to tar.

And yes, there are really depraved people on the fringes of every issue.  We know that.

But when the New York Times gives space to someone whose only act is to fraudulently slander his political enemies, what does that say about the Times’ “rhetoric?”

More on “rhetoric” tomorrow.

22 thoughts on “The Repugnant Among Us

  1. Oh sure, I am as tempted as everyone else to point out that the Democrat party is driving people already near it over the edge with their incessant campaign to create a Socialist oligarchy…and they are. But that glosses over the facts history presents.

    Every few decades, someone takes a pop at a politician for some reason.

    Sooner or later some body is going blow a circuit and lead is going to fly; it’s a fact as old as our Republic and is just an inherent part of the price of living in a open society.

    So no, I’m not going to finger the Democrat party for this, and I’m not going to castigate ignorant, leftist tools like Ed Shultz for fueling the fire by gleefully rubbing noses into the pile of excrement Obama & Pelosi have filled our chicken pots with.

    Because as sure as I am of their smirking response, despite the fact that they don’t give two shits for the adults that were killed, I have to believe that even leftists have enough humanity to feel regret when a kid pays the price…at least one that has won their mothers’ coin flip to win a live birth.

  2. What is really galling is that the left has spent the last 24 hours blaming Sarah Palin and the Tea Party and when I try to refute their lies they say I am being disrespectful of the dead. They want the leftist MSM to have free reign in the critical hours right after an event to spin while they stifle any dissent from the spin as being in poor taste. Just look at the Red Star’s editorial today for an example.

  3. If anything, we have Loughner’s reading list. It includes Mien Kampf and the Communist Manifesto, he also lists Alice in Wonderland and Brave New World. It’s hard to pin down his true beliefs, probably because he was psychotic. To assign him to any political camp is foolish, to blame the recent campaign rhetoric is also foolish. Based on his “art” in his youtube videos, we should be blaming grammarians (which would be idiotic). The day after these tragedies is so depressing as people embarass themselves trying to reinforce their own worldviews. You just have to tune them out.

  4. As we’re all shocked, every Republican is meeting with their staff right now to figure out how they can seem sympathetic but not critical.

    If I was running that meeting, I’d show footage of the Wellstone(!) “memorial” as an example of how not to react to tragedy.

  5. Krugman is an idiot and an asshole. Seems to be skills required for the NYT. As Mr. Andrade points out. this latest monster’s favorite books were The Communist Manifesto and Mien Kampf. As Swiftee points out, lefty assnozzles will always stoop their lowest common denominator.
    You can’t purchase class.

  6. As you read Krugman, or, locally, Dog Gone’s comment here:
    http://www.shotinthedark.info/wp/?p=17172#comment-88104
    Remember that there is no evidence whatsoever that the shooter ever heard or read anything Limbaugh, Beck, Palin, or Fox News had to say.

    Any decency or intellectual coherency the left ever had vanished decades ago. As Trilling once said of conservatism, liberalism these days has so decayed that it does not express itself itself in ideas, but only in action or irritable mental gestures which seek to resemble ideas.

  7. I had missed dog’s comment Terry…no, no problem. That breakfast wasn’t sitting too well anyway.

  8. Terry, Dog has shown through her lack of clarifying her comment that she sacrificed “decency or intellectual coherency” long ago. Much like Peevee/Penigma who lacks the testicles to even attempt an honest debate in this venue.

  9. I scanned through news headlines today and in some cases the comment sections. Yup. The Democrats are trying to use this to shut down the opposition. Stay classy, Dems.

  10. This response from Krugman et al… this is how the left destroys if not the chances of non-leftist political candidate, but the candidate. By whatever means necessary, Ms Palin is to be associated with this tragedy.

    Mark my words, Sarah Palin’s presidential aspirations, whatever they were, are now dead. This “crisis” did not go to waste.

  11. After years of accusing Bush of treason — of starting the Iraq War to enrich Haliburton — the left now decries the poor state of political rhetoric. Absolutely disgusting.

  12. Surely John Hinckley was a Leftist stooge, motivated by hateful rhetoric. Who else would have shot Reagan? Don’t give me that psychotic stuff either. Just because He thought Jodi Foster would marry him if he did it doesn’t mean anything.

  13. The best bit of message control occurred decades ago, when the communist stooge Oswald was transformed by the left into a CIA hitman.

  14. Too bad your mother didn’t abort you in the whorehouse where you were born, Swiftea. The world would be a better place.

  15. angryclown – remember the 5:31 to Huntington out of Penn Station? The only people allowed to legally carry are cops and peace officers authorized under the NYS CPL. The NYS PL didn’t stop CF from blasting away, nor did the INS at the time.

    You have a big mouth behind your keyboard.

  16. Oh, leave the clown alone, Mr. Nachman. He’s an Obama voter, at one time a real true-blue believer in Mr. Hope and Change. After the inauguration he actually commented on SITD that “the smart guys were in charge”.
    Imagine how bad you would feel if you had voted for Obama. Disappointment, and worse than that, the low self-esteem that results from knowing that you can not tell shit from shinola.
    Pity the clown. If you see him standing on the freeway with one of those “will work for food” signs, give him some cotton candy.

  17. Ya have to hand it to the clown; no running around like a frightened child, squirting crocodile tears for him.

    Nah, he’s worked like a madman to get his insane opinions firmly anchored to the bottom of the sewer, and he’s not gonna let any wimpy moonbat act ruin that for him now.

    Good on ya, clown!

  18. If you see him standing on the freeway with one of those “will work for food” signs, give him some cotton candy.

    I think he’s on a restricted diet these days Terry…shit taco’s wasn’t it clown? Mmmmm.

  19. Pingback: Shot in the Dark » Blog Archive » Never Waste A Blazing Reichstag

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