Several months ago one of Sarah Palin's websites, TakeBackThe20.com, displayed a poster that indicated their intent to defeat twenty Democratic members of Congress, including Gabrielle Giffords, who had voted for "Obama Care."
There was a fair amount of backlash due to the imagery of crosshairs superimposed over the corresponding Congressional districts.
This morning, shortly after the news that Congressman Gabrielle Giffords had been shot, the vigilant folks at SarahPac scrubbed the website of the inflammatory image.
But you can't scrub everything.
The following image is what you would have seen had you gone to TakeBackThe20 yesterday. (The fourth name on the left is that of "targeted" Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords).
From the March 26, 2010 episode of CNN's "Anderson Cooper 360 Show."
SARAH PALIN (R), FORMER ALASKA GOVERNOR: You know, hearing the news reports lately kind of this ginned-up controversy about us, commonsense conservatives, inciting violence because we happen to oppose some of the things in the Obama administration.
(BOOING)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We will do it with our vote!
PALIN: Amen, brother. That's what you do it with, with your vote. (CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)
PALIN: You got it right. We know violence isn't the answer. When we take up our arms, we're talking about our vote.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COOPER: Well, interestingly, she has not taken down that map on her Facebook page. You know the one I mean.
I want to -- let's go over here to the wall. This is the map that a lot of Democrats on Capitol Hill were talking about yesterday, some even talking to security officials about, shows on -- from the Facebook page, Sarah Palin's Facebook page, shows crosshairs here in various congressional districts. She says her PAC is going to target those congressional districts.
She tweeted about not retreating, but reloading, and says about her political action committee -- and I quote -- "We're going to aim for these races and many others. This is just the first salvo" -- unquote.
Now, her supporters say, look, give us a break. She is just using commonly-used phrases. Some Democratic lawmakers on Capitol Hill have, however, expressed concern.
* * * *
Was Sarah Palin deliberately trying to incite violence against Congresswoman Giffords and the other nineteen "targeted" elected officials? No.
Was the shooting today a direct result of this website? Unlikely but who knows?
Does inflammatory rhetoric and imagery sometimes incite unstable members of society to commit violent acts? Yes.
Do Sarah Palin's political advisers believe that this damages her politically or is it just a coincidence that the website was scrubbed this morning? I don't know about you but I don't believe in coincidences.
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kmike2012
Stephen Guy Hardin
Ted Frier
Anthony Duval
Rosemary Picado
elizabethkirby
Salon.com
Comments
Lezlie
Nah, just kidding, I like her TV shows too much!! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!
Sorry...shoot her into the sun......Rated.
I did not want to live through another political assasination. Too many, too young.
Do not know if you heard but a 9-year-old child was killed too. Sad as I can be. The hatred meter needs to be turned way way down in this country. And automatic weapons need to be outlawed. You can't hunt deer with them.
COWARD, she is, COWARD, is Angle, COWARDS, all. May they all be hounded for explanations, from alley to cellar to sewer.
It's too late for poor Congresswoman Giffords. I just dearly hope Sarah Palin's feet are held to the fire ever after about the kind of rhetoric she uses against those she disagrees with. And I hope it severely damages her credibility for ever more.
This whole tragedy just makes me sick.
rated
Kyle, I'm not blaming Palin. I'm merely pointing out that it was Palin's people who felt the need to scrub the site. Why did they do that?
Thanks all.
Rep. Gabrielle Giffords:
"Sarah Palin has the crosshairs of a gun sight over our district and when people do that, they’ve gotta realize there are consequences to that action."
Normal people don't shoot up shopping malls because of hateful rhetoric, but those who are dancing on the edge just might. That is why you simply don't incite violence if you are a public figure or a "news" organization.
This will always be the result. If not this guy, then some other. If not now, then later.
Okay, hasty to blame Palin, Kyle. But she posts crosshairs on this rep and others, and then someone shoots her...the dots tend to connect themselves. If she and her supporters don't want this kind of automatic assumption, they'd better clean up their act. Meantime, fuck that stupid 2nd amendment.
The AP is now reporting that Giffords had been the target of death threats from the Tea Party and right-wingers opposed to her vote on the healthcare bill for many months. They vandalized her office, made death threats over the phone, even came to her public meetings with guns--one of them dropped a handgun at a meeting. Also...Loughner was not just "delusional." He rails online against immigrants, big government, and all "non-English" speakers. So he is no lefty, that's just fucking ridiculous. It is UNBELIEVABLE. The right is allowed to get away with killing abortion doctors, threatening people, and now killing 5 people in cold blood (yes 5 people are dead, not Giffords but she's in critical condition. And it goes on and on and on, etc. etc. etc. So keep your bullshit to yourself if you don't believe this was RIGHT WING TERRORISM. I suspect you just support it if you still believe that.
Rated.
Palin doesn't care about the consequences of what she says beyond the money it rakes in, nor does she demonstrate that she feels any connection to those consequences, whether intended or not. She seems to have the attention span of a mosquito and the conscience of one as well.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704030704576070472703489738.html
http://motherjones.com/mojo/2011/01/grijalva-giffords-shooting-tea-party-palin
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE7072M120110108
Giffords survive and is whole. But this map is the insanity of the far right fringe at its worst. I still don't understand how anyone with any brains can think of Palin as anything but an ambitious idiot. But stupid and wreckless is a dangerous combination. We need to keep shining a light on stuff like this. So thanks again.
http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2011/01/video-giffords-reads-the-first-amendment-on-the-house-floor/69148/
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE7072HU20110108
http://www.reddit.com/r/politics/comments/eyk8z/
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503544_162-20027918-503544.html
And those are poorsinner's good points. Don't bet with him - cheating is his game. Like a COCKroach, there is no getting rid of it.
-R-
How did we get to this point? These present perps are simply following in the footsteps of Barry "extremism is no vice" Goldwater. To be fair, Goldwater was capable of behaving reasonably, but this new breed -- steeped in Atwater/Rove gutter politics of division -- doesn't know how to behave reasonably, and so they draw no lines when it comes to violent rhetoric.
But even without the violent rhetoric, these people are a prime example of everything that's wrong with America -- ignorance denouncing intellect, incompetence chosen over experience, religion triumphing over reason, charisma outweighing character, facile attractiveness outweighing substance, and sloganeering shouting down fact.
And alas, I fear the future will be filled with more incidents like today's.
Well done. Zumapick and liked!
As I commented already on another blog, this was an attempted political hit. Giffords isn't just anyone. To say the charged atmosphere, especially in Arizona where the Tea Partiers and the anti-immigration folks overlap and have whipped everyone up into a frenzy of paranoia, is like saying it was the blood sugar level that caused Dan White to snap and shoot Harvey Milk--the ol' twinkie defense. What made that so outrageous was that everyone knew about the animosity, the hatred, the vitriol that White felt toward Milk, and the atmosphere in the city at the time on the right was a big part of that. The traditional community White represented hated Milk and wanted him dead, they talked about it.
Of course I've been guilty of the same kind of statement about bankers. (silence)
I guess we'll let that one go...
Rated.
People who resort to terrorist violence are weak and scared and very insecure and full of doubt about their beliefs.
For example, the Arizona guy shoots a Congresswoman, probably with the belief he'll be elevated to hero status, and this his actions will affect some political change.
Or, another mentally afflicted person brings his dick into a political conversation, thinking that commenting 24 times about his prepubescent 1/2 incher will make people think it's a manly 12.
The first example is an assassin, the second can be described by removing the "in" suffix.
"Was Sarah Palin deliberately trying to incite violence against Congresswoman Giffords and the other nineteen "targeted" elected officials? No.
Was the shooting today a direct result of this website? Unlikely but who knows?
Does inflammatory rhetoric and imagery sometimes incite unstable members of society to commit violent acts? Yes."
My post was about the fact that before the bodies were cold the Palin team had scrubbed (or attempted to scrub) the crosshair reference from the site.
I've never deleted a comment from my blog but your incessant references to oral sex are crude, rude, and uncalled for.
Please stop.
The dishonest people from your site created the graphics, complete with crosshairs, and the photos. The Daily Kos post is nothing like you're representing.
Either way, Sarah Palin's people felt like they better get rid of any reference to their bullseye graphics. They must have been feeling vulnerable. They did it hours before the half-term governor made a statement.
I can only imagine the rage that you'd be spewing if Obama had scrubbed his website.
This is probably why Target Stores don't shy from the symbol that can be seen in kiddie games and darts.
Anyone with an adult mind can easily tell the difference, which is why I need to explain it here.
Some just want attention, and will shame themselves to a great deal to get it. As to sinner's argument, this link is far more relevant:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oh0OGko3TjA&feature=related
America is in such a state of anger that now Liberals and Conservatives are going to be blaming each other. A fever pitch of accusations is flying around, about all subjects involved. The country is about to enter the realm of the idiots in Europe with their violence. Violence does beget violence. The second amendment rights will be attacked along with Conservative political organizations. Everyone will be out on a witch hunt.
This is all because of an evil soul that decided to take lives for his own personal cause. These same evil souls are on both sides of the political spectrum, as well as the religious spectrum, such as the Muslim in Fort Hood who also killed a pregnant woman and her unborn child.
Conservatives and Liberals have always been targets of assassinations. Now it seems outrage fires up when it is one of their own. Giffords happens to be a blue dog Dem who stayed central. Neither Conservatives nor Liberals had anything to gain and everything to lose by trying to hurt such a person. She voted both left and right. If this evil soul was out to make a political statement, he could not have picked a worse person. Giffords stood for both sides of the political agendas and is pro gun rights. Only an evil soul trying to stir up trouble between two different ideologies would have done this.
Guns do not kill people, people kill people. Trying to take guns away from honest American citizens will allow only the criminals to have illegal arms. Liberals will have accomplished an even more dangerous society at the mercy of armed hoodlums, without the ability to protect themselves. That would be an anarchist’s dream. Hmmmm, could this be an anarchist trying to cause violence to erupt between two different party ideologies.
Bill Ayers was bombing buildings and hurting people in the sixties and yet, he is now a hero to Liberals. Liberal union leaders are threatening violence, such as Andy Stern. Andy Stern said, "If we can’t use the power of persuasion, we will use the persuasion of power”. Reagan had an assassination attempt, to which Liberals were applauding. Liberals were defending the Fort Hood Muslim, Nidal Malik Hasan, incessantly. How soon we forget. The point is, neither Liberals nor Conservatives can blame this event on a political party.
This man, by choosing Giffords, is proof he is just an evil soul and not an armed political assassin. Get a grip, because violence can get out of hand very quickly, especially in the heightened anger of America today.
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The obsessive commenting by a certain user on this thread is scary and frightening. I can only wonder on a mindset that cannot debate or make a case in a logical manner and can only resort to the crude and baseless.
I've run into this mindset time and time again from everything to being opposed to the Iraq War, opposed to the Patriot Act and debating my support of caring for the citizens of my country over the interests of corporations. This mindset plagues comments sections at Yahoo and many of the other places I debate and blog.
This mindset is worth examining because I think it speaks more powerfully that Palin's crosshairs.
If she really believed that imagery was not inflammatory, it would not have been taken down.
The purpose of this post was not to attach blame on the Arizona shootings to Sarah Palin (not ruling it out either) but to point out that she, or more likely her triple-digit IQ handlers, felt the need to remove the crosshair references from their website, no doubt to try to avoid political damage.
Jeanette summed it up perfectly:
The bottom line is this: If the "crosshairs" imagery was OK before the shooting, then it is also OK after the shooting. So the only reason it was taken down had to be that Palin (or her people) knew that imagery was inappropriate, especially now that an actual shooting had occurred.
If she really believed that imagery was not inflammatory, it would not have been taken down.
Thanks all.
http://open.salon.com/blog/greer_mcvay/2011/01/08/blood_on_their_hands_political_contributions_to_mass_murder
How are those "rules" working out for you?