01.10.2011 10:07 AM

Quote unquote

“Hey, Sarah Palin, hows that hatey, killy, reloady, crosshairsy thing working out for ya?” tweeted comedian Frank Conniff, in a nasty echo of the former governor’s caustic “hopey, changey” attack on President Barack Obama and frequent calls for her supporters to “reload” to achieve their political aims.

37 Comments

  1. Bill says:

    If a Detroit Muslim put a map on the web with crosshairs on 20 pols, then 1 of them got shot, where would he be sitting right now? Just asking. – Michael Moore

    A physician cannot treat an illness s/he willfully refuses to diagnose. Violent political rhetoric is not fault of “both sides.” – Tom Tomorrow

    Inspiring that our media pundits are so quick to reach for “everyone’s to blame” when no conservative events have been terrorized by gunmen. – Jeffrey Feldman

    Weird: rightwingers say movies, video games affect behavior — but real world violent rhetoric from leaders & radio talkers have NO impact! – Tom Tomorrow

    Jared Lougnner: drug arrests, too crazy for Army or for college or anything else, but getting a legal gun? No problem. – Tom Tomorrow

    I find it abhorrent that Sarah Palin would stoke the coals of extremism with dangerous messaging, then delete it when something bad happens. – Jason Pollock

    Sure, Sarah Palin didn’t pull the trigger. But then, neither did Charles Manson. – auntbeast

    Christina Taylor Green was Born on September 11, 2001, and killed today by terrorist fuckheads in Arizona. Irony much? – geeksofdoom

    Sarah Palin rummages online frantically erasing her rabble-rousing Tweets like a Stalinist trimming non-persons out of photos. – Roger Ebert

    I’ll say this, if your first instinct after hearing about a tragedy is to scrub yr websites, you have a problem as a political movement. – digby56

    CNN’s Dana Bash says “this could be a wake-up call.” THIS … ? The whole Tea Party, carrying guns to rallies WASN’T?? – hololio2

    Teaparty asses have been asking for this to happen, and how they’re pissed off that we’re calling them out on it. – TLW3

    STOP SAYING”BOTH PARTIES”!! The Left has not been advocating Violence. @CNN assholes. – YatPundit

  2. Pedro says:

    There’s pleanty of violent and military rhetoric spouted by all sides in the North American political debate. Yours and you’re readers views notwithstanding, Americans and Canadians are far smarter than you might give them credit for. To exploit this tragedy for political gain surprises few of the rational, dispassionate citizens of both our countries. Be careful of poking the bees’ nest. The fomenting of the political and philosophic divide by those claimng to know the impetus for this young man’s violent outburst will do little to bring the debate to a peaceful close.

    • VH says:

      I didn’t know that not wanting elected representatives to be assassinated was a “debate”.

      I can easily find at least 25 quotes from prominent right wingers invoking armed violence rhetoric and imagery.
      The latest being Tucker Carlson saying an NFL quarterback should be “executed” for a crime which he’d already served time.

      I don’t know what you mean when you write basically “both sides do it”. Care to name or link to, say, just 5 – no just 3 – examples from prominent left wingers wishing death to their opponents?

    • Jan says:

      ‘Be careful of poking the bees’ nest’? Now is not the time for veiled threats, Pedro.

    • james Smith says:

      Dude, you are either unwilling or unable to get it. (see Bill’s comment)
      President Obama came into office, by saying the heated rhetoric needed to be turned down, and that he wanted to work with the Republicans on getting things done. What was the reply; pray tell? The reply was The FOX News Tea Party and less bi-partisan action (FYi the first Tea Party Rallies featured FOX NEWS banners, & the network proudly announced this on their programmes). The President’s ability to get things done has been hampered by the vitriol & lack of cooperation on the other side of the aisle. The water has been muddied by the Rabid Right & this assassin has emerged from that muddy water. Don’t try and shift the blame, there is only one side using this kind of rhetoric ON BOTH SIDES OF THE BORDER.

    • Namesake says:

      Huh? Fine-sounding words, I suppose, about not “jumping the gun,” as it were, about what actually influenced the shooter.

      But quite apart from the whole political gun imagery discussion, there’s a a pretty alarming undercurrent to what you’ve said here.

      Sure, if everybody was silenced on all political matters by barely veiled threats like “Be careful of poking the bees’ nest” then I guess there’d be no more “North American political debate,” alright;

      but who but a totalitarian has the aim of bringing that debate to a “close”?

  3. smelter rat says:

    @Pedro…please give an example of how the “left” has spouted violent rhetoric.

    • Springer says:

      Wow! That ought to generate some chirping crickets, ya think?

    • WesternGrit says:

      @Cath: were any of those items created/urged/encouraged by future elected hopefuls? We’re talking about the most visual opinion leaders in the land making calls for assassinations (don’t need to look much further back than the Julian Assange/Wikileaks episode). Using Fox-TV (and other right wing media) sponsored rallies to churn up physical anger, allowing nutbars to tote guns to said rallies, and having the fundamental requirement (and often SOLE POLITICAL MOTIVATION) of fighting any sort of gun control… THAT’S what we’re talking about here…

      Looking back at history (recent and past), it has been the right that has always managed to somehow carry through on their threats of violence… Wonder why? Could be their marriage to guns? Their love of gun culture? Love of the angry “establishment/majority rebel” attitude sweeping parts of America?

      There is a basic and very fundamental reason jokes and mocking posters by the moderate community never get acted on: a lack of real desire to own guns, or any real inkling for violence. Also, we moderates have issues with both extremes. Anarchists and extreme left wingers (responsible for much of the stuff you linked to) are not part of our moderate ideals. You can’t just lump the “center” and “left” together as one (although this is a fundamental problem with the importation of American political idiocy to Canada). This is Canada… learn a little about our politics before you spout…

      • smelter rat says:

        I’ve concluded Springer is a troll.

        • Springer says:

          I’ve followed WK’s blog for quite a while (in part because I can relate to a musician, even a Liberal one, who plays a Fender Mustang bass!), but rarely getting involved with comments specifically because of this trap of sorts.

          This particular subject however, especially because I am into the hunting/shooting sports, hits close to home. And so my passion to defend this freedom (and, IMHO, ever so basic and essential right) inevitably gets the best of me.

          Sorry about that.

          Cheers

      • Springer says:

        I happen to own firearms, along with millions of other Canadians. I get really tired of the glib sophistry regularly employed that hardly subtly implies that I and my community somehow are to blame for all the violent crap that goes on this country or the US.

        I participate in several forums dedicated to hunting and the shooting sports, both sides of the border. Believe me, every time something like this sort of tragedy happens, everyone braces themselves for yet another onslaught from all the usual suspects of venomous, but reliably uninformed, rhetoric and piously self-righteous demands to disarm a hundred million honest and law abiding firearms owners.

        Whatever.

      • Cath says:

        you know as well as I do that this has turned into a pissing match based on which side and insult the other or more couch potatoes playing Jr. Shrinks to uncover the truth behind using the type of shock and awe political tools that have become common place.

        My Liberal MP happened to remain our MP for so long because he bucked the gun registry, and graced his Christmas card one year with his family in fatigues, each person with a rifle in their hands.

        Go ahead and moderate yourself all you want. The ones crowing the loudest about wrong-doing are usually the ones with the most to hide. Fill’yer boots.

  4. Springer says:

    I find the desperate attempts by the Liberal/Left to fabricate linkage between this tragedy and a leading political figure, Palin or otherwise, utterly appalling.

    Surprising, not so much.

    Point for discussion: Why do ever fewer good people with so much to contribute to the betterment of society want absolutely nothing to do whatsoever with getting involved in politics?

    Let me start it off…

    Because, given all the other opportunities to lead normal and productive lives that such uniquely gifted people have, why would they ever want to subject themselves to endless and mind numbing s**t and abuse!

  5. WesternGrit says:

    Springer, I think you’re in the wrong country… Liberals (with a big L) are NOT left wing in this land… There is a very large actual left wing in Canada… Liberals are a moderate party of the center. I know it’s hard to understand when you’re part of the only right wing party that is trying very hard to go “off the charts” to the right in this country.

    • Michael Reintjes says:

      WesternGrit says:
      ‘Liberals are a moderate party of the center”

      Shouldn’t that read,”Liberals used to be a moderate party of the centre”?
      Believing that they still are is pretty wishful thinking and indicative of why you guys are where you are now.

  6. smelter rat says:

    Well Springer, perhaps if Palin, Limbaugh, Beck et al renounced violent rhetoric you could quit feigning that whole “appalled” schtick and actually respond with something not quite so ridiculous.

  7. Stiddle says:

    Well, I guess that Palin’s talk about “reloading” isn’t working as well for her as Obama’s talk about bringing a gun to the fight did for him. Or Clinton’s “War Room” did for him. Or when Arizona Congressman Harry Mitchell ran an ad featuring his opponent’s face in crosshairs. Yep. “Violent” rhetoric just doesn’t sell as well for Palin as it does for liberals, huh?

  8. Cath says:

    To be very honest the first time I saw the Palin graphic of the map of the USA and the supposed targets was right here on this blog. If I’d never heard of Warren Kinsella and was a first time visitor here I wouldn’t know by his posting of it why he posted it. If it was so awful and could have contributed to something awful I might think that Warren was promoting it….even though I hope I know better than that. I might also suggests that politics are being played….but I will not. Not yet. Could be that WK was exploring reactions too, but in the end it’s a stretch to know whether a kid with a mental illness was motivated by the graphic or if he saw it at all. Just like folks visiting here I guess.

  9. Namesake says:

    Hardly. Both he and his column are highly partisan, and calling it a “vicious lie” to prematurely assert a causal connection b/w the Tea Party rhetoric & blantant displays of arms at its rallies & this shooting just begs the question, that:

    1) there IS no connection, and that
    2) those who’ve asserted it don’t really believe there is one, and are intentionally trying to deceive.

  10. jStanton says:

    … no he doesn’t Gord… he is just validating your pre-existing opinions.

    What the right refuses to address, that thinking people consider common-sense, is that the antics of Palin and other Fox network “personalities” to normalize the use of symbolic threats of violence, veiled or otherwise, validates the pathological feelings of those within their constituency that are unbalanced, thereby encouraging them to act out the sociopathic tendencies that these “media personalities” have encouraged.

    The fact that this constituency is weighted towards the uneducated and the poor, means that they do not have the benefit of education to know better, or of medical care to recognize and treat their psychosis, and that is why there is a direct line between actions such as this, and Palin and other Fox network “personalities”.

    What discourages me, is the extent to which this constituency festers in Canada today.

  11. Cath says:

    just heard this on a southwestern Ontario radio station – another angle never hurts

    http://www.charlesadler.com/2011/01/salem-doesnt-have-to-live-inside-you.html

    • hugger says:

      Just another apologist. The walls and the floor boards are oozing apologists today. Careful you don’t miss any and take care around pools and still waters.

  12. nez1 says:

    Re: Adler: the judge was not necessarily “right-wing’; he’d been exposed to threats before.(Credit Huffington Post) How ’bout the fact that Giffords’ office–along with those of several other Democrats–had been vandalized after the health care vote?
    If Rush Limbaugh spends his whole program saying how he and his ilk had nothing to do with Saturday, isn’t that a good sign that maybe, just maybe there’s a bit of guilt present in “their America”?
    Remember their slogan:
    “WE CAME UNARMED–THIS TIME”
    Or, maybe thuis was Obama’s fault…’cuz I remeber that the shooting at the Holocaust museum in DC was, somehow.

  13. Darren says:

    So let met get this straight. In a discussion about a situation where everyone pretty much agrees that the rhetoric needs to be “dialed back” someone actually compared Sarah Palin to Charles Manson? Clearly someone is completely missing the point.
    If Palin is responsible for this, then Ozzy Osbourne and Judas Priest should be held responsible in their respective incidents.

  14. hugger says:

    I came across this;

    Jared Lee Loughner, Republican

    http://i.imgur.com/47MWM.jpg

  15. Michael S says:

    Jesus, WK, it’s time to turn off the taps for the crazies.

  16. Roll Tide says:

    “If they bring a knife to the fight, we bring a gun,”

    Barrack Obama 2008

    Ignatieff back on the road: Tour TARGETS non-Liberal riding’s.

    Vancouver Sun 2011

  17. Ron Moraca says:

    Sarah Palin may have written her own political epitaph with her choice of words following Congresswoman Gifford’s shooting and the collateral damage (the deaths of others caught in the crossfire) that resulted.
    Jared Loughner was a troubled man whose personal fantasies ultimately drove him over the edge of reality into madness. When he’s convicted of murdering six people and the attempted murder of others, I doubt if he’ll ever spend time in prison. Instead, I look for him to be committed for life to a facility for the criminally insane, like the one in Vacaville, CA, where Charles Manson is.

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