Sarah Palin Pulls PAC Target List Including Giffords

01/08/11-by Bridgette P. LaVictoire
Sarah Palin has decided that the time was right to whitewash what could very well be her involvement in the assassination attempt on Representative Gabrielle Giffords. According to Maddow Blog, she has taken down the Take Back The 20 campaign piece which included a crosshairs over Giffords’ district, and listed her by name as being one of those that Palin wanted ‘taken out’. At the time, the image was controversial with some warning that this very event could happen.

Laura Conway at Maddow Blog wrote:

“As several commenters have noted, there’s no indication that the alleged shooter was politically motivated. Even if the perpetrator turns out to have been seriously involved in political causes, which again there’s no evidence of, his actions will likely remain senseless. What we can say is that today’s shooting, whatever its motivation, comes after an election season that was marked by the language of violence, like Sharron Angle’s call for Second Amendment remedies. And so today’s literal violence in a political context will inevitably raise questions about the effect of violent rhetoric.”

There are indications that the alleged gunman had Right Wing, and even Tea Party sympathies. Politico is reporting that a video supposedly created by gunman Jared Loughner talks about:

“You don’t have to accept the federalist laws,” the video above says; It also insists on the gold and silver standard, talks of revolution, and suggests that the government is imposing “mind control and brainwash on the people by controlling grammar.”

Right now, Congressman Peter King (R-NY) is ramping up to hold hearings on Muslim extremists. Unfortunately, this could only intensify the already tinderbox dry situation that this nation is in. Beyond the normal warnings of what this could mean in the eyes of the Muslim world, for King to engage in what could become an attempt from the Right Wing to engage in a pogrom to remove Islam from this country is the height of irresponsibility. The fact that there are people like Loughner and before him Timothy McVey who listen to this rhetoric and decide to believe it and take to arms is something that this nation wishes to avoid.

The kinds of rhetoric that King, Palin, Angle, and so many more on the Right have engaged in over the last two years lead to this day. They will now try to hide from it. They will try to avoid it. They will try to go off and find someone else to blame.

The usual platitudes will come, of course. Those will include the fact that this man was some kind of insane person who was unstable to begin with, and yet, so were John Wilks Booth and Lee Harvey Oswald. All it takes is one insane person to do the unthinkable.

That Gabrielle Giffords survived is a miracle. Unfortunately, Judge Roll, a nine year old girl, and four more did not- including a member of Giffords’ staff. Tonight, the Federal government will be in mourning. “When one of our own is killed, it effects us all.” It was something said in the wake of the Oklahoma City Bombing.

The time has come for the rhetoric to stop. It is time for King to stop his witch hunt. It is time for McConnell and Beohner to call for an end to the rantings of Glenn Beck, and for them to call for Rush Limbaugh to moderate his tone. It is time for the Right to wake up and realize just what they have created.

Before the next bullet is fired.

President Obama’s speech about the shooting:

Rep Giffords Reading The First Amendment: