Taking, Not Placing, Responsibility

[babylonsister]

http://www.prospect.org/cs/articles?article=taking_not_placing_responsibility

Taking, Not Placing, Responsibility

We're beginning to take a long overdue look at the state of our political debate. But that examination needs to be honest.


Paul Waldman | January 11, 2011 | web only

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So please, spare us the false equivalencies, the idea that "both sides" are letting their passions run away with them to the same degree and in the same ways. It just isn't true, and you know it. Perhaps at various points in history it was true, but not today. There are no Democratic members of Congress telling their supporters to "beat that other side to a pulp" and "take them out." There are no liberals brandishing assault weapons at town meetings. There are no progressive talk-show hosts who use anything like the eliminationist rhetoric of Limbaugh or Beck. There just aren't.

We may never have a complete understanding of what led Jared Loughner to his murderous plan. You don't have to think the right is "responsible" for what happened in Tucson to agree that conservatives ought to take the opportunity to take a good hard look at what they've been saying and how they've been saying it. But so far, the only person I've seen use this as an occasion for personal reflection is liberal TV host Keith Olbermann, who said on the air, "Violence, or the threat of violence, has no place in our democracy, and I apologize for and repudiate any act or anything in my past that may have even inadvertently encouraged violence. Because for whatever else each of us may be, we all are Americans."

I'd love to hear something like that from Beck or Limbaugh, but we shouldn't be surprised when we don't. What we ought to hear, though, is some other prominent Republicans admitting that many of their allies have gone too far. What if Mitch McConnell had the courage to condemn the hate-mongers of talk radio? What if John Boehner stood up and said that though he disagrees with Barack Obama on most policy issues, he also believes that Obama is a patriotic American who wants his country to be safe, prosperous, and just? What if George Will said that he regrets not speaking out about the extremism in the right's ranks sooner, but now he's going to make up for lost time?

Conservatives talk a lot about "personal responsibility," which usually means the kind of responsibility someone else has to take. But now they have a chance to take some of their own.