When is a gunsight not a gunsight?

[Jackpine Radical]

http://www.politico.com/blogs/bensmith/0111/Palin_aide_Never_intended_gun_sights.html?showall

Palin aide: 'Never intended gun sights'

An aide to Sarah Palin said images of cross-hairs were never meant to evoke violence, in the Palin camp's first extended comment on yesterday's attack.

" We have nothing whatsoever to do with this," Palin aide. Rebecca Mansour told the talk radio host Tammy Bruce in an interview. "We never ever, ever intended it to be gun sights. It was simply cross-hairs like you'd see on maps," she said, suggesting that it is a "surveyor's symbol."

There is "nothing irresponsible about our graphic," she said. She called attempts to link Palin to the violence "obscene" and "appalling," and said she was "disgusted" with the politicization.…. "We did nothing wrong here."

"I don't understand how anybody could be held responsible for somebody who is completely mentally unstable like this. Where I come from the person that is actually shooting is the one that's culpable," Mansour said, speculating that the shooter is a paranoid schizophrenic. "It seems that he people that knew him said that he was left-wing and very liberal -- but that is not to say that I am blaming the left."

[KathieG]

1. When they appear on Sarah Palin's web site and then people get shot.

[tridim]

3. Along with the words "aim" and "target". nt

[tridim]

2. Fuck you Sarah Palin aide, you lying piece of crap.

[spanone]

4. rep giffords herself was concerned....why didn't palin's people allay her concerns

you know, BEFORE someone tried to kill her.

[Horse with no Name]

5. .....

[Renew Deal]

6. She doesn't understand that the shooter isn't the only one that is mentally unstable.

So is the person that created, permitted, and defended that graphic. Congressmembers including Giffords expressed their discomfort with the graphic when it came out. Why wasn't it removed?

[demwing]

7. What about "RELOAD!" Sarah? Is that surveyor's slang?

you filthy, lying, cowardly piece of human waste..

[rucky]

8. It was meant to be a view from a submarine periscope.

You know, get under the surface and observe what these Congresscritters are doing with healthcare. That was the message.

Or maybe it was a camera viewfinder, and Palin wanted her fans not to forget to "reload" their film?

[DCKit]

12. Wouldn't thay imply a torpedo? Just sayin' nt

[Motown_Johnny]

9. Here is an image of a survey map, notice the numbers in circles are not cross hairs

[lumpy]

10. Palin, herself referred to the crosshairs as 'bulleyes' on one of

her 'tweets'.

[Prefix]

11. "Surveyor symbol"? A bit esoteric, isn't it?

I'm sure all the highly educated Tea Party voters picked up on that, since they are so skilled at understanding subtle differences like surveyor symbols vs. crosshairs, or Muslims vs. terrorists. What an absolutely moronic and cynical attempt to deflect attention.

[BanzaiBonnie]

13. Ask her if Ted Kaczynski was created in a vacuum?

Ask how fragile minds can be manipulated, bent and broken. Ask how suicide bombers are created.

By powerful interests who use others as cannon fodder and FEEL NO REMORSE.

[InkAddict]

14. Ahem,..."symbols" have (more emotional) meanings....

I am SP, and I approved this message...

Surveyor's symbol- yeah, right -- measuring just how far SP can go before stepping over the lines of nuance, prevarication, and hypocrisy?

[IDemo]

15. Hmm,, something looks familiar about it, though

[WestSeattle2]

16. Why was her camp so frantic yesterday to cleanse her site of

that graphic? Of course she will now be portraying herself as a victim; she always does - as will all the other right wing empty suits.

The whole intent of their efforts over the last two years has been to evoke violence. They were warned repeatedly to cease and desist. They laughed it off, in fact they were sneering and jeering at those who pointed out the inevitable outcome. Now there are 18 innocent people gunned down; some dead, others laying critically wounded in hospitals.

It really makes no difference what political persuasion the gunman belongs to; the atmosphere created by Sarah Palin, Sharon Angle and the rest of that despicable cadre of humanity, implied that it's perfectly okay to settle political differences using "Second Amendment remedies", and in the case of Palin, she provided actual targets.

One can easily anticipate their response - "we can't be held liable for the actions of a crazed gunman" - "the politicization of this tragedy is appalling and obscene"...yada, yada, yada.

While 10-15 percent of the population will rush to their side to defend the indefensible, the other 85-90 percent of the population must continue to hold them accountable. If their lives are made as miserable as possible for the foreseeable future, others may think twice before inciting violence in the future. It's my hope that victims and their families will sue the hell out of these people; tying them up in civil proceedings for the next decade and bleeding them financially. They must not be able to profit from the death and carnage they've wrought.

In the mean time, I suggest that at every public event Palin holds, protesters follow her with placards of her gun site website with Gabrielle's name highlighted.

[left is right]

17. an open request to the BBC world News and the pub;ushers of the London Times

and the Guardian and Der Spiegel and all other international newspapers
Please hammer Sarah Pa;in about this. Our own newspapers will just claim there is no connection but perhaps if enough international sources ask about the connection it might shame our newspaper publishers into doing the real work of journalism