Palin's importance in the Gifford shooting isn't just in the "crosshairs" graphic.

[Mayberry Machiavelli]

It's the fact that she was the prime instrument in ramping up the whole "TEA PARTY XXXXTREME" tone in American politics since being picked for VP by McCain, starting with the whole "palling around with terrorists/KILL HIM" business at the McCain/Palin rallies.

Granted since the Nixon Administration things have been ugly, but Palin is a direct cause, both in her person and in her statements and actions, of the completely amped-up, ridiculously dangerous, M-16s at town halls, watering the roots of the tree of liberty with blood, Second Amendment Remedy circus that passes for right wing politics today.

[aquart]

1. You might also want to blame the Koch brothers who paid for it all.

I like the way their interference in our politics is disregarded simply because they didn't make TV appearances.

[Vinnie From Indy]

2. I could not disagree more strongly

Palin is a shiny object marketed to the idiot hordes like diapers or dish soap. She is in no way a power broker on the right-wing and she most certainly is not the center of gravity of right-wing hate speech. Her entire schtick is a poor, dumbed down version of the real masters of hate - Limbaugh and FOX News. These, along with financiers like the Koch Bros, are the main culprits and we should not be distracted.

In fact, I will bet that the right wing will happily let Sarah take the fall.

[Lesleymo]

3. I hope they do let her take the fall ...

... that would be a silver lining to this senseless tragedy.

[TygrBright]

4. Sorry, but I have to disagree with one thing you say...

>>since the Nixon Administration things have been ugly<<

On the contrary.

With the exception of a brief period in the early Cold War era, America has always been a pretty violent place, prone to taking ideological arguments to the streets with bullets and bombs.

In the period immediately after the Revolution there were several conflicts, some of which (see "Whiskey Rebellion") got quite ugly. After the War of 1812 there was escalating violence between abolitionist and pro-slavery groups that got exceptionally ugly-- so much so that it ended up spawning the bloodiest war in American history.

After the Civil War, there were numerous threads of ideological violence that waxed and waned, but claimed many, many lives: The Reconstruction in the South and the rise of the Klan, the Temperence movement, labor violence, and Women's suffrage all claimed lives in ugly, ugly incidents in the last part of the 19th Century and into the early part of the 20th Century. In the post-WWI era labor violence and populist vs anti-populist factions killed hundreds with bombing, shooting, and all kinds of mayhem.

For a short period after WWII, an unusual confluence of forces produced a brief era of rare civil quietude, but as soon as the Civil Rights movement got to be a serious threat to the Oligarchs, the violence started up again and has not abated since.

This is just the latest version.

In addition to being a shining city on the hill and a beacon of hope to the world's huddled masses, etc., we are also a nasty, crude, violent, ugly people, and always have been.

historically,
Bright

[Liberal_in_LA]

5. kick