According to CBS News, 58% of those polled in overnight polling do not think shooter was political.

[Stinky The Clown]

They did not think things like Palin's targets or Angle's Second Amendment Remedies had anything to do with Loughner's rampage.

No link; I heard it on the CBS Early Show news.

[MadHound]

1. People recognize mental illness when they see it,

And in Loughner's case, that mental illness is pretty evident.

[woo me with science]

48. +1 nt

[Hissyspit]

54. But that is not the whole story. Americans are simplifying it.

The rhetoric of the right and right-wing extremists and American macho gun culture provided the context upon which Loughner's mind attached; upon which his behavior found catalyst.

[MadHound]

64. But the point is, his behavior would have found a catalyst anywhere

Hinckley found his catalyst in unrequited love for Jody Foster, the Son of Sam found his from his neighbor's dog. If we had polite political discourse in this country, then yes, Giffords would probably still be alive. But somebody else would be dead. Changing the rhetoric would have simply changed the target because this man shot somebody else because he is mentally ill, not a political assassin.

[The Backlash Cometh]

59. Except, as Jon Stewart said, it would be helpful if what is being said

on television didn't sound like the ravings of a lunatic.

Edited to add "didn't."

[MadHound]

65. What is being said on television? Are you referring to the political rhetoric,

Or what Loughner is saying?

[The Backlash Cometh]

67. I heard it on the clip that was being sent out.

I had to correct my post. I left out an important word.

Check this post out:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=439x170383

[MadHound]

70. I agree with Stewart that it would be nice to tone the rhetoric down,

But I also think that rhetoric had very little to do with this, and that it is the demons inside Loughner's head that did have everything to do with this tragedy. Subtract the rhetoric, and Loughner would have killed somebody else. Add some timely mental help for the young man, and no matter the rhetoric he heard, he wouldn't have killed.

[Xipe Totec]

2. Who asked them? nt

[Stinky The Clown]

16. Uh . . . . a pollster?

How the fuck do I know who asked them? I am reporting a story I heard on CBS News.

What the fuck . . . . .

[seabeyond]

3. of course not cause media is "toning it down" to ensure that is the answer adn NOT

informing the public like they so often do that led to this crisis and threat in the first place.

we are enabling this to happen again

[MadHound]

6. Really? What media are you imbibing

Because everything I've seen about this case has the distinct question of whether violent rhetoric was involved. Large discussions over this on MSNBC, NPR, Fox, CBS, etc. etc. Perhaps you're just not listening:shrug:

[Stinky The Clown]

12. Nice attitude, fella.

Yes, that is what I heard.

On CBS

This morning.

[HillbillyBob]

25. Yes, I saw on CBS am show a few minutes ago that it was 57%

not to quibble, just to back you up.
They did say latest number, but all recall these are informal numbers.

30 yrs the rhetoric has been ugly (that I have been old enough to pay attention to) against liberals, gays,feminists, African American, anyone not rich and white from the so called family values bunch and their worshippers, cronies or fellow travellers.
Not to generalize too much, most here know what I mean .

Just as example I have seen pat robberson of foolwell point out that the world is in deep shit because USA allows gay folks to live and a day or a week some gay person gets murdered or beaten severely. Anita Brayant was busy in Al when the local church of gawders harass me and my partner and several people that visited my home there ending up with the attempted arson. I had a run in with her personally in he Selma mall once, not a pleasant experience.

I have seen the vile Phelps klan picket so many of my fellow gays funerals, and not a word of condemnation until they started picketing the funerals of service members sent to fight the Bush wars for oil and empire.
I am not equating, its just gay folks happen to be on everyone's hit list.

[whathehell]

63. Don't worry...by tonite it will be 75%

:eyes: Just sayin...

[Stinky The Clown]

14. Why do you feel the need to attack the messenger?

I'm seriously asking you that.

[MadHound]

17. Why do you feel that somebody who is questioning a poster is somehow attacking the messenger?

Why do you think that somebody who is going against the current DU wisdom is attacking the messenger?

Sorry, I don't do group think, neither here nor in the real world. You don't like that, oh well, deal with it.

I am simply stating that from what I've seen and heard on the MSM, no media is downplaying the potential role that RW rhetoric played in this tragedy.

Anything else you want to seriously ask?

[Stinky The Clown]

26. "Anything else you want to seriously ask?"

Nice.

[MadHound]

27. You wanted to "seriously ask" me a question previously,

What, don't want to do follow up's?

[Stinky The Clown]

We're done.

I'm not going to engage you anymore. You have an issue and I'm not going to be a part of it.

Have a swell rest of your day. :hi:

[MadHound]

35. Can't handle simple questions?

Can't engage in thoughtful discourse?

Can't stand to have your point of view challenged?

How very sad.

[Gormy Cuss]

53. You don't think that constant references to "both sides" isn't toning it down for the RW?

It's a careful manipulation to make it seem that there isn't a partisan difference in the frequency and intensity of violent rhetoric -- and there is, and the right wing side of the spectrum is far more culpable.

[MadHound]

55. I'm not spreading the "both sides" meme

In fact I think than political rhetoric of any sort had very little to do with this shooting. Rather, I think that the guy is mentally ill and that is what caused him to shoot all those innocents.

I find this whole game of trying to pin the blame on the political party amusing, in a rather ghoulish sort of way.

[AsahinaKimi]

4. I would say 58% of those polled were watching

Dancing with the Stars...or some such thing. This dude didn't decide to go to SAFEWAY just to practice his target shooting on real people .. :mad: :argh:

[handmade34]

5. then they do not think....

[marmar]

7. Here's a link:

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503544_162-20028105-503544.html

[Stinky The Clown]

13. Yup, that's essentially what I heard on the colortini.

[snappyturtle]

24. Thank you! Interesting, opening paragraph, "....Nearly 60 percent..."

later in article, 57%....then with +/-4%. Under 700 respondents.

In the end the polls seem to coincide with the fault line between the parties. imho

[TalkingDog]

60. 700 respondents?

I thought anything under a 1000 was a small (read easier to skew) sample.

[snappyturtle]

76. 673 according to the article:

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503544_162-20028105-503544.html

[no_hypocrisy]

8. It's political to the point where his "target" was a duly elected legislator.

He didn't shoot a store owner, a garage mechanic, or cook.

[Statistical]

9. Hardly.

Just because a political person is attacked doesn't mean the motivation was political. Had Congressowman Giffords being shot in a robbery gone bad would that be political.

It appears the suspect largest issues with the victim was the fact that she wouldn't answer his insane question "What do governments matter if words have no meaning", the fact that according to him the district had very bad literacy and grammar, and a delusion (likely driven by schizophrenia) about government "control" in general.

[Champion Jack]

11. or, at least that's the way they are spinning it.

[onenote]

37. I would characterize the shooting as political, but not necessarily partisan

He targeted Giffords because she was a political figure. Exactly why has yet to be made clear (if it ever will).

[Imajika]

45. Many people here just don't want to hear that...

They are determined to find a way to connect Laughner, who is almost certainly a mentally deranged paranoid schizophrenic, to the teabaggers, conservatives, Republican Party, etc, no matter how ridiculous the connections they are dreaming up may be.

The effort is a complete waste of time. A person who believes the government is trying to control us via mind control and grammar and plans to combat this with a super dream state is not someone who has an ideology any of us would recognize, nor one belonging to either the right or left.

This notion that because someone believes the government is out to get them makes them right wingers is idiotic. Many paranoid schizophrenics, and Laughner will almost certainly be diagnosed as such, believe the same exact thing. No amount of changing the rhetoric, the tone of our politics, etc, etc, would likely have made the slightest shred of difference. It is likely that Loughner was neither linked to or influenced by Caribou Barbie, fat ass Limbaugh, crybaby Beck, etc, etc.

It is a shame that sometimes there is no logical reason people do these things that we can actively understand and do much about, but sometimes folks are just insane. Hopefully the good that will come out of this may be increased mental health availability to people who so desperately need it.

[disillusioned73]

68. So it's the ...

"lone wolf, outta thin air" theory. Well, it is easier to just say, these things do happen and move on with our lives. Some of us aren't buying it though.

[Imajika]

75. What aren't you buying exactly?

It's not as if this type of thing is exactly new or something.

Mentally deranged individual, most likely wracked with advanced paranoid schizophrenia, lives in a world of his own creation and tries to assassinate someone for bizarre reasons that not even he could probably explain in any meaningful way. Trying to assign some actual political motive or link him to the left or right is likely to be a complete waste of time. You can certainly try, and we do need to find out all we can, but probably very few people here would have the expertise and qualifications to divine very much from Laughner's mish mash of rants, bizarre statements and known background.

Sometimes people suffering from serious, advanced mental disease do stuff like this, and their reasons are typically not driven from the sort of left/right politics we understand.

[disillusioned73]

81. I am not buying the .. this is a random act

from a deranged lunatic spin being woven by corporate media and political operatives( I am not calling you either). I just believe that she was a target, and by his own admination/note he even uttered the word assasinate - that is not random. That is very deliberate and thought through, phychotic but justified in his mind by something none the less. Now the question that you require evidence for is that something. He didn't shoot her in the head because he agreed with her, politically or otherwise. He lived in her district, so chances are he was subject to the extremely negative campaign waged against her... I know - circumstantial evidence but still within the realm of posibilty and with his attitude toward our "government" why would he ignore a political race right in his backyard??

just my two cents

[Imajika]

82. She was absolutely the target...

...of that there is little question. But that doesn't make him a right winger, left winger, Teabagger, libertarian, or really anything. Hinckley targeted Reagan, and while it was an assassination attempt it was not done for partisan political reasons.

We simply don't know Laughner's motivations, but we can see the insane ramblings he's left behind and it is pretty clear he was seriously mentally disturbed. Claiming that the government is trying to mindcontrol us all through grammar and attempting to achieve some super dream state are really not traditional right wing beliefs no matter how much people are trying to will them to be. It is much more along the lines of what a paranoid schizophrenic would think - and he has exhibited all the hallmarks of a man in serious mental distress.

"circumstantial evidence but still within the realm of possibilty and with his attitude toward our "government" why would he ignore a political race right in his backyard??"

He didn't even vote in the hotly contested 2010 election. That was in his backyard - and he was registered and could have cast a ballot.

Now, it is certainly possible that Laughner, in this deranged state he was in, was influenced by the right wing, by some of what Palin or conservative gasbags have to say, but there isn't even the slightest iota of evidence at this time indicating he was influenced by them at all. Nothing, nada, zilch, none.

So barring any new information, we're left with the "well, even if he didn't listen to right wingers or see Palin's target map, they are still responsible for promoting violence and poisoning the atmosphere". And my response to that is that this argument is complete nonsense. If you accept that tenuous line of reasoning, you may as well accept that violent movies, violent videogames, certain hip hop music, etc, are also responsible - and I simply don't buy that garbage argument at all.

Many people just don't want to accept that this is most likely going to end up being almost entirely a mental health issue. It is very likely that there will be no cudgel here with which to hammer the teabaggers with - and many are still holding on to the hope that they can find something.

With that said, the investigation continues and we may find out yet that he was some right wing assassin egged on by the likes of loathsome individuals such as Beck, Hannity, etc. There isn't evidence showing that yet, but it is still possible - and there is nothing wrong with a serious attempt to find such a link.

[HillbillyBob]

28. So he was anti government ...that can be laid out by the

left as right speak too.

How does this quote from raygun go?

"The scariest thing to people, Hello I'm from the government, I am here to help?"
Then proceeds to destroy regulation etc so that the government cannot do a good job, then they say see "I told you so!"

[woo me with science]

47. So was John Hinkley's,

and he did it for Jodie Foster.

[whathehell]

56. ..and if this guy shot a movie star, or a bus driver, we wouldn't think it "political" either. nt

[DURHAM D]

10. So they called less than 700 people...

I assume they got the call list from Frank Luntz.

[whathehell]

58. Good one!

[begin_within]

15. So the damage control propaganda was partially effective.

[MindPilot]

21. We have a winnah!! n/t

[justiceischeap]

18. Everyone I spoke about it at work with yesterday thought it was political

And that Palin's crosshair's were tacky. :)

[MadHound]

19. Question for those who are doubting the veracity of this poll,

If the results were reversed, namely that 58% of those polled thought that the shooting was political, would you still be questioning the veracity of the poll?

Or would you feel vindicated about having your world view backed by a poll?

You can't have it both ways, inaccurate polls when you disagree with them, but polls are accurate when you do agree with them.

[Name removed]

29. Deleted message

Sub-thread removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[MindPilot]

20. I think the fact that the right was distancing themselves from it

almost the instant it happened is very telling.

[HillbillyBob]

34. I was out in the car on Sat about 2pm east coast

I don't even know what station it was on as I hit a random search just for some music and got a partial report that Ms Giffords was dead and several more likely and some wounded.
So by the time I got home @2:30 and turned on the tv instead of 209(msnbc) I got 206 (fuzzynoise) was already trying to paint the shooter as leftyloonieliberalskum.

[SoCalDem]

22. They kept polling until they got a "number" they liked

:)

[elias49]

39. You got it!

The MSM NEEDS America to believe. And with a 24/7 megaphone, they'll get the result they want. x(

[snappyturtle]

23. Well, Loughner didn't shoot people in line for a Big Mac.....he

went to this political event to unleash his political agenda upon a political office holder and political supporters. imho

[rbrnmw]

30. Well put We should scream it from the rooftops

We need to repeat that each time someone says it wasn't political

[snappyturtle]

77. Thank you! It's nice to hear something positive today....been one of those days! nt

[Sheri]

31. yeah. right. nt

[Spider Jerusalem]

32. That's probably because all the evidence of his Youtube, Myspace, and Facebook...

plus the accounts of his professors, of people who attended school with him, etc, all point to his being clinically psychotic. He met Giffords, and she couldn't answer his entirely mad question "what is government, if words have no meaning?", and she sent him a letter with his surname misspelled. He is, at least to judge by the available evidence, a delusional paranoid obsessive. He is quite probably suffering from untreated schizophrenia. Such individuals are more driven by whatever is going on inside their own heads than they are influenced by outside factors.

[MadHound]

36. But recognizing that he is mentally ill, and needs to be treated as such,

Takes away what many here see as a golden opportunity to score points on the rabid right wing, and heaven forbid we deny people that opportunity.

[rainlillie]

61. Well said.

[backscatter712]

33. 58% of the population needs to be educated on how stochastic terrorism works. n/t

[onenote]

38. does anyone have a link that shows the exact wording of the question in the poll?

Little details like that matter. Yet the CBS News story on the poll doesn't seem to state the wording of the question or provide a link to it.

[yodermon]

66. Yes, here:

Did Harsh Political Tone have Anything to do with Arizona Shootings?

      Total Reps Dems Inds
Yes   32%   19%  42%  33%
No    57    69   49   56

57% + 32% = 89% :shrug:


http://www.cbsnews.com/htdocs/pdf/poll_Tucson_011111.pdf

[yodermon]

69. (sorry didn't mean to repost as a reply to myself!!)

[onenote]

71. thanks.

[ncteechur]

40. Probably 80% of the folks that don't think it was political can't find Arizona on a map.

[truebrit71]

41. M$M now using rushed polls to validate their own whitewashing..

..for allowing the vitriole to have reached such a fever pitch...They coddled the teabagging nutters through the entire election cycle, never ONCE chiding the Angles or Palin's to tone it down..and now that the chickens have come home to roost so tragically they are falling all over themselves to cover up their enabling culpability...

You want to know the root of the problem in this country? It's the fucking media.

[bdamomma]

44. "You want to know the root of the problem in this country? It's the fucking media.

I agree they have been stoking the fires for a very long time, and there are alot of unstable people out there who believe what they say.

[Dappleganger]

42. CBS has news?????

:rofl: :rofl:

[jpak]

43. Mission Accomplished MSM

yup

[grahamhgreen]

46. I bet they got the same numbers in Rwanda.

[Johonny]

49. don't think it's the point. The point is you the sane person should be reflective

What liberals are saying isn't this guy heard this stuff and that's why he did it. They are saying look what happened. Look at the language being used in political rhetoric. Shouldn't we examine ourselves and ask were we doing the right thing. Creating an atmosphere in which violence seems to be ok within the political sphere is something pundits and politicians can control, crazy people is much harder. (although they could improve mental health care in this country or gun control, but that's a side issue)

[AngryOldDem]

50. Maybe they are not directly implicated...

..but obviously this man had a grudge against Giffords for reasons we don't know yet. It could be nothing more than the fact that he was angry because her letter to him misspelled his name. Or maybe the right-wing crap he heard has been richocheting around in his head for a long time and finally reached critical mass on Saturday.

Such is the mystery of mental illness.

[B Calm]

51. According to CBS News. . . What more do you need to know. . . . .

[bullwinkle428]

52. Mission accomplished, mainstream media!!

[reformist2]

57. His thoughts are not coherent, but they are indeed political.

It's not clear who this guy was listening to, but it is clear that he absorbed the climate of fear and hysteria of today's politics, and he internalized it.

[disillusioned73]

62. 58 % of people polled are IDIOTS..

Aside from having mental issue(duh)... he goes to a political event and targets a member of Congress and anyone else who gets in his way. Gee, not political... hmmmm

They(media) really think we're f*ckin stupid..

[Abq_Sarah]

78. The poll was about

Whether or not the shooting was motivated by current political discourse.

[disillusioned73]

83. Soooo.. what is your definition of current??

I would take it as since President Obama was elected, and by that definition 58% of this country are uninformed and/or idiots.

[yodermon]

72. LINK TO ACTUAL POLL document

Did Harsh Political Tone have Anything to do with Arizona Shootings?

      Total Reps Dems Inds
Yes   32%   19%  42%  33%
No    57    69   49   56


---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
This poll was conducted by telephone on January 9-10, 2011 among 673 adults nationwide first
interviewed by CBS News December 17-20, 2010. Phone numbers were dialed from samples of both
standard land-line and cell phones. The error due to sampling for results based on the entire sample
could be plus or minus four percentage points. The error for subgroups is higher. This poll release
conforms to the Standards of Disclosure of the National Council on Public Poll.

57% + 32% = 89% :shrug:


http://www.cbsnews.com/htdocs/pdf/poll_Tucson_011111.pdf

[Still a Democrat]

73. It was mental illness

What made her the target, I don't think we'll ever know. But this guy was destined to wipe out some people reagrdless of political rhetoric.

[Upton]

74. I'm surprised it's not higher..

considering the complete lack of any evidence that Palin, Angle, or any other political figure incited Loughner..

[mariawr]

79. poll of less than 1000 people does not reflect the US

...and who was called, and what were the questions.

We all know about "polls"

[WilliamPitt]

80. According to 100% of me, polls are full of shit.