I've found the use of "blood libel" used by the anti-choice movement

[Cerridwen]

back as far as about 2008 with one article with a date of 1998 that seems to have been taken off the 'net.

I've found its use with regards to President Obama and against the leftists since about 2008. I really don't want to link to those sites here. Some of them are pretty ugly.

Apparently, the "far" right (as versus, what, the moderate right?) have been using the "blood libel" phrase for a few years now beginning in the more fringe groups of the anti-choice movement.

This may be the first time it's been said aloud by one on the national stage but apparently it's been percolating through the fringe wing for quite some time.

There is a reason we need to keep ever vigilant and do opposition research.

edit to finish my thought.

Given this information and her association with some of the more fringe groups on the right, it's highly unlikely sarah was not aware of its definition or use.

[fishwax]

1. Tony Blankley also used it in 2006 regarding criticism of the military

http://www.politico.com/blogs/bensmith/0111/The_origins_of_blood_libel.html

[Cerridwen]

5. Yep. Hardly an innocent mistake. n/t

[emulatorloo]

2. See also: "Dog Whistle for Prayer Warriors - Palin as Victim of Blood Libel"

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=439x195924

[Cerridwen]

9. Thanks for the reminder link. I forgot to recommend it last time I

clicked it.

I scanned but haven't yet read it. Now I have it in my bookmarks. :)

[underpants]

3. Thanks. I remember W mentioning the Dred Scott case in a 2004 debate

and I could hear laughter down the street of our Richmond fan apartment.

Within a week we had a flyer on our front porch and Dred Scott was mentioned 3 times. Between a little research and DU I found out that Dred Scott is codespeak of the antichoice crowd.

[Cerridwen]

6. You're welcome. Yep, it pays to pay attention unless you're on

their fax/email list.

[tritsofme]

26. I assume the intention is to liken Roe v Wade to Dred Scott?

These folks are not particularly bright.

[underpants]

28. Yes. Property

Dred was considered the property of his owner. The original ruling was a statement by the Supreme Court that human beings could be property. This was obviously reversed by the SC decades later. The anti-choice crowd equates the fetus not being the property of the mother to Dred Scott....the second ruling.

[peacebird]

4. thank you! I had not heard the term before this.... So she was throwing redmeat to the far right?

[Cerridwen]

8. I hadn't either. I was aware of the concept but not the term.

As I was googling to learn more, I kept tripping over reports from pro-choice people who reported the use of it from the more militant anti-choice groups.

Not only did she throw "redmeat to the far right," she's now mainstreaming the extreme.

There's a name for the process of going so far to an extreme that you drag the "center" farther and farther in the direction. Maybe someone will mention it for me.

[3waygeek]

17. It's called the Overton window...

and Palin's flung it wide open.

[Cerridwen]

19. Thank you! I knew someone here would have the answer and

know what I was describing.

And, yes, yes she has.

[Manifestor_of_Light]

30. Keith Olbermann used the term Overton window recently.

I didn't know what it was. He said it was "the limits of acceptable discourse."

He's one of them Ivy League (Cornell) libruls doncha know??? Usin' dem big wurdz. (Sarcasm)

[Solly Mack]

7. k/r

[Cerridwen]

10. Thanks, Solly. n/t

[EFerrari]

11. Thanks. I agree, it was deliberate. She was mustering

her bigot troops.

[Cerridwen]

13. Yes she is. Now the question.

For what? To do what?

Just come to her defense?

[EFerrari]

16. Imo, yes, to defend her.

I hope this doesn't set off attacks on media outlets. It could.

[Cerridwen]

20. Yeah, I'm more concerned she's lit a fuse than "circled the wagons." n/t

[Stinky The Clown]

12. I'd never heard this term until Half Term used it the other day, but from what I'm seeing . . . .

. . . . it has a common meaning among the Christian fundamentalists.

She is a dog whistle maestro.

[Cerridwen]

15. She's doing some serious something.

I still don't think it's she who is doing it; I think she's wound up by her handlers and sent out to do her schtick.

I'll be interested to see what happens after her "interview" on Monday.

[nadinbrzezinski]

14. It started it's new lease on life

with the Neo Nazi and White Identity groups... where you could argue is a direct connection to ... Der Sturmer.

So yes it's been in the fringe for decades.

And no, she was not unaware of it.

The first MS use was after the Goldstone Report and that was Breitbart.

[Cerridwen]

18. I'm tracking some back to the Jeremiah Wright episode

and I've got one over in Australia.

[nadinbrzezinski]

21. Absolutely, why the claim that she didn't know don't

pass the sniff test.

[starroute]

22. Is she trying to transiton from Sarah-the-candidate to Sarah-the-martyr?

It seems as though she's becoming less and less viable as a GOP candidate -- or even a Tea Party candidate -- but at the same time, she's becoming increasingly explicit as a poster child for the extreme right-wing, Dominionist-verging-on-Christian-Identity types.

I'm not sure this was ever a conscious decision on her part -- like any beauty pageant contestant, she'll do whatever gets the most applause. But there's an audience out there that's custom-made for her, and she can't help but play up to it.

I can see two particularly bad outcomes of this. One would be if she keeps enough of a toe in the mainstream to give some degree of legitimacy to those extreme positions. But the other would be if she goes over entirely to the dark side and decides to leap a religio-fascist crusade.

She's going to be a dangerous figure for a while no matter what, but I think our best hope is to keep her stuck on the cusp where's she's neither one thing or the other and is consequently just a figure of fun for all except a tiny minority of loyalists.

[Cerridwen]

23. So far, I'm still of the opinion she's a tool rather than an actual

leader so I think, she'll play whatever part is assigned to her.

I guess we'll discover that part as it becomes more obvious. I think your ideas are valid and I agree with all of what you said.

[Kurovski]

24. K&R

Palin is the favorite of some very dangerous people.

[Cerridwen]

25. If you've not yet read it, emulatorloo in the post upthread has a link

to some very enlightening research on sarah and her beliefs.

Thanks for the kick and the recommend.

[Kurovski]

27. Thank you. My next step is to that link.

And have another kick on me, :kick:

[Lucinda]

29. I assume that they took the idea from the WSJ article from the 10th:

The Arizona Tragedy and the Politics of Blood Libel
Those who purport to care about the tenor of political discourse don't help civil debate when they seize on any pretext to call their political opponents accomplices to murder.

By GLENN HARLAN REYNOLDS

Shortly after November's electoral defeat for the Democrats, pollster Mark Penn appeared on Chris Matthews's TV show and remarked that what President Obama needed to reconnect with the American people was another Oklahoma City bombing. To judge from the reaction to Saturday's tragic shootings in Arizona, many on the left (and in the press) agree, and for a while hoped that Jared Lee Loughner's killing spree might fill the bill.

With only the barest outline of events available, pundits and reporters seemed to agree that the massacre had to be the fault of the tea party movement in general, and of Sarah Palin in particular. Why? Because they had created, in New York Times columnist Paul Krugman's words, a "climate of hate."

The critics were a bit short on particulars as to what that meant. Mrs. Palin has used some martial metaphors—"lock and load"—and talked about "targeting" opponents. But as media writer Howard Kurtz noted in The Daily Beast, such metaphors are common in politics. Palin critic Markos Moulitsas, on his Daily Kos blog, had even included Rep. Gabrielle Giffords's district on a list of congressional districts "bullseyed" for primary challenges. When Democrats use language like this—or even harsher language like Mr. Obama's famous remark, in Philadelphia during the 2008 campaign, "If they bring a knife to the fight, we bring a gun"—it's just evidence of high spirits, apparently. But if Republicans do it, it somehow creates a climate of hate.


http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703667904576071913818696964.html">More here


I don't think that her use of the phrase was anything more than a direct response to finding it in use by a journalist attacking the left with the phrase in the headline. It would resonate with the WSJ readers and fundies.