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The single most significant bit of news today on the Giffords situation is this tweet by Melissa Clouthier:

Now le’ts see what people are saying. I suspect is doesn’t match that news.

The Daley Gator is not shocked:

The Left, however, once more have displayed their complete lack of character, moral fortitude, and common decency by seeking to blame anyone and everyone on the right for this heinous act. Here is a roundup of the despicable behavior of the usual suspects.

His round-up is pretty strong but lets continue on.

Barnaby Lane plays the passive aggressive “Yes But”

To assign specific cause to Palin is, I think, a mistake, but there can be no doubt that the culture of inflammatory language used by the far right in America acts as a catalyst for unbalanced and dangerous individuals to act in ways detrimental to the very foundations of the democracy they claim to fight for.

Barnaby is going for the passive aggressive plan to give himself plausible deniability, rather pathetic.

Obi’s sister wants to pray but comments on the nonsense:

Right on cue, the left starts shouting incoherently, looking for an angle to smear their enemies. Get over yourselves. What is needed now is cooler heads, not partisan sniping. These are real people, and real families whose lives have been changed forever. They deserve our compassion, respect and most of all, our prayers.

Hey what are the lives of a few innocents when there are political points to be made?

But it’s not as bad as it could be, at least people aren’t fundraising over this: Oh wait:

We also know that Sarah Palin and Rep. Giffords’ opponent used violent imagery last year urging her opponents to “target” her. Last spring, after she voted to expand health insurance coverage to working families and cut drug costs for senior citizens her office was violently attacked.

Members of 21st Century Democrats helped elect Rep. Giffords in 2006 and re-elect her 2010 because she wasn’t afraid to fight for working people — or listen to them at the neighborhood supermarket. She voted for health care; Wall Street reform, job creation, and much more.

As Josh Tervino has the screen cap building a mailing list off Giffords blood. I wish I was amazed. Classic fedora wearer Walter Todd Huston notes that this group, whose actions he calls “a crime against decency” isn’t exactly a fringe group of the left:

21st Century Democrats is no unheard of fringe group, either. Styling itself as one that is “building a progressive majority from the grassroots up,” it is interesting to note that some major top-down players in the Democrat Party founded the group. The group was created in 1986 by Senator Tom Harkin, a powerful Democrat from Iowa, and was co-founded by left-wing pundit Jim Hightower and former Illinois Congressman Lane Evans. These folks are hardly “grassroots” sort of folks.

Worse, even as this email blast accuses Sarah Palin and former candidate Jesse Kelly for using “violent imagery” and for “targeting” Giffords, this group is associated directly with The Daily Kos run by Markos Moulitsas who used precisely that same sort of “targeting” rhetoric last year during the campaign for the midterm elections.

In 2009 21st Century Democrats joined the Service Employees International Union, The Daily Kos and others in a new political action committee (PAC) called Accountability Now PAC.

I’m sure we’ll hear Harkin denounce this group sometime after US astronauts land on Mars

And Gateway Pundit, who has been more demonstrative that I would be points out this is part of the plan:

A democratic operative admitted this to The Politico. Of course, Politico buried it in their story.

One veteran Democratic operative, who blames overheated rhetoric for the shooting, said President Barack Obama should carefully but forcefully do what his predecessor did.

“They need to deftly pin this on the tea partiers,” said the Democrat. “Just like the Clinton White House deftly pinned the Oklahoma City bombing on the militia and anti-government people.”

Considering how many times we have seen it I’m a little shocked at the level of outrage. Then again maybe he didn’t expect it admitted openly.

Jennifer Rubin at the Washington Post gives credit where it is due:

To his credit, Howard Kurtz blasted the blame game. He wrote, “This isn’t about a nearly year-old Sarah Palin map [targeting Giffords’s seat]; it’s about a lone nutjob who doesn’t value human life. It would be nice if we briefly put aside partisan differences and came together with sympathy and support for Gabby Giffords and the other victims, rather than opening rhetorical fire ourselves.”

And like Kurtz the left is going after her in comments as if she was responsible.

Hillbuzz has incredible coverage (keep clicking) but also says something that really speaks well of him:

Please find it in your hearts to pray for Amy Joanne Loughner and Randy L. Loughner, the parents of mass murderer Jared Lee Loughner.

These two people raised a troubled, mentally unstable son who committed a horrific act today…but I don’t see any evidence these two are bad people who had any knowledge of what their son was planning. There is no way they could have known what he intended to do and I doubt there is anything they could have done to stop him.

But, think about this: the two of them will live in horror the rest of their natural lives knowing what their child did.

They will be haunted by this. They will become pariahs in their community. They will have to endure the anguish of their son’s multiple murder trials and the agony of watching their son face the death penalty, of which he will surely be convicted. They will have to witness his execution.

Amy Joanne Loughner and Randy L. Loughner are two more of their son’s victims today — and I bet they will not get any sympathy or charity from the world.

Please, include them in your prayers.

I would include the shooter too. One must pray for enemies and those who persecute you.

At Big Journalism Dana Louch reminds Arizona rep Grijalva and Mother Jones of some other rethoric that apparently isn’t considered inflammatory:

Enemies?

If Latinos sit out the election instead of saying, ‘We’re going to punish our enemies and we’re gonna reward our friends who stand with us on issues that are important to us,’ if they don’t see that kind of upsurge in voting in this election, then I think it’s going to be harder and that’s why I think it’s so important that people focus on voting on November 2. [my emphasis]

Guns and knives?

Mobster wisdom tells us never to bring a knife to a gun fight. But what does political wisdom say about bringing a gun to a knife fight?

That’s exactly what Barack Obama said he would do to counter Republican attacks “If they bring a knife to the fight, we bring a gun.”

When one is angry one should take a deep breath before speaking, granted a friend of his was just shot so he might be talking without thinking but in such a case Mother Jones should know better.

At PJMedia Rand Simberg after noting the agenda driven reporting does the math:

But suppose that, instead of being hit by a bullet, Representative Giffords had been struck by a rock falling from space. It does happen occasionally, after all. And you know what? It happens about as often as an American politician is shot by a crazy person.

But that wouldn’t be anywhere near as interesting, because anyone who proposed that politicians never again have public meetings outdoors, or that a crash project be undertaken to sweep the sky clean of meteoroids to make sure that one was never again hit by one, wouldn’t be taken seriously, or have op-eds published, or bills introduced to implement their ideas. They would instead be treated as the lunatics they would be. People with any sense would understand that life carries risk and uncertainties, and that we have to accept them, and get on with it in the face of them.

Under the logic of those wanting rules we would outlaw driving due to the annual casualties.

Pejman Yousefzadeh has a long memory:

Who are these people to be lecturing the rest of us about political civility?

And he produces the quotes to back the question up.

Founding Bloggers notices an interesting dichotomy:

Yes, that’s right. The very same people who cannot figure out what animated Major Hasan al Jihad, have swiftly concluded that the lunatic who murdered 6 people today was motivated by the Tea Party.

Funny how that works. Once again, the Tea Party is afforded less benefit of the doubt than radical Islam!

And Byron York goes into detail and asks?

And it wasn’t just CNN. Other media outlets were also filled with speculation about the attack and pronouncements on the state of American political rhetoric. What a markedly different situation from 15 months earlier when, in the face of actual evidence that Maj. Hasan was inspired by Islamist convictions, many media commentators sought to be voices of caution. Where was that caution after the shootings in Arizona?

I actually think it is because they actually know there is much less danger in attacking tea party members than radical members of a certain religion of peace.

Ann Althouse thinks we should ignore the lefts attempt to distract the public:

Liberals have an interest in creating a big distraction that might undercut the prevailing conservative momentum. To conservatives, I would say: Don’t help them.

I’m not so sure, If their narrative isn’t challenged it will become the narrative.

Now what do we actually know? Gretta has a DHS memo while Conservatives for Palin weighs in:

The sad thing is that the person who knew the shooter initially blamed on Palin if you look at her twitter feed. It was only when the shooter was identified that she disclosed that he was a far-left liberal.

Among this scumbag’s favorite books are the Communist Manifesto and Mein Kampf.

All the available evidence we have of the shooter suggests that he was a political opponent of Governor Palin and the Tea Party.

Yeah but that’s a Palin site, let’s ask a supporter of Herman Cain who is an actual reporter:

In his recent online activity — including a series of YouTube video texts transcribed by conservative blogger Warner Todd Huston — Loughner unloaded paranoid gibberish about brainwashing and “mind control.” Loughner listed Mein Kampf and the Communist Manifesto among his favorite books. At one point in his ravings, apparently in reference to the “In God We Trust” motto on U.S. currency, he exclaimed: “No! I won’t trust in God!”

None of this lines up with the early reporting on the Tucson shooting which heavily implied that Gabrielle Giffords and 17 others were shot because of political activity of Palin and the Tea Party. And yet none of the news organizations that fed that frenzy of speculation has apologized for their irresponsible reporting.

Anyone who know Robert Stacy would be shocked to see him as the voice of reason but when it comes to reporting he is certainly the voice of wisdom:

…after 25 years in the news business, I’m content to wait for the police to do their work before I write anything that might encourage baseless speculation. The reason I’m explaining this to you is because so many other people have demonstrated a willingness to engage in speculative reporting without waiting for the facts to be established.

It’s good advice if you are looking for facts, not so much if you want to push an agenda.