The Left's Climate of Hate and Libel

Awesome essay from Glenn Reynolds, at WSJ, "The Arizona Tragedy and the Politics of Blood Libel" (at Memeorandum):

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.

There's a climate of hate out there, all right, but it doesn't derive from the innocuous use of political clichés. And former Gov. Palin and the tea party movement are more the targets than the source ....

To paraphrase Justice Cardozo ("proof of negligence in the air, so to speak, will not do"), there is no such thing as responsibility in the air. Those who try to connect Sarah Palin and other political figures with whom they disagree to the shootings in Arizona use attacks on "rhetoric" and a "climate of hate" to obscure their own dishonesty in trying to imply responsibility where none exists. But the dishonesty remains.

To be clear, if you're using this event to criticize the "rhetoric" of Mrs. Palin or others with whom you disagree, then you're either: (a) asserting a connection between the "rhetoric" and the shooting, which based on evidence to date would be what we call a vicious lie; or (b) you're not, in which case you're just seizing on a tragedy to try to score unrelated political points, which is contemptible. Which is it?

It's either/or for the progressives, but RTWT.

BooMan responds, for example, repeating the same old line that Loughner was most likely clinically deranged, but it's the rights fault anyway, or it's the right's fault that they're getting blamed, false or not. Got that? Freakin' asshat.

PREVIOUSLY: "Jared Loughner Fixated on Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, Attended 'Congress On Your Corner' Event in 2007."

And the Megyn Kelly clip is available here as well, in case this one gets pulled down before I'm back online tomorrow morning.

RELATED: Doug Ross, "Which Democrats objected to the use of mass murder as a vehicle for disseminating propaganda?", and "Breaking: Sarah Palin responsible for mass bird kills, genocide in the Sudan, and AT&T's loss of exclusive rights to the iPhone."

Plus, at Gay Patriot, "Why no theories of left-wing responsibility for Reagan’s shooting?", and The Rhetorican, "Alinsky: Original Sin In the Glass House of Eden."