Ms. Palin has made an art of joking, using Twitter or simply talking her way out of other potentially damaging situations. When she was called out for having crib notes on her hand during a question-and-answer session last year, she laughed it off and began showing other audiences writing on her hand that read “Hi, Mom.” Predictions that her resignation in 2009 would spell her doom never panned out.
And as she continues to seriously weigh a decision to run in 2012, her potential rivals still view her as formidable. “She’s a force of nature,” Mr. Pawlenty said during the interview at The Times.(N.Y. Times)
The New York Times steps in with a piece pointed at Sarah Palin, whose words have taken on extra velocity given the inhumane violence visited upon a Democratic politician in Tucson this weekend past. People are starting to feel, for the moment at least, that words can affect others in ways that cannot wholly be contained or anticipated. While your average man or woman might not react to the rhetoric of Obama being a Nazi or to the necessity of putting the opposition in the crosshairs, there abides a certain type of person who will always take things a bit more personally than the the rest of us. These literalists, loons among them, and lacking any depth of field, will in fact seek to breath life into the whimsically spoken words of death, by attacking. They might lash out verbally, screaming and yelling and squashing debate, or they might resort to intimidation, showing up with their guns or bully pulpit to shut you down. Or, they might step up and do actual physical harm to things... or to people.
Rather than taking the outspoken position that some Republicans and many conservatives have been outright and uniquely nasty, even anti-American in their treatment of the President and supporters of his policies, weaving a type of entombment clothing out of a rich tapestry of contradictory lies, Democrats and the media have given in to the idea of equal opportunity offenses, as though liberals are the ones running around with guns, or boldly holding up signs calling for the spilling of blood from some liberty tree of death.
That ever worn bit of oft repeated situational Jeffersonian wisdom reads, "The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants." The skill it takes to write this on a sign, or repeat it over the airwaves or quote it online or in a book, is not the same skill set that it takes create and live by such a phrase. In a time lacking anything remotely resembling tyranny, its applicability to anything at all is null, and sits like a verbal baton awaiting the grip of the unstable, the resentful, and the ignorant, who do not understand the complexities of the world we live in.
And, if it is said that you are doing un-Constitutional things, reshaping the nation into some perceived gulag, Stalin wrapped in Hitler's overcoat, and if recklessly intelligent minds are calling you out on this, it is not an unlikely possibility that lesser minds with nothing to lose will take a gander at doing something explosive that validates their place in the world. A type of elevation without education, vocation, or moral contemplation.
One day you are an off kilter student at a community college, lightly mocked for your oddness, with authority figures holding you down, and the next moment you are weaving the weave, threading the needle, putting all the disparate facts together and taking action. You alone are capable, when others stand aside weakly.
While we cannot blame Palin or Limbaugh or Beck for being a direct cause of death, we ought not to forgive them their duplicitous wordsmithing that actually creates an environment of havoc. Palin, however, stands alone in the trio, for she actually fancies herself a doer and thinker, and hopes to lead the nation. The entire nation, filled with Americans and non-Americans alike.
If anything the nation's press must at least, at minimum, make a major effort to force people to speak truth, and without glossing over the real differences in rhetoric by setting up some sort of blanket condemnation of all political speech. This is what is typically done. Party A will say, "You are racist and hate America and want to burden our children with the costs of your deathcare." Party B will say, "First off, this legislation reduces our debts and nowhere does it support death, so you are telling lies to the American people." Party A will then say, "See, you talk of wanting to tone down the rhetoric, but at the same time you are calling me a liar."
The press will then sit there, light bulb eyed and with a head tilt say, "And how about that Party B? Are you doing the very thing that you accuse your opponent of doing?"
The actual facts batted back and forth get lost. But facts will be important. Just next week we imagine the House will resume their quixotic effort to repeal Obama's health reform legislation. The justification for doing so should include much exaggeration, many distortions, and certain amount of demonization. We hope that this week's events at least lead to more honesty and civility (if not agreement), but we really doubt that. The man who does nothing, resting under the Liberty Tree instead of working the fields to improve yield, will be the most defensive.
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