Hey, Sarah P.:
You could not have planned it better yourself.
A moderate/liberal congresswoman is currently incapacitated and a future politician - a 9-year-old child who would run as a Democrat, no doubt - is out of the way permanently. Think of all the would-be candidates who by now figure that politics is not worth their lives - if they were not already scared off by your gun sight images on a map of congressional districts represented by Gabriel Giffords and other centrists and progressives.
It is too abstract to connect your rantings to Jared L. Loughner‘s rampage last Saturday, Jan. 8. He is a deranged person who may or may not have been influenced by people like you, and we cannot know if anti-Semitism factored into his shooting spree. So he was arrested for murding six innocent people and wounding 14 others when Giffords met with constituents in Tucson. Giffords, the first Jewish congresswoman elected from an Arizona district, miraculously survived a gunshot wound to the head.
Yet your political tactics suggest two disturbing patterns - intimidation methods and political assassinations that have transformed history. From your perch in Alaska, perhaps you never had any intention of scaring or hurting anyone, and you meant your words metaphorically. However, your kind of language is downright irresponsible.
The map that you presented can intimidate people. It can make candidates and potential candidates wonder if they should feel threatened. Also threatening are your words: “Don’t retreat! Instead - RELOAD!”, as recounted in Michael Daly’s column in The New York Daily News.
Some of your comrades made similar comments. Sharron Angle, in her unsuccessful campaign against Nevada Sen. Harry Reid, suggested “Second Amendment remedies” to deal with frustrations with government, according to The Wall Street Journal. She also proclaimed, “The first thing we need to do is take Harry Reid out,” the Daily News reported.
Giffords’ challenger in the last election, Republican Jesse Kelly, actually held a “targeting victory” fund-raiser last summer when he invited donors to shoot an M-16 with him, according to The New York Times. In October, he said during a rally, “If you dare to stand up to the government they call us a mob. We’re about to show them what a mob looks like.”
Such words are more typically associated with inmates at a mental institution than political candidates. If they talked this way about the president, they might have been vulnerable to prosecution. A threat to the president is a federal offense punishable by up to five years in prison.
Political assassinations also have historic consequences. What if Abraham Lincoln and John F. Kennedy had lived to finish their tenure in office?
Of course, Giffords cannot carry out her obligations now. If she is too incapacitated to serve in the long run, a Republican might be elected in a special election or in 2012. You wouldn’t complain about that, would you?
For good measure, the gunman murdered a 9-year-old girl who was recently elected to her student council. Maybe he feared that she would grow up to run for office as a liberal Democrat.
There is precedent for being so cynical. Some years ago, a right-wing columnist suggested that Chelsea Clinton be killed so she could not carry on the family legacy. Not much was made of it then.
You and other conservatives have been very defensive. You topped them all when you accused critics of manufacturing a “blood libel” about you. I give you the benefit of the doubt that you were not aware that “blood libel” was mainly an accusation used to persecute Jews.
It would be nice if this situation destroys whatever credibility you have left. May the public turn you into Baked Alaska. Metaphorically speaking, of course.
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