I sometimes write pieces for this weblog not so much for your enlightenment as for mine. Writing is how I organize my thoughts and become aware of which portions of an issue I need to think or read more about. This is one such piece. It's about the shooting yesterday in Arizona.
I think we all agree that it's horrible that anyone takes a bullet, especially passers-by and a nine-year-old child…but that may be about all we all agree on. I found myself nodding in general agreement as I read this article by Jack Shafer about how silly it is to try and launder political speech because somewhere, some looney might become motivated to use a gun. If we learned nothing else from the Mark David Chapmans and John W. Hinckleys of the world, it's that we don't know what, if anything, goes on in that kind of mind. We who are more-or-less rational try to view what they do as rational acts…but they aren't. Even if you decided logically that this would be a better planet if a certain public figure died, none of these assassins ever go about making that happen in a rational way. They just walk into a public place, open fire and then either cluelessly or deliberately get taken into custody. At times, these incidents seem as much about suicide as murder. Or maybe it's that they'd rather be famous prisoners than to get away with their crimes and remain non-entities.
I don't pretend to know anything about what motivated this Jared Loughner fellow…who I guess we need to refer to, despite dozens of eyewitnesses, as the alleged assassin. My suspicion is that none of the people who are claiming to understand him or his politics know much, either. In the rush to pigeonhole the shooter as belonging to "the other side," a lot of folks have done quick and dirty analysis of his YouTube videos and a few rumors and constructed a profile of this guy that proves he's just whatever they might want him to be — a leftist, a right-winger, a Nazi, a Commie, etc. Pick your demon and he's it. One of these hastily-invented Jareds may even be close to the real thing.
(By the way: I notice that in the press, the alleged assassin's name has now gone from Jared Loughner to Jared Lee Loughner. You can't be a famous and violent psychotic in this country if you don't have three names or at least a middle initial. Let's all thank the media for correcting that.)
Anyway, I read Shafer's piece that basically says, "Don't blame Sarah Palin" and I pretty much buy it. It's understandable why people would point to Palin's now-infamous map that put Gabrielle Giffords into the crosshairs, even though there's no evidence that Loughner ever saw that map. For all we know, Loughner thinks Palin is a looney not a leader and he shot Giffords because he thinks people with the initials G.G. are the devil and she was closer than Gilbert Gottfried. He may even have a less explainable reason than that.
But I think the defenders of Palin and Sharron "Second Amendment solutions" Angle and the others are wrong about something. They think the Left is just pouncing on a tragic situation and trying to manipulate it to score points against their heroes. There may be some of that but I think a lot of people are staring in horror at a scenario. It's the scenario for a clear-cut cause-and-effect act of assassination or terrorism than occurred yesterday in Tucson.
The level of raw hatred in our political discourse has gone way past the concept that reasonable men can disagree. You have all these nutcases out there who are dead certain Obama is a Socialist Nazi born in Kenya who wants to bankrupt America, then give it back to the Indians. It's always been easy to imagine one of them building a fertilizer bomb or getting his hands on a Glock or otherwise snapping. What happened in Arizona has made that seem way too possible.
Keith Olbermann did a special Countdown yesterday and one of his Special Comments. As he tends to do, he came off very strident and arrogant and overly theatrical…and he took about nine minutes to say little more than "Violence has no place in the political landscape," a point few would argue. But in there, he did do something that separates him from what some would call his right-wing counterparts. He said he'd sometimes crossed the line and he apologized and said he wouldn't do it again. As far as I can tell, his opposite numbers on the Right are saying, "We didn't do anything wrong and we won't change our ways." Even as they scrub their websites, they insist their rhetoric is not dangerous and I'm not saying they're wrong…so far. But one of these days, there's going to be another shooting spree or another Oklahoma City Bombing, this time with an inarguable link to some politician or pundit fanning the flames and urging the flock to "take action"…
…and I wonder if maybe, just maybe, someone isn't going to regret something they said.