Insincere and Insecure
Amidst a barrage of criticism over the politicization of the Arizona shootings, the Left Strikes Back!
George Packer of the New Yorker says that the real source of all the ugly rhetoric is - where else? - the Right:
In fact, there is no balance—none whatsoever. Only one side has made the rhetoric of armed revolt against an oppressive tyranny the guiding spirit of its grassroots movement and its midterm campaign. Only one side routinely invokes the Second Amendment as a form of swagger and intimidation, not-so-coyly conflating rights with threats. Only one side’s activists bring guns to democratic political gatherings. Only one side has a popular national TV host who uses his platform to indoctrinate viewers in the conviction that the President is an alien, totalitarian menace to the country. Only one side fills the AM waves with rage and incendiary falsehoods. Only one side has an iconic leader, with a devoted grassroots following, who can’t stop using violent imagery and dividing her countrymen into us and them, real and fake. Any sentient American knows which side that is; to argue otherwise is disingenuous.
Kevin Drum approvingly links to Packer and adds:
This is too obviously true to need much defense. I don't really blame conservatives for being upset at liberals trying pin the blame for the Giffords shooting on them, but the furious defensiveness of their counterattack says all that needs to be said about how uncomfortable they are with their own recent history. The big difference between right and left, as I and others have noted repeatedly, isn't just in the amount of violent rhetoric, but its source. On the liberal side, it only occasionally comes from movement leaders. On the right, it regularly does. It comes from opinion leaders, political leaders, and media leaders, and the more heated they get, the more popular they get.
Over at the Atlantic, Andrew Sullivan chimes in:
The right and the left both have intemperate voices. But here's the key: only the conservative movement counts the most vile blowhards as leading lights, embraced by the leadership. Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Mark Levin, Sarah Palin: these are among the most popular conservatives in America. Who are the folks on the left with equivalent popularity and influence?
At Politics Daily, David Corn seems to have the last word:
The Republicans have institutionalized their side's craziness. Rep. Labrador, and others who equate left and right extremism, have it wrong. When it comes to such excess, there's not an even-steven trade-off between the right and the left. At the moment, it doesn't appear that Loughner is a product of either right hate-mongering or left hate-mongering. Still, the debate over who's perverting and undermining our national discourse continues. And the winner of this blame-game is obvious: The right is the better shooter.
So, let me get this straight. In the discussion over which side of the political spectrum is "perverting and undermining the national discourse", this is the argument that these four men want to make? That, while both sides are selling crazy, the Conservatives are the bad guys because they do it better?
Wow. I don't think I've ever read anything quite so...weak.
I think the Left needs to stroll over to Namby-Pamby Land and get themselves some self-confidence.
posted by VermontGuy @ 7:00 AM
3 Comments:
The only thing that matters is what the middle will remember about this event several months down the road. My super simple guess-- angry people who like guns and scream about the government and then some government workers get murdered, hmm must be a connection.
The "left" (whatever that is) however needs to downplay its rhetoric on this issue- they are making the same mistake that the Republicans made in the Clinton impeachment (the Great Blow Job crisis of 1997) by overplaying their hand so much it created a backlash in the favor of the target.
So the story can easily morph (and spinners on both sides are doing their damnedest) from right wing crazies causing violence to left wingers losing credibility by politicizing a tragedy (then to right wingers whinging about "unfairness" when it gets done to them and so on and so forth)
Of course, in the words of one the few things Jesse Jackson ever said that I agree with "You're both right....about each other"
So far, the first poll on the subject from CBS finds 57% of the population do not believe political vitriol is the cause last Saturday's shooting - vs. 32% who do. And this poll came out immediately as news programs and pundits and politicians were speculating heavily, without evidence, that Loughner might have ties to the Tea Party or conservative radio.
Now that the evidence is dribbling out that Loughner was a nut case who developed his own irrational animus toward Giffords back in 2007, I would suspect the public polls will shift even further in favor of the likely explanation - another crazy shooter, like Cho in VA Tech.
The last shooter who was incited was Maj Hasan at Ft. Hood a year-and-a-half ago. I haven't heard a call to restrict radical Islamic talk on public media.
The left should buck up. They are, and have been for a long time, far better at rhetorical attacks than the right. Furthermore, that they control so much of the media allows them to believe their partisanship isn't even partisanship. You certainly can't control the debate better than that.
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