It took just hours for the media to finger the villain responsible for the shooting of US Democratic congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords.
It was Sarah Palin what done it, officer. And other Right-wingers just like that witch.
Such is the deranged hatred that so many on the Left feel for the former Republican vice-presidential candidate.
The New York Times was one of the first to smear her, even before the alleged shooter of Ms Giffords and the murderer of six bystanders had been publicly identified as 22-year-old Jared Loughner.
It implicated Ms Palin because nine months ago she’d posted a ``controversial’’ map on her Facebook page showing where Democrats were running for re-election.
Gasp: ``Those Democrats were noted by crosshairs symbols like those seen through the scope of a gun. Ms Giffords was among those on Ms Palin’s map.’‘
Well, case closed.
And so Markos Moulitsas, founder of the influential Left-wing DailyKos website, tweeted, ``Mission accomplished, Sarah Palin.’‘
Jane Fonda likewise insisted Ms Palin ``holds responsibility’‘, as did ``the violence-provoking rhetoric of the Tea Party’’ movement she’d encouraged - a movement that’s just a grassroots protest by middle-class Americans against big government and record deficits.
Nobel laureate Paul Krugman also used his newspaper column to smear Ms Palin, saying Ms Giffords ``might be a target’’ because she was ``a Democrat who survived’’ an election challenge from ``a Tea Party activist’‘, and ``was on Sarah Palin’s infamous `crosshairs’ list’‘.
Fellow Leftists in the Australian media gobbled the bait, hailing Ms Giffords as a martyr to Ms Palin and the Right.
Here is the ABC’s Jane Cowan on AM: ``Political candidates, especially those aligned with the grassroots Tea Party movement, have increasingly invoked violent imagery. A campaign website by ... Palin put gun targets across several congressional districts including Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords’ and urged voters to `reload’.’‘
The hunger to blame Ms Palin and her political kind is palpable and no evidence is needed to proclaim her guilt.
As Michael Tomasky of Britain’s Left-wing Guardian exulted, the shooter ``went to considerable expense and trouble to shoot a high-profile Democrat, at point-blank range right through the brain. What else does one need to know?’‘
That was sufficient ``to see some kind of connection between [Right wing] violent rhetoric and what happened in Arizona on Saturday’‘.
But there’s a few things wrong with this narrative. It’s false, it’s foul, and it’s savagely hypocritical.
For a start, there’s zero evidence that Mr Loughner, the alleged shooter, is a Palin supporter or took any notice of what she said about Giffords or anyone else.
On his MySpace and YouTube pages he never mentions Palin or health care, the issue on which she attacked Giffords.
Both sites suggest he’s simply deranged, raving about bad grammar, thought control, ``conscience dreaming’’ and a ``third currency’‘.
A typical post on MySpace on December 30 gives the temperature of his mind: ``With every day on torture, the hours are my painful isolation; these dreams, which are realistic, vehemence feelings of greatness finally!’’
Just add a gun to that explosive mixture of megalomania and angry failure and ... boom.
Still, if you think it worth trying to detect a political orientation in Mr Loughner’s shattered thoughts, you’d have to conclude it’s sure not Ms Palin’s.
He was not a Christian, and his favourite film clip is of an American flag being burned. He denounced the US Constitution as full of ``treasonous laws’‘.
Simon Mann, of The Age and Sydney Morning Herald, led his report on Monday by implying Mr Loughner was a neo-Nazi, noting his victim was Jewish and he’d listed Mein Kampf on his YouTube page as one of his ``favourite books’‘.
What Mr Mann failed to add is that Mr Loughner also loved A Communist Manifesto.
Another problem for the blame-Palin brigade is that Mr Loughner’s hatred of Ms Giffords seems to pre-date Ms Palin’s rise to fame.
Caitie Parker went to school with Mr Loughner, and played in the same band with this ``loner’’ she describes as ``Left-wing, quite liberal’‘.
She claims: ``He was a political radical and met Giffords once before in 07, asked her a question and he told me she was stupid and unintelligent.’‘
So Ms Giffords was shot by a madman with Left-wing notions who disliked her long before Ms Palin hit the scene. Yet Ms Palin is to blame?
Still, are her critics right to deplore the violent rhetoric of political debate in the US today?
Perhaps, although we should be clear there’s no proof this rhetoric affected the deranged Mr Loughner, who is far more likely to have been influenced by violent movies and violent music.
We should also accept that politics is properly a contest of ideas and has long invited the language of war by all sides, which is why I have on my blog not just Palin’s ``crosshair’’ graphic but examples of similar Democratic Party maps with bulls-eyes over Republican candidates.
But does this alleged culture of trash-talk really date from Palin’s rise, and who are the worst offenders?
In fact, no president has been more vilified than the Republican George W. Bush, who was even shown being assassinated in one gloating film.
And guess which president said this: ``If they bring a knife to the fight, we bring a gun’‘?
Whoops, that was Barack Obama - and which of Palin’s critics objected?
Ms Palin herself seems more sinned against than sinning. The kind of commentators now accusing her of a nasty tone are the kind who falsely accused her of calling President Obama ``Sambo’‘, and of only pretending to be the mother of her disabled son to cover for her eldest daughter.
They sat by when TV host David Letterman joked that Palin’s 14-year-old daughter was ``knocked up’’ by a baseballer during a game. They said nothing when Leftist comedian Sandra Bernhard warned Ms Palin she’d be ``gang-raped by my big black brothers’’ if she entered Manhattan.
Now these people demanding a more civilised discourse accuse Ms Palin of inspiring a murder, when all the evidence suggests she’s guiltless.
So Ms Palin’s accusers lie, and so foully that they commit the very hate speech they piously claim to deplore.
Facebook Recommendations
Read all about it
Punch live
Up to the minute Twitter chatter
Greece makes the final and Ireland gets in on a golden ticket. How awkward and embarrassing. Love it. #sbseurovision
The weird thing about #eurovision is you've got this massive collection of dorks in a room and no one is wearing Spock ears #sbseurovision
Europe has the large hadron collider which is light years ahead of its time and #eurovision, where the eighties never die
Recent posts
The latest and greatest
Weekend Punch: Tea or coffee?
This is the week that Craig Thomson defended himself in Parliament, Schapelle Corby got clemency and…
Eurovision can’t drown out the human rights abuses
Last year, thousands of Azerbaijanis spontaneously took to the streets of Baku shouting and chanting.…
Revenge. It doesn’t get a whole lot better than this
Last month, Katy McCaffrey boarded the Disney Wonder cruiseliner. At some point during the trip, a sneaky…
Nosebleed Section
choice ringside rantings
From: They must pay for one’s bitter disappointments
Michael S says:
"A teacher at Geelong Grammar had criticised her for using words that were too long, which had left her confused and had made her doubt her ability to write essays. She became ''quite distressed'' when her English marks began to fall." I can sympathise. My scholastic mentors conveyed to me a causal relationship… [read more]From: Welfare for breeders is a bonus for everyone
Change Up! says:
I have no problem paying my taxes. As a single, childless person on a very decent income, I can afford it and not have my life severely altered. Plus I understand that my taxes paying for things like schools, childcare and infrastructure is ultimately a good thing. A better community is better for me… [read more]Gentle jabs to the ribs
They must pay for one’s bitter disappointments
A private school girl’s family is sueing her elite, extremely expensive private school for not… Read more
Most commented