Earlier this month, a man opened fire on a public meeting in Arizona killing six people including a nine year old girl and wounding 13 others. One of the 13 wounded was Democratic representative Gabrielle Giffords, who was shot in the head at close range. Fortunately she survived the attack, and is recovering in hospital.
The shooting in Arizona sparked the media, as it naturally would do, to search for answers. One avenue they went down was to look at the political rhetoric some politicians had been spouting in recent months. One such politician was Sarah Palin.
Now, Palin decided to speak out in condemnation against those in the media who pointed the finger at people such as herself. Which is fair enough, that’s her right and if she wants to do that then that’s fine and I don’t have a problem with her doing it. What I do have a problem with is the timing of her message. Just before President Obama was due to speak at the memorial service in Arizona.
She is just so disrespectful to those who lost their lives in the shooting and the President, and to the wounded and to the entire state of Arizona. Why does she feel that she can jump in and hijack not just the President’s speech, but the entire memorial?
In the end Palin’s message eclipsed the actual memorial speech done by Obama, simply because the media love pointless scandal. And you don’t get much more pointless than Sarah Palin.
In her message she described the media’s finger pointing as a ‘blood libel’. She said that it was wrong of them to suggest that political rhetoric was to blame for the shootings that took place.
Now, first of all I’m not sure blood libel is the best choice of words for her to be using. In fact I very much doubt she actually knows the meaning of it at all. In essence it is a term used to justify hatred and violence against Jews. Blood libel is a term from the middle ages when Jews were falsely accused of ritualistic murder, in particular the murder of children. Now, what does that have to do with Sarah Palin? Nope, I don’t know either.
She must have thought it had a different meaning, there’s no way someone knowingly used that term. I hope that’s the answer, but something tells me it’s not. Something tells me she is comparing herself to the persecution of Jews. Oh please, say it ain’t so. As if I couldn’t dislike the woman any more than I already do.
Anyway, is she right to condemn the media for having their opinion? Well put simply she doesn’t really have much of a leg to stand on in this argument. All the media have done is pointed at things that she’s said in the past year or so that could be linked to the shooting. And as much as I generally disagree with most of the mainstream media in the States I’d have to say they were right to question it. She posted a picture of crosshairs on Democratic districts for crying out loud!
Whether she has incited this violence or not is debateable, but she certainly hasn’t helped matters. Let’s just take a look at one of Mama Grizzly’s tweets:
“Commonsense Conservatives & lovers of America: "Don't Retreat, Instead - RELOAD!”
Hm yes, Sarah: You’re not helping!
Personally I don’t think there’s much in it, it’s nothing new really, we've seen much worse and I don’t think the shootings had anything to do with rhetoric from anyone. It’s simply a man who unfortunately acted the way he did for reasons that probably wont ever be made known.
However, if you’re in the deranged state of mind like the accused was, then seeing rhetoric such as Palin’s wont exactly help matters. But that’s another thing that annoys me. Everytime something like this happens the accused is labelled a loner. Every-freaking-time. Surely there must be more to them that that? All this does is make people fear what they do not know. I know a woman on my road who is very rarely seen and doesn’t really mix with everyone else on the street. Well, it’s obvious then: she’s a serial killer out to get us all! I am sick to death of seeing interviews with people who lived near the accused calling them a loner, commentators calling them a loner, reporters calling them a loner, politicians calling them a loner. Stop alienating people further. It’s as if you enjoy doing it!
Obama is doing his level best to create a calm democratic society over in the States, which is always difficult to do when Republicans are out of power, and whenever Palin comes out with some rubbish he must get that phone call he dreads every day telling him what she’s done now, like a father does when his unruly twelve year old takes the school janitor’s keys and barricades himself in the cafeteria armed with a brush handle and paper scissors.
Palin is quite happy to use the media to promote herself and of course her books, but she doesn’t like it when the media says something less than flattering about her. If it was up to her the only news would be FOX News, because they’re quite nice to her. What more can I say about her? She just tweets that’s just the way she rolls. If only we could just scare her away with a bear horn.
Obama really could have laid into Palin if he had wanted to, but I think he has to be admired for not taking up that opportunity. I think he put it best in his speech when he said:
“At a time when our discourse has become so sharply polarised - at a time when we are far too eager to lay the blame for all that ails the world at the feet of those who think differently than we do - it's important for us to pause for a moment and make sure that we are talking with each other in a way that heals, not a way that wounds.”
In other words: My twelve year old is a good kid, now please just come out of the cafeteria honey.
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