Punch-Drunk Incitement

I hesitate to write ill of a someone I recently shared a birthday dinner party table with, I'm trying so hard to reform, but this latest column by Charles Blow is bullshit on a platter. "Immediately after the news broke [of the shooting in Tucson], the air became thick with conjecture, speculation and innuendo. There was a giddy, almost punch-drunk excitement on the left." What I recall was recoil, shock, and horror, and the only thing "punch-drunk" was the weary realization that another man with a gun had run amok, racking up a death toll.

I prefer Alexander Cockburn's take at Counterpunch, which begins with Obama's reconciliation speech:



Obama did okay by conventional measures. How could he not? He spent the whole of 2008 campaigning on the theme of reconciliation, and rising-above-our-worser-selves. On Wednesday night you could see him gaining in confidence as he ploughed these familiar furrows. Of course, despite its pretensions to Rise Above Politics and Heal, it was a political speech, since every time he denounced the idea of suggesting that Loughner might have been directly or indirectly incited to his murders, all thoughts rushed to Palin, cross hairs, bullseyes and so forth. Why shouldn?t they? Paranoids, schizophrenics, and people soak up the social vibes and energy currents like blotting paper. I remember the week before Hinckley shot Reagan my phone at the Village Voice never stopped ringing with one person after another confiding their paranoid fears and fantasies.

[snip]

Loughner?s life and mind have been saturated with ?politics?. Unsurprisingly. ?Politics? are the air we breathe. Those who try to evict politics -- ?don?t bring politics into this!? -- are all in the business of Cover-Up. It would have been fitting if one of those raucous students at the Tucson memorial had taken the opportunity during Obama?s final dose of rhetorical treacle about Christina Taylor Green to hold up a photo of an Afghan kid blown apart last week courtesy of one of Obama?s Predator strikes. After all, the President said apropos Christina, ?I want us to live up to her expectations. I want our democracy to be as good as she imagined it. All of us - we should do everything we can to make sure this country lives up to our children's expectations.? You?re murdering children in Afghanistan, Mr Obama. One, two, many, many Christinas. Reform, or clamber in shame off your moral stump.



To Cockburn's last sentiment, Barry Crimmins adds a point of amplification.

Source: http://www.vanityfair.com/online/wolcott/2011/01/punch-drunk-incitement.html

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