The Roots drag Jimmy Fallon's show down into the depths

I happened to turn on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon last night and was surprised to see Michele Bachmann as a guest.  And they seemed to be having a good, friendly conversation; it was enjoyable to watch.

That was before I learned about the message that Mr. Fallon's house band, The Roots (yes, I know they're famous for more than just being his house band, but that is what they are in regard to the show) sent with their intro music.  As most people who watch late night television know, guests occasionally are greeted by the band with some sort of fitting music.  Usually, it's pretty funny.

But it is certainly not funny to greet Michele Bachmann (or, really, anybody) with Fishbone's "Lyin' A** B****".  (No, the real title does not have any asterisks in it)



Tasteless.  Classless.  I would not condone this type of behavior toward anyone.

And this was not a random occurrence.  No, it was planned, per the tweet of Questlove of The Roots (and yes, this tweet was sent before Ms. Bachmann appeared):

Since this has come out (apparently most of the people I follow on Twitter aren't familiar with songs like this one, and neither am I), reaction has been swift on conservative fronts, at least.  For example, Dana Loesch wrote, "I can’t wait for the day when progressive males can evolve to a higher intellectual level and debate conservative women on facts, not on sex."  She then compared this incident (which, from what I have seen, has generated no reaction whatsoever from the MSM) with all the hand-wringing over the booing of Michelle Obama at a NASCAR event.  Which is worse, booing someone or calling someone a bitch, really?

And Glenn Beck, for all his over-the-top antics, hit it on the head in his calling for Mr. Fallon to fire his band.  Video courtesy The Right Scoop:



Do you think any other conservatives would want to be a "guest" on a show in which the band is going to be flat-out hateful?  I don't.

And what does Jimmy Fallon have to say about this:  not much.

I'm sorry, but I think there needs to be more said.  An apology during tonight's monologue would be a good start.  But only a start.  It's time for a message to be sent that this type of behavior is not going to be blindly accepted anymore.

Another day, another celeb taking a cheap shot at Sarah Palin

I have a theory that goes something like this:  a fading celebrity, in a desperate attempt to get some attention and thereby jump-start a flagging career, will get just the attention they are craving by saying something outrageous and totally over-the-top and, of course, insulting to some conservative or another.  In the past three years the conservative target has, more often than not by my observation, been Sarah Palin.  And that makes sense; after all, Sarah Palin has been the most prominent voice speaking out against the largesse of government for the past three years, even if she isn't a presidential candidate.

In the past, celebs such as Ashley Judd have singled out Governor Palin for abuse and scorn, and in most cases, those celebs have been rewarded with several days of attention because of it.  This blog has certainly not helped in that respect, what with its "useless celebrity" label, possibly best exemplified by this post from February 2009.

This week has offered yet another piece of evidence that my theory is correct, as another actor offered liberals advice consisting of "kill Sarah Palin".  At this point, naming the actor, who, honestly, I don't think I've seen in anything since about 2002, would be rewarding him for his abhorrent behavior, and I don't think it's worth my time to do much more of that.  (I linked the story on Twitter this morning, so you can go search through my ~150-200 tweets from this day if you're that interested.)  Seriously, the guy has half the followers that I do, so what other reason would he tweet such slime?  Because of this, he has gotten a bunch of conservatives to start Twitter conversations with him, and he's probably gotten more press today than he has since he advertised a second-rate soft drink (was that even during this century?).

And so I am done with this story.  It's not worth it for me to say more about it, as all it will do is give the would-be celeb the attention he apparently desperately misses...which, per my theory, was exactly the reason that he said what he said.  Plus, it would probably inspire more of this nastiness.

A few questions for President Obama's Austin visit

Everyone who has paid attention to the news the past few days knows that President Obama will visit Austin tomorrow (that's Tuesday, for those reading this after midnight, or much, much later, for those reading after the fact).  Here are a few relevant (or not so much) questions for this occasion.

To evening rush-hour commuters:  Got an alternate commute?  The rolling roadblock will be blocking all traffic wherever the president is going.  That includes a trip right in the middle of the 5:00 hour from the airport to the ACL Live theater on 2nd Street, and then a later trip to some undisclosed location west of Lake Austin before returning to the airport.  (Just a reminder:  thanks to geography and really poor planning, there is absolutely no direct route from 2nd Street to west of Lake Austin.  Hey--maybe the motorcade will be going right through your neighborhood!)  Perhaps you might consider leaving early or staying really late.

From the governor, and others who are like-minded on this, to the Obama administration:  Where is the disaster declaration for the areas affected by wildfire?  Are you really so petty as to deny Texas any help because people from Texas have bad-mouthed the Obama policies, as was insinuated by an anonymous Democrat legislator?  Because if you are doing that for that reason, then you truly are as thin-skinned as has been said pretty much every day on Twitter and elsewhere.

(To the person at McClatchy who entitled the article linked in the last paragraph "Grumpy Republicans await Obama in visit to Texas":  did you ever state that the Democrats who hated George W. Bush as much as, or more than, some on my side hate President Obama were "grumpy"?  Didn't think so.)

For those, such as Republic of Austin's Chris Apollo Lynn, who appear to think that those opposed to President Obama's policies are just "grouchy Republicans", "illiterate white hicks", etc.:  Really?  I'd invite you to get to know some of those people (like, say, myself), but you appear to have your mind made up, based on your warning to avoid areas where there might be protesters "[i]f you don't want to get teabagged".

To those, such as Mr. Lynn, who still use the phrase "teabagged":  it was a worn-out phrase two years ago.  Sorry, I guess that's not a question.

And, to the best of my knowledge, the only real question President Obama will be asking on this quick trip:  Cash, check or credit card?  Enjoy yourselves, donors.

Lesson for this week: Don't mess with Trig

Yesterday I mentioned, in the midst of a rant about haters hating, a post at a site called Wonkette (no link this time) about Trig Palin.  The past 24-or-so hours since attention was focused on this post has shown me several things.

Before I get into that, I will clarify, without being asked, that I posted the picture of the author, Jack Stuef, not to make fun of how he looks (though others have done just that in the past 24 hours, and while I don't rate that as being as bad as making fun of a defenseless 3-year-old Down Syndrome child, it's still not a good thing to insult how someone looks) but to highlight that this was the picture he himself chose for his Twitter account.  This is just my perception filter talking here, I suppose, but he looked angry in that picture.  I don't know if he is an angry person in general, but his picture looks that way to me.  And that angry look, to me, seems to fit in with the hate-filled writing he inflicted upon the world this week.  (Per Legal Insurrection, this is not the first time he has gone after Trig Palin using a form of the word "retarded".)

Okay, with that done, let's get back to what I've seen in the past day.

I saw things start on Twitter with just a few comments.  The first person I saw really calling attention to Wonkette's scummy post was Big Hollywood's John Nolte, whose Twitter handle is confusing at first glance.  After he pointed to the post, Wonkette got the unintended benefit of the most traffic it's seen in two months (which is one reason why I'm not linking them again), but it also got a lot more people riled up.  Very quickly, some people started tweeting the advertisers, and also very quickly, several advertisers pulled their advertising from Wonkette.

This was when I saw the other phenomenon of yesterday.  On seeing the first advertiser, Papa John's, pulling its ads, Wonkette tweeted the following:

(Yes, the editing is mine.  I'm sure you can guess what the word was, but that doesn't mean I feel the need to print it on my blog.  You want to print it?  Start your own blog.)

It should be noted that there were several other tweets directed at Papa John's trying to explain that Wonkette was satirizing Sarah Palin's use of Trig as a "prop" (again per Legal Insurrection, that seems to be a common theme at Wonkette).  Because, you know, that completely excuses insinuating that Trig was the product of incest and saying he doesn't dream because he's "retarded".

So, as can be seen, the powers that be at Wonkette apparently do not feel any need for things like personal growth or responsibility.  All that could be managed was throwing the author, Jack Stuef, under the bus, as seen in this Daily Caller piece:

However, later on in the day, Layne told Adweek, “Jack [Stuef] has been admonished and put on night probation until further notice. Anything involving Palin, I want to make it extra clear that *Palin* is the problem with America. Not her kids. Not her little kid, anyway.”

Layne also sarcastically noted that giving Stuef comment deletion duties was fair punishment because “he gets to read all the Palin fans’ insane unmoderated comments calling him an a*****e [editing mine] and threatening to kill him.”

Well, that makes everything okay, doesn't it?  Um, no.  Wonkette is still way off base here.  And apparently they realize it...in the midst of the multiple companies pulling ads from their site, Wonkette pulled the piece off their website.  Can you say "too little, too late"?  Caches exist of the post, y'all, as well as all the incredibly hateful comments that you deleted last night before you took the whole thing offline.  This won't go away that easily.

But I won't end with the sorry half of the story.  People from both sides of the political aisle have denounced Wonkette's sorry excuse for a post in the past day, renewing a little of my faith in humanity.  (Matt Lewis even compiled a list of "principled liberals" slamming Wonkette for going after Trig.)

But the two best responses that I've seen today have come in the form of two open letters.  The first, by K.J. Adan, is entitled "An Open Letter to Jack Stuef" and relates a touching family history of her having a brother with Down Syndrome, in the hopes that Mr. Stuef will "be remembered as the guy who bothered to learn about Down Syndrome and redeemed himself by helping others to do the same."  Since I can't really summarize it or take one paragraph by itself, the whole letter should be read by everyone.

The second was Lisa Graas's "Letter to Sarah Palin", which is best summarized by the following:  "What I offer to you today is the consolation of Christ, that when the serpents bite, that you gaze upon the Cross. Look to Him, not at them."

(Picture of someone viciously attacked on a left-wing website this week, along with his mother.  Picture courtesy LisaGraas.com, used under "fair use" clause.)

Given what I've seen today, I hope this is the last I ever mention Wonkette, but I hope to have much more to say about people standing up for what they believe to be right.

In which some nasty hate-filled writers are called out

In a recent treatise on my dealings with burnout with regard to blogging, I asked whether my continuing to write was worth it.  I think I have a new answer to that question.  My writing is definitely worth it, if only to counterbalance some other people's attempts at writing.  There are some people out there who seem to be filled with hatred, which seems to cause them to write some of the nastiest things I've seen in a while.

And what appears to be the common thread tying many of these writings together?  Trig Paxson Van Palin.  Yes, the youngest child of Todd and Sarah Palin, who infuriates many "progressives" simply by existing, it seems.

Some of them, not having any writing talents (as if I have any room to talk there...) use the rather pedestrian tactic of making fun of his name.  Now, it's obvious to most people in America that Todd and Sarah used rather, well, unorthodox names for their children, but so what?  I've lost count of the number of times I've heard their precious little boy referred to as "Twig".  Seriously, that's incredibly lame.

(But Snowed, your side makes fun of Obama's name!  Do I?  Have I?  Ever?  I don't think so.)

And then, of course, there are the people who are bent on finding some long-lost proof that Trig is not Sarah's son (spoken about previously in this blog here, so now I don't have to mention a certain former editor of The Atlantic).  Most recently, this mantle has been taken up by some professor at Northern Kentucky University named Brad Scharlott.  This guy, fueled, it seems, by a few Palin-hating blogs in Alaska read by about the same number of people as read mine, has tried to beat the dead horse of Trig Palin's parentage using the same old thought that Bristol Palin must have been Trig's real mother, even though she had a child of her own just over eight months later.  John at Verum Serum gives this idea all the attention it deserves:

The fatal flaw with this theory is that back on September 1, 2008 Bristol Palin was announced to be five months pregnant with a baby who would eventually be known as Tripp Palin. Tripp was born December 28th. Even liberal bloggers noticed that it would be difficult for any woman to give birth to Trig on April 18th and then give birth again on December 28th. How does Dr. Brad Scharlott explain this problem away:

The validity of the logic that Bristol could not have been Trig’s mother depended on two unsupported suppositions – first, that Bristol was indeed five months pregnant at the convention,and second, that Trig was in fact born on April 18. Concerning Trig’s date of birth, the Mat-Su hospital will not confirm whether Trig was born there, let alone when. (Blogger Andrew Sullivan called the hospital and was told there would be no comment regarding Trig Palin.) And no evidence was offered concerning Bristol’s stage of pregnancy. Thus, if Trig was born, say, in January, and if Bristol was only four months pregnant at the convention, not five as alleged, then the logic of the argument that she could not be Trig’s mother falls apart.

So there are two “unsupported suppositions” at work here. Let’s look at those. First, was Bristol really five months pregnant in September 2008? Well, we know she gave birth on December 28th to a health baby which many press outlets reported weighed over 7 lbs. Babies this size are not born at six or seven months of pregnancy, only at term or very close to term.

John goes on, showing photos of proud grandparents, Chuck and Sally Heath, holding what appears to be a newborn Trig on April 18 (for that matter, even People Magazine had, and still has, a birth announcement page for Trig, and that page very clearly was created on April 18, 2008) , so one would think that Dr. Scharlott would give up at this point, but no, he responded:

I am going to revise paper and explicitly say I am not pushing her as the mother. I don’t know who is.

If there was a hoax, ANYTHING is possible.

John entitled his post "Spiral of Stupid", which appears to sum it up nicely.  (Now, for those concerned about my tone, I'm not saying Dr. Scharlott is stupid.  His theory, however, seems to fit the bill.  Honestly, who ever said there are no stupid questions was just wrong.)

(Just a reminder:  this isn't even the worst of it for this week.  That comes later.)

"Uffda" at Barbaric Thoughts had a few things to say about the esteemed Dr. Scharlott as well:

This is what he teaches:

Dr. Scharlott has taught in Journalism at NKU since 1991. He teaches journalism and mass communication courses.

His research focus is on the relationship between communication technology and society. Additionally, he serves the department by coordinating the journalism department and directing the journalism lab…

Dr. Scharlott has been teaching here at NKU since 1994 and teaches courses such as photojournalism, research methods and news writing.

And this is where he found his info and who he was in contact with. And I assume he trolled the other Palin-hating, Trig-truthing blogs populated by losers with pea-sized brains as well.

This guy teaches other people about journalism and journalistic research. Murrow is spinning in his grave.

He goes on to take aim at all the other rumors about Sarah Palin, pointing out that there are also a lot of rumors about President Obama, yet no one takes those seriously, so why are the Palin rumors given any credence whatsoever?

Oh, I remember, it's because it's Sarah Palin, she who must be destroyed.

(Sidenote:  I take no responsibility for Uffda's comments about "pea-sized brains".  I do not presume to speak to that point, but I will yet again point out that they certainly do have a lot of hatred seething inside them.)

But what really crossed the line this week was a beyond-the-pale post at Wonkette titled "Greatest Living American: A Children’s Treasury of Trig Crap On His Birthday" by some guy named Jack Stuef.

This is Jack Stuef:

As to what Mr. Stuef presents in his piece:  before a single word appears, he starts with a sexually explicit picture as part of a collage in which Trig Palin appears.  The words aren't much better:

Today is the day we come together to celebrate the snowbilly grifter’s magical journey from Texas to Alaska to deliver to the America the great gentleman scholar Trig Palin. Is Palin his true mother? Or was Bristol? (And why is it that nobody questions who the father is? Because, either way, Todd definitely did it.) 

Believe it or not, it gets worse:

What’s he dreaming about? Nothing. He’s retarded. 

Yes, that is an exact quote.  (There was previously a link in that quote, to a video by a known Palin-hater claiming that Sarah Palin regularly used that word to describe her own son.  I took it out because this discussion is already pretty lousy without adding another unsubstantiated, probably untrue, rumor into the mix.)

So, why should I write?  Because I have to be better at it than some of these haters are.

Snowed In vs. Burnout

I suppose I owe the few regular readers I have (who usually say things like "you write Snowed In?" when they see me in person...hopefully they continue to visit after that, but who knows) an explanation for the incredible slowdown in posting frequency in recent months.  In addition to the decisions that weighed on the Snowed family, 2011 has given me pause to think about things, and as most people know, thinking and blogging don't always go hand-in-hand.  At least not around this blog.

See, 2011 started in the worst way possible.  Ten minutes into the new year, I learned that one of my best friends from high school* passed away very unexpectedly.  He was a good friend in days when good friends were hard to come by.  We still tried to get together with my friend every time we visited the old country.**

My friend had had a really, really lousy 2010.  His marriage was in the process of ending non-amicably, and his sister had died unexpectedly in almost the same manner in which he would die several months later.  We tried to reach out to him the one time we visited the old country last year, but we never could get hold of him.  I guess when one is going through hell, one does not always want company.

Anyway, my friend's death put things in perspective for me.  It reminded me that we really aren't promised a tomorrow, at least in this life.  And it made me think about how much time I spend in front of a computer when I could be spending it with family and/or friends.***  Is staying up late writing blog entries that are read by as many as ten people in a day really worth it?  Is tweeting?

And then, a few days later, Gabby Giffords and a bunch of other people were shot, and a dialogue started calling for a "new tone".  Or so we thought at the time.  In one of my very few blog postings in 2011, I wrote about that here.  And so, between the death of my friend and this, I have been asking myself quite often if spreading my cynicism around the interwebs is the best use of my time.  (Given that I am writing this portion of the entry at 11:00pm, the answer to that question, at this exact moment, is definitely no.)

And since then, I've watched as people have thrown the "new tone" right out the window, be they Republicans, Democrats, Libertarians****, or whatever.  Meanwhile, I've kept to tweeting, and determining whether I've embraced any new tone myself is an exercise to the reader, and good luck to you, as I'm about to hit 20,000 tweets (and possibly as many as four of them were really meaningful).  I'd like to think that I'm not perpetuating any hatred toward those with whom I am politically opposed; if nothing else, I'm definitely self-censoring myself a lot more.

But I have gotten a better idea of what the teacher meant when he said not to cast one's pearls before swine.  I made the mistake of assuming that the Twitter bio of someone with whom I was unfamiliar, when it read "church-goer", meant that he might respond positively to a scriptural reference...see, he was raining all sorts of hatred on a couple of people with whom I was familiar because they're in my twitstream.  And, as a "church-goer", that made him my brother, right?  Scripture says "if your brother sins, rebuke him", and so I pointed out, quite gently IMO, that "church-goers", aka Christians, are not to hate their enemies.  And what did I get for this?  I was told, by the aforementioned "church-goer", that I am going to hell, where, he hopes, I will be sodomized for all eternity by Rush Limbaugh.  (The actual quote is much, much rougher, and will not be repeated here.)  Where that expectoration of bile that he wrote came from, I have no idea, but it certainly made me wonder even further what the point is of even trying to have a political conversation with other people.  Is it worth it to tweet or blog political ideas?  Does anyone really want to hear what I think, or is everyone looking for their own personal echo chamber?  I don't really know anymore.

(No, I'm not giving this guy a link; why would you even ask?)

For those who've been around here for a little while, you might have seen the first seeds of this line of thought in entries here, here, and here, in which a former friend flushed a friendship with me over political differences.  (As of this writing, that friend has never responded to me, though I changed my privacy settings on those entries so that the friend would see them when I posted them on Facebook.  I no longer expect to hear from that person.  Ever.)

I could go on about the unending antipathy toward all things conservative in some Austin publications and/or websites, or the continuing use of certain disparaging terms to describe Tea Party members, or the aforementioned decisions affecting the future of the Snowed family, or whatever, but I won't today.  Regardless, it all adds up to the question:  is writing still worth it?

I don't know that that question has a simple answer.  I suppose it's cathartic in some sense for me, but catharsis does not necessarily make for an A-list blog.  (For those asking, I believe my blog is somewhere around V.)  I do believe that I have, at times, put more priority on writing than on things than I should; there are many more important things that should take a higher priority.  (Like, say, sleep.)  I'd still like to post the occasional blog entry, but I can't guarantee that I will be able to post in as timely a manner as...well, actually, from looking back over the history of this blog, timeliness has almost never been a trait found around here.  I guess that's not change...that's more of the same.

So no real answers, just more questions here.  And, in a repeat of my last post, a request for prayers for wisdom.  For all of us.

Good night, one and all.

* No, gentle readers, I'm not still in high school, though the mentality seen in a few posts here might fit in well there.

** "Old country" should be read as "the place where I used to live which is not going to be named here".   

*** This is not to say that I don't have online friends as well, but honestly, family takes precedence. 

**** Had to include them because there is one person in my twitstream who definitely has libertarian leanings who has what can only be termed an unhealthy obesssion with one Sarah Palin.  Ooh, she ran a yellow light?  That's worth at least seven tweets and a 13-paragraph post!

Sarah Palin responds to accusations of being an accessory to murder

Sarah Palin released a video this morning responding to the trajectory this country and its political talking points have taken since the Tucson massacre of 8 January:


Sarah Palin: "America's Enduring Strength" from Sarah Palin on Vimeo.

The transcript for this video, in case it disappears again (it was gone briefly due to a technical hitch), follows (courtesy Sarah Palin's Facebook page):

Like millions of Americans I learned of the tragic events in Arizona on Saturday, and my heart broke for the innocent victims. No words can fill the hole left by the death of an innocent, but we do mourn for the victims’ families as we express our sympathy.

I agree with the sentiments shared yesterday at the beautiful Catholic mass held in honor of the victims. The mass will hopefully help begin a healing process for the families touched by this tragedy and for our country.

Our exceptional nation, so vibrant with ideas and the passionate exchange and debate of ideas, is a light to the rest of the world. Congresswoman Giffords and her constituents were exercising their right to exchange ideas that day, to celebrate our Republic’s core values and peacefully assemble to petition our government. It’s inexcusable and incomprehensible why a single evil man took the lives of peaceful citizens that day.

There is a bittersweet irony that the strength of the American spirit shines brightest in times of tragedy. We saw that in Arizona. We saw the tenacity of those clinging to life, the compassion of those who kept the victims alive, and the heroism of those who overpowered a deranged gunman.

Like many, I’ve spent the past few days reflecting on what happened and praying for guidance. After this shocking tragedy, I listened at first puzzled, then with concern, and now with sadness, to the irresponsible statements from people attempting to apportion blame for this terrible event.

President Reagan said, “We must reject the idea that every time a law’s broken, society is guilty rather than the lawbreaker. It is time to restore the American precept that each individual is accountable for his actions.” Acts of monstrous criminality stand on their own. They begin and end with the criminals who commit them, not collectively with all the citizens of a state, not with those who listen to talk radio, not with maps of swing districts used by both sides of the aisle, not with law-abiding citizens who respectfully exercise their First Amendment rights at campaign rallies, not with those who proudly voted in the last election.

The last election was all about taking responsibility for our country’s future. President Obama and I may not agree on everything, but I know he would join me in affirming the health of our democratic process. Two years ago his party was victorious. Last November, the other party won. In both elections the will of the American people was heard, and the peaceful transition of power proved yet again the enduring strength of our Republic.

Vigorous and spirited public debates during elections are among our most cherished traditions. And after the election, we shake hands and get back to work, and often both sides find common ground back in D.C. and elsewhere. If you don’t like a person’s vision for the country, you’re free to debate that vision. If you don’t like their ideas, you’re free to propose better ideas. But, especially within hours of a tragedy unfolding, journalists and pundits should not manufacture a blood libel that serves only to incite the very hatred and violence they purport to condemn. That is reprehensible.

There are those who claim political rhetoric is to blame for the despicable act of this deranged, apparently apolitical criminal. And they claim political debate has somehow gotten more heated just recently. But when was it less heated? Back in those “calm days” when political figures literally settled their differences with dueling pistols? In an ideal world all discourse would be civil and all disagreements cordial. But our Founding Fathers knew they weren’t designing a system for perfect men and women. If men and women were angels, there would be no need for government. Our Founders’ genius was to design a system that helped settle the inevitable conflicts caused by our imperfect passions in civil ways. So, we must condemn violence if our Republic is to endure.

As I said while campaigning for others last March in Arizona during a very heated primary race, “We know violence isn’t the answer. When we ‘take up our arms’, we’re talking about our vote.” Yes, our debates are full of passion, but we settle our political differences respectfully at the ballot box – as we did just two months ago, and as our Republic enables us to do again in the next election, and the next. That’s who we are as Americans and how we were meant to be. Public discourse and debate isn’t a sign of crisis, but of our enduring strength. It is part of why America is exceptional.

No one should be deterred from speaking up and speaking out in peaceful dissent, and we certainly must not be deterred by those who embrace evil and call it good. And we will not be stopped from celebrating the greatness of our country and our foundational freedoms by those who mock its greatness by being intolerant of differing opinion and seeking to muzzle dissent with shrill cries of imagined insults.

Just days before she was shot, Congresswoman Giffords read the First Amendment on the floor of the House. It was a beautiful moment and more than simply “symbolic,” as some claim, to have the Constitution read by our Congress. I am confident she knew that reading our sacred charter of liberty was more than just “symbolic.” But less than a week after Congresswoman Giffords reaffirmed our protected freedoms, another member of Congress announced that he would propose a law that would criminalize speech he found offensive.

It is in the hour when our values are challenged that we must remain resolved to protect those values. Recall how the events of 9-11 challenged our values and we had to fight the tendency to trade our freedoms for perceived security. And so it is today.

Let us honor those precious lives cut short in Tucson by praying for them and their families and by cherishing their memories. Let us pray for the full recovery of the wounded. And let us pray for our country. In times like this we need God’s guidance and the peace He provides. We need strength to not let the random acts of a criminal turn us against ourselves, or weaken our solid foundation, or provide a pretext to stifle debate.

America must be stronger than the evil we saw displayed last week. We are better than the mindless finger-pointing we endured in the wake of the tragedy. We will come out of this stronger and more united in our desire to peacefully engage in the great debates of our time, to respectfully embrace our differences in a positive manner, and to unite in the knowledge that, though our ideas may be different, we must all strive for a better future for our country. May God bless America.

- Sarah Palin

Already people are jumping on Gov. Palin's use of the term "blood libel".  But, as was pointed out first to me by Melissa Clouthier, the term was used first by Glenn Reynolds in an op-ed for The Wall Street Journal two days ago.  Where was the outcry then?  Oh, wait, it wasn't Sarah Palin saying it then.  But is the term accurate, regardless of who used it?  Some people think so:

Falsely accusing someone of shedding blood is a blood libel – whether it’s the medieval Church accusing Jews of baking blood in Passover matzos, or contemporary Muslim extremists accusing Israel of slaughtering Arabs to harvest their organs, or political partisans blaming conservative political figures and talk show hosts for the Tucson massacre.

And who were these people?  Why, they're the Jewish Americans for Sarah Palin.  I do believe the Jews know a little something about blood libel.

So, that point aside, how was Gov. Palin's speech?  I thought it was well-written and right for this political climate.  Hopefully people will take it to heart.

The Arizona tragedy: the good and the bad responses

There was a lot of good in the responses I have seen to Saturday's Arizona massacre.  Obviously, there was Daniel Hernandez, the intern who rushed to the side of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords; I have read that his actions saved her life, and they were obviously heroic.  Also praiseworthy is the group that is organizing to form a blockade against the haters from Westboro Baptist Church (a church whose actions disgust me and many other Christians...how is any form of hate showing the love of Christ?), who are planning to protest at the funeral of 9-year-old Christina Green.  The moment of silence held today by people from both political parties was a good gesture, as have been all the prayers for the victims and the families.

Unfortunately, the good that can come out of the worst of events is overshadowed so much by the pettiness, sniping, and politicizing to a level I don't remember seeing in recent memory.  Almost immediately there were people pointing fingers at the usual suspects, the foremost of whom, of course, was Sarah Palin.  See, her PAC (political action group, for the uninitiated) targeted 20 House districts which voted for McCain-Palin but were held by Democrats.  (The original Facebook post is here, and the comments are going nuts.)  The symbol over each of these districts appears to be cross hairs.  One of those districts belongs to Rep. Giffords.  And so, obviously, by some leap of logic that escapes me, Sarah Palin was responsible for the shootings in Tucson. 

Jim Treacher at the Daily Caller has correlated several people all jumping to the same Palin-is-responsible conclusion here.  As Mr. Treacher says, "it was only a matter of minutes before blame for the incident could be assigned."  And assigned it was, all to the same people.  (And a lot of other people seem to be looking for a roadmap to that same conclusion, including several people who have found this entry on my blog while searching for some variant of "palin incendiary comments".)

But is that really the way to handle this tragedy?  First of all, there is no evidence that the assailant, Jared Lee Loughner, paid much attention to Sarah Palin at all.  Second, thanks to the rush to judgment by the people mentioned in Mr. Treacher's article, there was a counter-push of conservatives and Tea Partiers which can be summarized as "Oh, yeah?  Well, you hate worse!"  And they have a point.  Michelle Malkin compiled what appears to be a master list of liberal hatred toward conservatives, starting with a lot of hatred toward Sarah Palin and George W. Bush and moving toward topic-specific hatred.  (Because of such hatred, this link is NSFW.)

Oh, and third, Neal Boortz reports that Gov. Palin's office is saying the symbols weren't even cross hairs anyway; they were surveyor's marks.  And so Mr. Boortz links to a PDF from the U.S. Geological Survey which uses a very familiar symbol for a "principal point".  (Of course, then Mr. Boortz shows maps from the Democrats showing targets.  Not something that looks like cross hairs--actual targets.  But then, maybe they were just organizing against Walmart.)  There's more on the whole targeting of blame toward Sarah Palin and other like-minded people from Mr. Boortz here.

And fourth?  Sarah Palin weighed in on this herself, in an e-mail to Glenn Beck, as reported by The Right Scoop.  As read by Mr. Beck, Sarah Palin wrote the following:

I hate violence. I hate war. Our children will not have peace if politicos just capitalize on this to succeed in portraying anyone as inciting terror and violence. Thanks for all you do to send the message of truth and love and God as the answer. -Sarah

Yeah, she's a real purveyor of hatred, isn't she?

So how do I respond to all the sniping right now?  Do I spend several more paragraphs focusing on a Democrat who called for the Republican candidate for the governorship of Florida to be shot?  Do I wax poetic at the absurdity of those who started a petition (signed by 3910 people at this writing) for Sarah Palin to be indicted for the Tucson massacre?  Do I point out, as multiple people linked already have done, that no less than Barack Obama said, "If they bring a knife to the fight, we bring a gun"?

Is this discussion even worth it anymore?  Or does the discussion of political ideas need to be changed one person at a time, starting with me?  Starting with you?

The change to political discussion, at least for me, has to come as part of a greater transformation.  I today read this post from Scot McKnight, in which he reminded me that "[t]he problem is that human beings are cracked," and in which he said:

But the problem, Mr and Mrs Pundit, is not the Right or the Left. The problem is You and Me. Let’s quit the blame and look inside.

And so my response to the Tucson massacre, as well as to another issue about which I intend to write ASAP (because my most faithful reader asked why I haven't blogged lately), is to remind myself that there are things that I need to change.  I don't think I've demonized political opposites before, but I will redouble efforts not to do so. (No, I'm not swearing off snark.  There's always a place for well-used snark.  But snark must take a back seat to civility when the two don't jibe.) 

So, who wants to join me on this journey?  You, gentle reader, must decide if you want to continue to spew hatred at Barack Obama, Sarah Palin, Glenn Beck, or whoever.  But for me, it's time for this road to end.