Editore"s Note
Tilting at Windmills

Email Newsletter icon, E-mail Newsletter icon, Email List icon, E-mail List icon Sign up for Free News & Updates

January 11, 2011

A TRIP DOWN MEMORY LANE WITH NEWT GINGRICH.... As tempting as it is to simply ignore the odd tirades of the disgraced former House Speaker, this latest gem from Newt Gingrich strikes me as special.

The former speaker of the House and possible 2012 presidential hopeful said Monday that some people on the left jumped too quickly to conclusions about accused gunman Jared Lee Loughner.

"[P]eople who would immediately scream about ethnic profiling, people who on the left have every possible incentive to never allow anyone to draw conclusions, suddenly say things that are just factually untrue," Gingrich said on Chicago's WLS radio station.

"There's no evidence that I know of that this person was anything except nuts," he said, later adding, "This person was apparently by any reasonable standard deranged."

If anything, Gingrich hinted, Loughner might be left-leaning.

Putting aside the madman's incoherent ideology, it's fascinating to see Gingrich chastise those who would dare rush to "draw conclusions" in the wake of a tragedy, making claims that are "factually untrue."

Indeed, let's take a quick stroll down memory lane ol' Newt.

In 1994, just a few days before the midterm elections, a deranged woman named Susan Smith drowned her two young sons. Gingrich, at the time, made infanticide a campaign issue and publicly equated Smith's murders with the values of the Democratic Party. Gingrich told the AP, "The mother killing her two children in South Carolina vividly reminds every American how sick the society is getting and how much we have to have change. I think people want to change and the only way you get change is to vote Republican."

Five years later, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold killed 13 people at Columbine High School. Gingrich insisted that American "elites" bore responsibility for the massacre. "I want to say to the elite of this country -- the elite news media, the liberal academic elite, the liberal political elite: I accuse you in Littleton ... of being afraid to talk about the mess you have made," Gingrich said, "and being afraid to take responsibility for things you have done, and instead foisting upon the rest of us pathetic banalities because you don't have the courage to look at the world you have created."

In 2007, Seung-Hui Cho shot and killed 32 people at Virginia Tech. In response, Gingrich blamed liberals for supporting "situation ethics," adding, "Yes, I think the fact is, if you look at the amount of violence we have in games that young people play at 7, 8, 10, 12, 15 years of age, if you look at the dehumanization, if you look at the fact that we refuse to say that we are, in fact, endowed by our creator, that our rights come from God, that if you kill somebody, you're committing an act of evil." Gingrich, explaining the VT tragedy, went on to condemn Halloween costumes and the McCain-Feingold campaign-finance law.

Sure, Newt, tell us again how awful it is for political figures to rush to "draw conclusions" in the wake of a tragedy.

Steve Benen 8:35 AM Permalink | Trackbacks | Comments (2)

Bookmark and Share

PARALLELS TO 1995.... President Obama will travel to Tucson tomorrow to attend a memorial service for the victims of Saturday's massacre. He will also visit with families, and is expected to deliver some remarks about what transpired.

As these developments unfold, we can expect to see one reference point repeated quite a bit: Oklahoma City.

In general, I tend to roll my eyes when the media draws hackneyed historical parallels for presidential challenges. Last year, for example, the BP oil spill was not "Obama's Katrina," but news outlets couldn't seem to help themselves.

And this week, the chosen parallel is the terrorist attack on the Murrah Federal Building in 1995. Howard Fineman emphasized the connection yesterday, highlighting the effect it had on Bill Clinton's presidency, and the lead story for most of the day yesterday on Politico had this headline: "Barack Obama's Oklahoma City moment."

While I continue to think this constant drive to compare circumstances to previous circumstances is misplaced, this one isn't wrong. The differences matter, of course. Timothy McVeigh was a monster with a defined ideological axe to grind; Jared Lee Loughner appears to be a schizophrenic with a tenuous connection to reality. The scope of the violence is also clearly different -- the OKC bombings were, at the time, the largest terrorist attack ever to occur on American soil, while the violence in Tucson is, tragically, not unprecedented.

That said, from a purely political perspective, we can see similarities. A Democratic president generates right-wing rage and over-the-top conservative rhetoric; a motivated GOP base creates a wave election; and bloodshed offers the national leader a chance to remind Americans about the values that bind us together.

[T]he shootings in Tucson on Saturday, which he has decried as a "national tragedy," present a critical opportunity to a president at a crossroads, a chance for Obama to elevate the debased tenor of politics, much as President Bill Clinton attempted in the aftermath of the 1995 terrorist attack in Oklahoma City.

Paul Begala, one of Clinton's top political advisers during the 1990s, thinks Obama has a genuine opportunity to re-define the nation's political debate -- a promise he first made in his breakout 2004 speech to the Democratic convention -- and reclaim moral high ground lost during the last two years of intense partisan combat.

"One of the things I learned from Oklahoma City is not to rush to judgment…We don't know this Arizona animal's motive," said Begala.

"But almost irrespective of that, it wouldn't hurt for all of us to tone things down a bit -- myself included. If the President uses this tragedy to challenge us all to move to higher ground, it would be a welcome message. And if the right tries to demonize him for doing that, they will look small and petty and extreme."

Veteran Democratic consultant Dan Gerstein said the crisis "really plays to Obama's strengths as consensus-builder" and gives him the opportunity to build a deeper emotional connection with the people he governs.

If we look back at 1995 as the moment that Clinton responded to the attack, rallied the electorate, regained his stature, and put himself on the easy path to re-election, that would be an overly simplistic recollection. But 16 years ago, the president did lay down a marker on tolerance and public respect.

I doubt very much the Obama White House will take any steps towards trying to capitalize politically on Saturday's shooting. There is, however, a moment at hand in which much of the country is listening and wouldn't mind a message of hope. We saw this in 1995, and we're seeing it again now.

Steve Benen 8:05 AM Permalink | Trackbacks | Comments (12)

Bookmark and Share
 
January 10, 2011

MONDAY'S MINI-REPORT.... Today's edition of quick hits:

* Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-Ariz.) remains in critical condition and is "not out of the woods yet," but as of this afternoon, she was "responding to verbal commands by raising two fingers of her left hand and even managed to give a thumbs-up."

* President Obama today led the nation in a moment of silence from the South Lawn of the White House. He also ordered flags to be flown at half-staff this week.

* Jared Lee Loughner appeared in court today for the first time, facing all kinds of charges.

* Vice President Joe Biden made a surprise visit to Afghanistan today, meeting with Hamid Karzai to assess progress toward "the transition to Afghan-led security beginning this year." Biden also spent time with U.S. troops and civilian personnel.

* A man who directed repeated threats at Sen. Michael Bennet's office (D-Colo.) was arrested today by federal authorities.

* Rep. Danny Davis' (D-Ill.) office received a threatening message yesterday. In apparent reference to the assassination attempt in Tucson, a message sent to the Chicago-area Democrat read, "Danny Davis is next."

* Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, appearing in the United Arab Emirates today, argued that sanctions against Iran are hampering the country's nuclear ambitions.

* A rare White House signing statement: "President Obama said Friday that congressional restrictions on his ability to transfer Guantanamo Bay detainees for prosecution in federal courts are 'a dangerous and unprecedented challenge' to the executive branch and suggested that his administration could yet defy them."

* The Obama administration has changed U.S. passport application forms from "mother and father" to "parent one and parent two." The religious right is not at all pleased.

* The Tea Party Express has begun raising money off the shootings in Tucson. Stay classy, conservatives.

* I'd be more inclined to read more conservative bloggers if they displayed better critical thinking skills.

* Too many Americans graduate high school and are unprepared for higher ed. But are they also unprepared for military service?

* And if you're interested, my latest piece for the New York Daily News ran over the weekend, tackling Rep. Darrell Issa's (R-Calif.) claim that the Obama administration is the most "corrupt" in modern history. Here's a sneak preview: I'm fairly certain Issa's wrong.

Anything to add? Consider this an open thread.

Steve Benen 5:30 PM Permalink | Trackbacks | Comments (10)

Bookmark and Share

FALSE EQUIVALENCY WATCH.... With Saturday's shootings sparking some discussion on rhetorical excesses and the toxicity of our discourse, Fox News is feeling a little defensive.

Roger Ailes, president of the Republican network, offered the usual defense -- insisting that Jared Lee Loughner "was not attached" to Tea Partiers -- and said the criticism of Fox News is "just a bullshit way to use the death of a little girl to get Fox News in an argument."

But also Ailes went a little further, making two related points. The first is that he claims to have told his network's on-air talent to "shut up, tone it down, make your argument intellectually," and urged Fox News' team to stay away from "bombast." The second is that Ailes is convinced that "the Democrat [sic] Party" is just as bad: "This goes on ... both sides are wrong." Ailes added that he hopes "the other side" tells its team to tone down the rhetoric, too.

On the first point, I rather doubt that Ailes actually told guys like Beck and Hannity to avoid "bombast," just as I rather doubt they'd listen if he did. If Ailes actually expected Fox News personalities to "tone it down" and make "intellectual" arguments, he might as well shut the network down today.

But on the second, Ailes seems to be repeating a common refrain -- there are rhetorical excesses on "both sides." There's "plenty of blame to go around." It's not the fault of "one side over the other."

To a certain extent, this is independent of the coverage of the massacre in Tucson, since we don't the extent to which Loughner was motivated by political bile. But whether he was influenced by the political climate or not, this notion that Dems and the GOP are equally responsible for over-the-top rhetoric is simply at odds with reality. Paul Krugman's column today makes the case persuasively.

Where's that toxic rhetoric coming from? Let's not make a false pretense of balance: it's coming, overwhelmingly, from the right. It's hard to imagine a Democratic member of Congress urging constituents to be "armed and dangerous" without being ostracized; but Representative Michele Bachmann, who did just that, is a rising star in the G.O.P.

And there's a huge contrast in the media. Listen to Rachel Maddow or Keith Olbermann, and you'll hear a lot of caustic remarks and mockery aimed at Republicans. But you won't hear jokes about shooting government officials or beheading a journalist at The Washington Post. Listen to Glenn Beck or Bill O'Reilly, and you will.

Of course, the likes of Mr. Beck and Mr. O'Reilly are responding to popular demand.... But even if hate is what many want to hear, that doesn't excuse those who pander to that desire. They should be shunned by all decent people.

Even today, just perusing the news, I've seen many make the "both sides" argument by pointing to posting from a pseudonymous diarist on Daily Kos who few, if any, had heard of before. The response seems pretty obvious: when "BoyBlue" has his own cable show, develops a sizable following, and begins organizing rallies on the Washington mall, get back to me.

I realize major media outlets feel contractually obligated to embrace the false equivalency, but folks should know better. Remember the Senate candidate who recommended "Second Amendment remedies"? How about the congressional candidate who fired shots at a silhouette with his opponent's initials on it? Or maybe the congressional candidate who declared, "If I could issue hunting permits, I would officially declare today opening day for liberals. The season would extend through November 2 and have no limits on how many taken as we desperately need to 'thin' the herd"? Or how about the congressional candidate who said he considered the violent overthrow of the United States to government an "option" and added that political violence is "on the table"?

All four of these examples came from 2010 -- and all came from Republican candidates for federal elected office. And this doesn't even get into Republican activists and media personalities.

"Both sides are wrong"? Yeah, sure they are.

Steve Benen 4:35 PM Permalink | Trackbacks | Comments (35)

Bookmark and Share

DELAY SENTENCED TO THREE YEARS BEHIND BARS.... In November, disgraced former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Texas) was convicted of money laundering. Today, he received his sentence.

A judge has ordered U.S. House Majority Leader Tom DeLay to serve three years in prison for his role in a scheme to illegally funnel corporate money to Texas candidates in 2002.

The sentence comes after a jury in November convicted DeLay on charges of money laundering and conspiracy to commit money laundering. DeLay was once one of the most powerful men in U.S. politics, ascending to the No. 2 job in the House of Representatives. [...]

Senior Judge Pat Priest issued his ruling after a brief sentencing hearing on Monday in which former U.S. House Speaker Dennis Hastert testified on DeLay's behalf.

I don't imagine he'll see it this way, but DeLay's three-year sentence could have been much worse -- the maximum penalty for this felony is life in prison.

If you need a refresher, DeLay was busted on an ingenious little scheme he came up with several years ago. Texas had completed its post-2000-census redistricting by 2002, but DeLay wasn't satisfied with the way in which state lawmakers had drawn the lines. So he hatched a plan without modern precedent, deciding to pursue re-redistricting -- redrawing the lines mid-decade, just because DeLay felt like it.

In order to hatch this gambit, he'd need some more GOP allies in the Texas legislature, so he arranged to launder $190,000 in corporate contributions into the accounts of seven state Republican candidates.

Six of them won; re-redistricting occurred; and the GOP majority in Congress grew, just as DeLay had planned.

The minor flaw in all of this is that DeLay's scheme happened to be a felony, at least according to prosecutors and the members of a Texas jury. DeLay's defense was largely built around the notion that he didn't know about the money-laundering until after it had occurred, but prosecutors pointed to a 2005 interview with investigators in which the right-wing former lawmaker said he was aware of the plan in advance. (DeLay later said he misspoke.)

What happens next remains to be seen; DeLay's legal team is already pursuing appeals.

While we wait to see what happens, it's hard not to feel a sense of schadenfreude about the developments. Tom DeLay has represented American politics at its worst -- corruption, sleaze, deception, and routine abuses of power. Whatever the outcome of the appeal, these court proceedings, including today's sentencing, couldn't have happened to a more appropriate person.

It's also worth noting that the political establishment's approach to DeLay was entirely wrong. We've been told for years that the case was a partisan witch-hunt, launched by a prosecutor intent on "criminalizing politics."

With the disgraced Republican having been sentenced to three years behind bars, the conventional wisdom on DeLay is in need of an overhaul.

Update: Don't forget, DeLay may be a convicted felon, but his former staff is still running the U.S. House of Representatives.

Steve Benen 3:35 PM Permalink | Trackbacks | Comments (22)

Bookmark and Share

REPORT FROM THE HILL.... I traded emails today with a Capitol Hill staffer with whom I speak regularly, and I think the aide's perspective is worth passing along. (I'm republishing the staffer's note in its entirety with permission.)

To say hill staff is shook up after the weekend's events would be an understatement. We are family up here and I know I'm not the only who has already gotten requests from family to find another line of work. We have had this in the back of our minds for quite some time now. We had people storm our office during health care, they were filled with end-of-times rhetoric and even made mention of violence as an answer.

One thing that isn't getting reported yet is how this isn't an "isolated" incident. We don't know yet if right wing hate talk played a roll, but can we please not forget that a deranged anti-government man flew his plane into an IRS building in Texas killing a veteran. Can we please not forget an unhinged racist killed a security guard at the Holocaust Museum. Can we please not forget about the man arrested in northern California armed to the teeth and on his way to the Tides foundation. I'm certain there are others that I'm forgetting. This stuff comes from the right, we know that.

I was working in D.C. in 2001, and I remember how shaken plenty of Hill staffers were after two lawmakers' offices -- both Democrats -- were sent weaponized anthrax, and the powerful antibiotics started being handed out in congressional office buildings. It took quite a while before folks dropped their guard while opening their mail.

The massacre in Tucson obviously isn't the same thing, but in light of the assassination attempt, against the backdrop of excessive right-wing rhetoric and tactics, I wonder if the effect might be similar. After all, one of those slain on Saturday was Gabriel Zimmerman, the 30-year-old director of community outreach for Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D).

If I had to guess, the effects seem likely to linger. Aides fielding angry phone calls will feel a bit more nervous than they otherwise would be; staffers opening hate mail might be a bit more inclined to pass them along to the Capitol police; and I shudder to think what happens the next time a Democratic lawmaker hosts a town-hall meeting and a nearby car backfires.

Steve Benen 2:40 PM Permalink | Trackbacks | Comments (20)

Bookmark and Share

'MCCARTHYISM' IT ISN'T.... I expect conservatives to circle the wagons during a tense time, but Bill Kristol is throwing around some odd rhetoric.

A conservative pundit on Monday ripped liberals who have suggested that Sarah Palin is to blame for the shooting tragedy in Arizona.

During an appearance on C-SPAN's "Washington Journal," Bill Kristol of the conservative-leaning Weekly Standard magazine called the criticism of the former Alaska governor "a disgrace."

He said there is no proof that Jared Loughner, the suspect, was a fan of Palin or went to her website, which had labeled Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-Ariz.) and other Democrats a political target last year; it was illustrated with a graphic of crosshairs that has triggered a political debate. [...]

Kristol said those who are blaming Palin, such as Paul Krugman of The New York Times, are practicing "McCarthyism."

For the record, I think blaming Palin for the massacre is absurd. I found her crosshairs effort to be wildly inappropriate; I think her "reload" rhetoric is distasteful; and I find the former half-term governor to represent the very worst American politics has to offer -- but I haven't seen any reason at all to hold her responsible for Saturday's violence.

That said, I also don't know of any prominent political figures who have blamed Palin. I've seen plenty of pieces arguing that she contributes to the ugliness and toxicity of our discourse -- a point that seems more than reasonable -- and that there can be consequences for her brand of right-wing politics. I've also seen pieces argue that conservatives need more sensible leaders than a clown like Palin, and that the media has a responsibility to call her on her routine garbage.

But that's not what Kristol was referring to. He said the left is blaming Palin for Saturday's shootings, and on this specific point, Kristol appears to be swinging at a straw man.

But putting all of that aside, "McCarthyism"? Didn't the right decide recently that they like McCarthy?

Besides, as Adam Serwer explained very well, Kristol's criticism isn't just wrong; it's ironic.

McCarthyism is a form of political discourse at which Kristol excels -- having personally been involved in accusing Justice Department lawyers of being sympathetic to terrorists and Pennsylvania Democrat Joe Sestak of being a friend of Hamas. McCartythism is William Kristol's native language.

If Palin's allies want to defend her from allegations she incites violence -- if such allegations exist -- fine. But Kristol's defense clearly needs some work.

Steve Benen 1:35 PM Permalink | Trackbacks | Comments (31)

Bookmark and Share

THE AMERICAN RENAISSANCE 'LINKS'.... As media outlets scrambled over the weekend to better understand why Jared Lee Loughner allegedly went on a shooting rampage in Tucson on Saturday, Fox News said it had a scoop: the network had "obtained" a memo from the Department of Homeland Security connecting the shooter to a racist group called American Renaissance, and this memo was distributed to law enforcement agencies.

I held off on mentioning this, because of the source -- the only thing less reliable than Fox News' opinion journalism is Fox News' attempts at investigative journalism.

I'm glad I held off. The network has already backed off its original reporting, and Greg Sargent talked to a DHS official this morning who said the agency has made no connection between Loughner and American Renaissance.

The Fox report caused a splash, with some news orgs reporting that anonymous officials had confirmed such possible ties. Some conservatives railed at DHS for supposedly trying to tie the shooter to the right for political reasons, and others disputed the suggestion that this displayed the shooter's ideological leanings.

But DHS has not officially provided any such information to any law enforcement officials, the DHS official says.

"We have not established any such possible link," the official says.

The official cautions it's conceivable that a law enforcement official got unofficial info from a DHS official somewhere along the lines of what Fox reported. But he emphasizes that DHS has not even concluded in any official way that even the possibility of such ties exists. The official adds that it wouldn't be DHS's place to reach any such conclusion in the first place, since the FBI is leading the investigation.

In a situation like this, I'm a little more sympathetic to on-the-spot journalistic errors -- rumors were rampant on mid-day Saturday, as evidenced by CNN and NPR reporting that Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D) had died -- with reporters chasing down details in crisis-like circumstances.

But Fox News claimed it had a DHS memo that it didn't, in fact, have, and the report affected the politics of the story in unhelpful and misleading ways.

Just as a matter of course, when Fox News claims to have a scoop about any subject, caveat emptor.

Steve Benen 12:40 PM Permalink | Trackbacks | Comments (24)

Bookmark and Share

MONDAY'S CAMPAIGN ROUND-UP.... Today's installment of campaign-related news items that wouldn't necessarily generate a post of their own, but may be of interest to political observers:

* The Nebraska Republican Party felt compelled to remove an image from its website featuring Sen. Ben Nelson's (D) face in red as the bullseye in a target. State GOP Chairman Mark Fahnelson didn't seem happy about having to remove the image -- he said he was responding to "gripes" from Nelson's "Democrat [sic] supporters" -- but he did it anyway.

* I guess the 2012 cycle is now officially underway? Incumbent Sen. Kent Conrad (D) of North Dakota, considered a top GOP pick-up opportunity next year, is launching campaign radio ads this week.

* Remember Sue Lowden? Her Republican Senate campaign in Nevada was derailed by the "chicken for checkups" incident last year. Lowden is, however, considering a comeback, and may run again in 2012 if scandal-plagued incumbent Sen. John Ensign (R) decides not to seek re-election.

* In Nebraska, Ben Nelson (D) will soon have yet another Republican challenger, with state Treasurer Don Stenberg telling party leaders over the weekend that he's likely to launch a campaign fairly soon.

* We can expect word from Rep. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) before the end of the month as to whether he'll take on Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) next year.

* Don't be too surprised if Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-Texas) faces a primary challenger if she seeks another term -- a new Blum and Weprin poll for the Dallas Morning News shows her approval rating dipping below 50% statewide, and down to just 56% among Texas Republicans.

* Freshman Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) said this morning he's not interested in being a vice presidential candidate in 2012. We'll see if he sticks to that.

* And in Massachusetts, Boston Mayor Thomas Menino (D) doesn't think any Democrat can beat Sen. Scott Brown (R) in 2012. Of course, no one thought Brown could win in the first place, so it's worth remembering that surprises happen.

Steve Benen 12:00 PM Permalink | Trackbacks | Comments (14)

Bookmark and Share

PROBABLY NOT THE LINE FOX NEWS WANTED TO HEAR.... There were some displays of courage and heroism in the midst of the massacre in Tucson on Saturday, including the actions of a woman named Patricia Maisch, who snatched Jared Lee Loughner's ammunition when he sought to reload.

Maisch, not surprisingly, is now the focus of a fair amount of media attention, though she waves off any talk about her being a "hero." Last night, she spoke to Fox News via telephone.

Shep Smith, one of the network's few responsible on-air figures, asked her if "there's anything you can think of, over the last day and a half, that you might be able to turn into a positive." He added, "Is there anything you can leave us with that will make us all feel better."

Maisch replied, "I don't think so.... The extreme right, reporters and radio and TV, have added to this problem, and I'm just hoping that that will change. That's my hope, is that the Republicans will stop naming bills in very hateful ways, like the 'job killing' whatever the rest of that bill is, I think they've gone over the top. I think that the extreme right has gone too far."

I don't imagine this is what Fox News expected to air last night. Call it a hunch.

Steve Benen 11:40 AM Permalink | Trackbacks | Comments (21)

Bookmark and Share

'BANNING LANGUAGE' IS NOT ON THE TABLE.... Saturday's massacre in Tucson renewed a larger discussion about excessive, overheated rhetoric in our political discourse, which strikes me as a good idea. Slate's Jack Shafer wrote a much-discussed piece over the weekend, making the opposite case.

Shafer's point was to offer a defense of "inflamed" rhetoric. The subhead of the piece wasn't subtle: he lamented "the awesome stupidity of the calls to tamp down political speech in the wake of the Giffords shooting."

The piece is worth reading, though I found it unpersuasive, and it included one point in particular that warrants a closer look.

Any call to cool "inflammatory" speech is a call to police all speech, and I can't think of anybody in government, politics, business, or the press that I would trust with that power. As Jonathan Rauch wrote brilliantly in Harper's in 1995, "The vocabulary of hate is potentially as rich as your dictionary, and all you do by banning language used by cretins is to let them decide what the rest of us may say." Rauch added, "Trap the racists and anti-Semites, and you lay a trap for me too. Hunt for them with eradication in your mind, and you have brought dissent itself within your sights."

I'm fairly certain this concern is backwards. I've noted here and elsewhere many times that I'd like to see conservatives turn down the temperature on some of their more extreme rhetoric, but it's never occurred to me to call for legal restrictions on anyone's speech.

Indeed, I've lost count of how many pieces in recent years have taken note of rhetorical excesses in our discourse, but I honestly can't think of any prominent political voice that has recommended that speech be "policed."

Calls to "cool 'inflammatory' speech" are about societal pressure. They're about urging those in the discourse to be responsible, not out of fear of official or legal recourse, but because it's the right thing to do (for the democracy, for the social fabric, for public safety, etc.).

Perhaps the single most outrageous form of political speech I can think of in recent history was Sharron Angle's talk of "Second-Amendment remedies." All kinds of people said Angle's comments were disgusting, but did anyone suggest for a moment she shouldn't have been allowed to say it?

Shafer fears a slippery slope -- first we urge people to show restraint, and the next thing you know, the First Amendment is under attack. These fears seem wholly unnecessary -- the point is about unenforced societal expectations and basic political norms. Nothing more.

Noam Scheiber added, "A call to cool inflammatory speech can be just that -- a call to cool inflammatory speech. It is by no means interchangeable with a call to ban certain words. Shafer is missing the distinction between a rule or a law, on the one hand, and a norm."

Steve Benen 10:55 AM Permalink | Trackbacks | Comments (57)

Bookmark and Share

RECONSIDERING CONGRESSIONAL SECURITY.... After Saturday's events in Tucson, it's understandable for members of Congress to take a fresh look at their security arrangements. I can only hope they resist the urge to go overboard.

While representatives of the United States Capitol Police and the office of the House sergeant-at-arms told lawmakers that the attack on Ms. Giffords was not part of a wider threat, they are urging them to review their security arrangements, make contact with local law enforcement officials and name a staff member as liaison with law enforcement.

On Wednesday, the Capitol security agencies are to join the F.B.I. in conducting a joint security briefing for Republicans and Democrats, who acknowledge new worries about their safety -- and that of their families and staff members.

Some steps seem like common sense, such as the notion of having a member of a lawmaker's staff serve as a point of contact with law enforcement. Indeed, after the events of last year -- radical opponents of health care reform threatened to kill various Democratic lawmakers, and at one point, even cut the gas line at the home of a lawmaker's brother -- prudence suggests members take some basic precautions.

But it's not hard to imagine the slide on a slippery slope here. Reps. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah) and Heath Shuler (D-N.C.) announced yesterday, for example, that they'll carry firearms in public in their home districts from now on. The latter has urged his staffers to get permits so they, too, can be armed at public events.

What's more, Rep. Bob Brady (D-Pa.) told the New York Times yesterday that he would introduce legislation intended to curtail threats against federal lawmakers, banning symbols like crosshairs.

Under the circumstances, fear is understandable. But I'm hoping with a little time, cooler heads will prevail and the violence in Tucson, which appears to be the work of one lunatic, does not lead to a widespread overreaction in Washington.

That said, if policymakers, feeling the need to "do something" after the massacre, wanted to take a closer look at existing gun laws and policies related to mental health, that may be time well spent.

Steve Benen 10:15 AM Permalink | Trackbacks | Comments (25)

Bookmark and Share

RAND PAUL'S BILL FRIST MOMENT.... For those of us covering Saturday's events in Tucson, it's almost unavoidable to engage is some armchair psychology. Very few people in media have professional training in mental health issues -- and I certainly include myself in this media group -- but we nevertheless feel comfortable characterizing Jared Lee Loughner as obviously being a deeply sick young man.

Of course, when we say this, we're not making a medical diagnosis or claiming any kind of professional expertise. We haven't met Loughner or conducted any first-hand psychoanalysis. We've just seen the publicly available information and made a commonsense judgment -- this guy looks like a madman.

At a minimum, then, it's annoying to see Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) weigh in on the subject, not as a political observer, but as a medical doctor. (thanks to reader V.S. for the tip)

Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) said Sunday that, based on Internet writings attributed to a 22-year-old accused of shooting Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-Ariz.), he believes Jared Lee Loughner is a paranoid schizophrenic. [...]

"I looked at some of the writings of this young man, and from a medical point of view there's a lot to suggest paranoid schizophrenia and a really sick individual," Paul said on "Fox News Sunday."

Look, for all I know, Loughner is a paranoid schizophrenic. This isn't my area of expertise, but from what we saw over the weekend, that hardly seems like a stretch.

But what rankles here is Rand Paul's comfort with offering his "medical point of view" on national television. With due respect to the freshman senator, he's a self-accredited ophthalmologist. He's worked as a medical professional, but has treated patients' eyes not their mental health, and as best as I can tell, he has no background as a psychiatrist.

Rand Paul, in other words, isn't qualified to diagnose mental disorders by reading some stuff on the Internet. He shouldn't pretend otherwise.

If this sounds familiar, it's because we saw a similar situation six years ago. Sen. Bill Frist (R), at the time the Senate Majority Leader, weighed in on the Terri Schiavo matter on the Senate floor. Relying on his background as a surgeon, Frist said he'd watched Schiavo videos in his office for about an hour, and felt comfortable telling his colleagues that the woman may not have been in a persistent vegetative state, despite the judgments of medical professionals who actually treated the patient.

I'm entirely comfortable with physicians seeking elected office, but I wish they wouldn't do stuff like this.

Steve Benen 9:25 AM Permalink | Trackbacks | Comments (39)

Bookmark and Share

TALES OF HEROISM AMIDST TRAGEDY.... As horrific as the scene in Tucson was on Saturday, I find it worthwhile to take note of heroic moments from the same tragedy.

We talked yesterday, for example, about Daniel Hernandez, a 20-year-old intern who joined Rep. Gabrielle Giffords' (D) staff just last week, who applied pressure to the congresswoman's head wound and held her upright so she wouldn't choke on her own blood. Hernandez may have very well saved Giffords' life.

But there were other extraordinary moments, too.

Within seconds after the shooting began, at least one man who was grazed by a bullet grabbed the gunman, a middle-aged woman snatched ammunition away from him, and a group of people held him down while another man grabbed the gun out of his hand, a man and a woman who helped subdue the shooter told CNN Sunday.

There are some competing details among those who were there, which under the circumstances, is entirely understandable. But the general version of events is still pretty amazing.

Patricia Maisch was waiting in line to get a picture with her congresswoman, Gabrielle Giffords, when gunfire erupted. Blood was spilling onto the pavement in an atmosphere of panic and pandemonium. The gunman was walking towards her, shooting people along the way. "I thought I was next," she said.

His ammunition spent, the assailant stopped to reload, the authorities said, inserting a 31-round clip into the chamber of his Glock semiautomatic pistol before raising the gun again.

And in what was perhaps the only fortunate event of the day, the spring on the second clip failed. Two other men in the crowd lunged at the gunman and tackled him to the ground, and Ms. Maisch, responding to shouts from the crowd, grabbed the empty gun clip.

One wants to think that, during a crisis, they'd have the wherewithal to keep it together and exercise sharp judgment. But under the circumstances, I'm pretty damn impressed by the folks whose grace under pressure Saturday almost certainly prevented a deadly tragedy from being even worse.

Steve Benen 8:40 AM Permalink | Trackbacks | Comments (16)

Bookmark and Share

THE LATEST FROM ARIZONA.... We don't know why Jared Lee Loughner, the accused gunman in Saturday's massacre, chose to do what he did, and the fate of his victims who survived the violence is also unclear. But as the legal and investigatory process unfolds, a picture is coming into focus.

Prosecutors charged Jared L. Loughner, a troubled 22-year-old college dropout, with five federal counts on Sunday, including the attempted assassination of a member of Congress, in connection with a shooting rampage on Saturday morning that left six people dead and 14 wounded.

Evidence seized from Mr. Loughner's home, about five miles from the shooting, indicated that he had planned to kill Representative Gabrielle Giffords, Democrat of Arizona, according to documents filed in Federal District Court in Phoenix.

Special Agent Tony M. Taylor Jr. of the F.B.I. said in an affidavit that an envelope found in a safe in the home bore these handwritten words: "I planned ahead," "My assassination" and "Giffords."

There were multiple reports late Saturday and early Sunday about a possible accomplice, and law enforcement officials were looking for a white man in his 50s for questioning. By yesterday, this person of interest was reportedly cleared -- the man was the cab driver who drove Loughner to Giffords' event, but is not believed to have been involved. (He entered the grocery store with the shooter, but it was apparently because he didn't have change for the fare.)

As of now, based on what we know, officials believe Loughner acted alone, but the Justice Department noted that an investigation continues as to "whether anyone else was involved."

Giffords remains in critical condition, though medical professionals who briefed reporters continue to say they expect her to survive. The other victims are no longer in critical condition.

Loughner, meanwhile, has reportedly invoked his Fifth Amendment rights, and is not cooperating with the investigation. Federal public defender Judy Clarke, who has defended Unabomber Ted Kaczynski and accused terrorist Zacarias Moussaoui, will reportedly represent Loughner.

In light of the multiple charges he's facing, Loughner faces the death penalty if convicted.

Also, Giffords' husband, Mark Kelly, issued a public statement last night, the text of which is published below.

Continue reading...

Steve Benen 8:00 AM Permalink | Trackbacks | Comments (31)

Bookmark and Share

 




 

 

Memos to Obama

Email Newsletter icon, E-mail Newsletter icon, Email List icon, E-mail List icon Sign up for Free News & Updates

Advertise in WM



buy from Amazon and
support the Monthly


Place Your Link Here

--- Links ---

Drug Rehab

Addiction Treatment Centers

Alcohol Treatment Center

Loans

Long Distance Moving Companies

FREE Phone Card

Flowers

Personal Loan

Personal Loans

Addiction Treatment

Phone Cards

Less Debt = Financial Freedom

Addiction Treatment Programs

Bad Credit Loans