Greg Mankiw has produced a provocative paper on economic theory:

Let me propose the following principle: People should get what they deserve. A person who contributes more to society deserves a higher income that reflects those greater contributions.

Like the Dish, Serwer finds it "kind of mystifying that homophobia remains enough of a litmus test for the Republican presidential nomination that Pawlenty would feel obligated to say he supports putting DADT back in place." Furthermore:

[T]here's no possible way to justify reinstating DADT using the reasons many opposed repeal, such as preventing chaos or distractions in the military during wartime. Could anything be more chaotic than repealing DADT for a couple of years, than abruptly reinstating it? All those servicemembers who had revealed their sexual orientation would have to be ejected.

Roger Ebert picks 'em. Of those he notes and I've seen, "Joan Rivers: Piece of Work" was the most chilling. Rarely has the hollowness of modern life been portrayed as vividly. In some ways, one feels for those destroyed by celebrity more than those, like Rivers, whose lives seem meaningless without it. She terrifies me.

Greenwald fumes:

 What Galston is doing here is what the American political class reflexively does in the wake of every tragedy:  it immediately seeks to exploit the resulting trauma and emotion to justify all-new restrictions on basic liberties (such as the right not to be locked away against one's will in the absence of a crime or a serious threat to others) and all-new government powers.  Every traumatic event -- in the immediate, emotionally consuming aftermath --  leads to these sorts of knee-jerk responses.  

Mike Konczal offers a different solution than Galston:

Ethan Zuckerman poses the question:

What’s fascinating to me is that the events of the past three weeks in Tunisia might actually represent a “Twitter revolution”, as has been previously promised in Moldova and in Iran. There’s been virtually no coverage of the riots and protests in the thoroughly compromised local media – to understand what’s going on in their country, many Tunisians are turning to YouTube and DailyMotion videos, to blogs, Twitter and especially Facebook. The government hasn’t made it easy to access these sites – not only are several social media platforms blocked, they appear to be conducting phishing attacks on users of Gmail, Facebook and other online services. ...

So why isn’t the global twittersphere flooding the internet with cries of “Yezzi Fock!” (the rallying cry of the movement, which translates as “We’ve had enough!” in local slang)?

The delicacy with which this is put actually cracked me up. Yeah, it's JPod, that icon of rhetorical restraint:

Sarah Palin has become a very important person in the United States. Important people have to speak with great care, because their words matter more than the words of other people. If they are careless, if they are sloppy, if they are lazy about finding the right tone and setting it and holding it, they will cease, after a time, to be important people, because without the discipline necessary to modulate their words, those words will lose their power to do anything but offer a momentary thrill — either pleasurable or infuriating. And then they will just pass on into the ether.

If she doesn’t serious herself up, Palin is on the direct path to irrelevancy. She won’t be the second Ronald Reagan; she’ll be the Republican incarnation of Jesse Jackson.

Does JPod realize that the Dish made that analogy a long, long time ago? Back when he was touting the new Esther?

From Peter Aldhous:

The earthquake that struck near the Haitian capital, Port-au-Prince, on 12 January 2010, was unremarkable in seismic terms — barely making the year’s top 20 most powerful quakes. But it was one of the most deadly seismic events in the past four decades, serving as a reminder that the scope of these disasters is defined not by the scale of the Earth’s unleashed fury, but by overcrowding in poor urban areas and lax or poorly enforced building codes.

(Hat tip: Flowing Data)

It's strong, as Will Wilkinson shows as he ponders post-Tucson legislation:

Some of these proposals may have merit, but no more now than on Friday. The issues they address have become no more urgent. Sadly, people are shot to death every day. The odd and the infirm roam our streets. Some of them buy guns and use them. With the incarceration of Jared Lee Loughner, the odds of crazy people shooting and killing officeholders (and untitled, less newsworthy human beings) has gone down, not up. There is no more reason now to deliberate publicly about mental-health and gun-control policy. Indeed, there is every reason to postpone deliberation and debate until we recover from the panicked burst of irrationality and high emotion predictably induced by a highly-visible but singular, largely ungrokkable enormity...

Be especially wary of laws whose titles include the name of a victim.

Weigel notes that by "this time in the last presidential cycle, 14 candidates had jumped in". Joyner blames the delay largely on Palin:

Given Palin’s ability to suck all the oxygen out of the room — she’s far and away the potential Republican candidate most able to attract media attention — other candidates have to be hesitant to commit themselves before gauging her intention.  And, certainly, Palin has no need to rush things, since she already has the name recognition and fundraising ability from the outset.

Glenn Greenwald, whether you agree with him or now, is a tireless inspiration for the whole idea of a blogosphere that can find and champion new voices, without enmeshing them in the web of partisan interests, groupthink, think tanks, magazines, newspapers and corporate media. To do his work and be able to make a living, he asks readers to chip in once a year. You can donate here.

"Does anyone else see the irony in this tragedy? In Arizona, the state that has been the de facto "face" of recent political gay bashing (DADT-McCain) and racism (their highly controversial immigration law), a white straight man shoots a female Jewish member of congress who then has her life saved by a gay Hispanic American. It's poetic," - "John" on Towleroad.

A harrowing video of how far our discourse has sunk. It's important context for what we must now address.

David Boaz has written an excellent summary of the controversy over gays at CPAC.

Yes, Pawlenty. The power of the anti-gay animus in the current GOP is, at times, shocking.

Kolkata, India, 12 pm

Novelist Michael Chabon is one hell of a blogger, and particularly good here discussing how he handled the n-word while reading Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn to his young children.

Jason Kottke explains:

Jenny McCarthy just won't call it quits on the whole vaccines cause autism thing. Cause she's a mom! And moms love their children! And are strong! QED.

Five years ago, ABC News anchor Bob Woodruff was stuck in the head by shrapnel from an Iraqi bomb. Woodruff recovered and went back to work less than a year later. Lee Woodruff, his wife, tells their story:

This piece, titled "Obama Speech Undercuts Federal Charge For Judges Murder," contradicts itself:

First Pawlenty, now Christie. He makes the obvious point that a viable politician has to be able to parry open questions from the press:

More cracks in the edifice: Jennifer Rubin faults Palin for surrounding herself with loyalists rather than veteran political consultants.  

A reader writes:

Please note the two little words "and honest" in this quote from Obama's address last night in Tuscon:

“Only a more civil and honest public discourse can help us face up to our challenges as a nation.”

Those two words hold a world of meaning. Civility - the form of our discourse - is one thing. Honesty - the content - is another. As Robert Wright pointed out in the NYTimes yesterday, the lack of honesty in our discourse may be a greater provocation to potential violence than lack of civility:

"[T]he emphasis the left is placing on violent rhetoric and imagery is probably misplaced ... Palin’s much-discussed cross-hairs map probably isn’t as dangerous as her claim that “socialists” are trying to create “death panels.” If you convince enough people that an enemy of the American way is setting up a system that could kill them, the violent hatred will take care of itself." 

But in his quote, Obama has raised the stakes even higher: the unintended consequence of dishonesty in our public discourse - death panels, socialist conspiracies, faux deficit reform, climate change denial - is not merely the threat of fringe violence, however horrific, but the failure of our nation to face up to the many challenges history has now placed before it. Obama is calling for more than civil discourse, he's calling for honest discourse - and for immensely higher stakes.

Adam Serwer tweets:

This speech reminds me that the criticism I find most incomprehensible is the idea that the president does not love his country.

Fallows:

The standard comparisons of the past four days have been to Ronald Reagan after the Challenger disaster and Bill Clinton after Oklahoma City. [Yesterday's] speech matched those as a demonstration of "head of state" presence, and far exceeded them as oratory -- while being completely different in tone and nature. They, in retrospect, were mainly -- and effectively -- designed to note tragic loss. Obama turned this into a celebration -- of the people who were killed, of the values they lived by, and of the way their example could bring out the better in all of us and in our country.

First Read:

While Obama tried to uplift, Palin tried to settle scores. While the president called for more civility, the former Alaska governor talked about duels and 'blood libel.' And while Obama's message was, well, presidential, Palin's was not. We'll say this: If Palin has ambitions for the White House -- and we're still not sure she does -- then her tone, message, and timing from her eight-minute video was a serious miscalculation.

Amy Davidson:

We do need civility, and one hopes we get more of that, and less scorn. We also need politics. And true civility can be disruptive—it is not civil, for example, to abandon the unpopular or unfairly treated. There are times when smiling blandly is far more cynical than raising one’s voice would be—when politeness is uncivil—just as there are times when cheering at a memorial is a profound act of mourning.

Allahpundit:

Note the rhetorical move at the end: Civil rhetoric may be a virtue but that doesn’t mean it’s a lesson of the shooting. He’s obviously aiming this at the left, although naturally they’ll conclude that that can’t possibly be the case. Ace heard a different speech than I did, I guess, but for what it’s worth, this is playing remarkably well thus far among righties on Twitter: Rich Lowry, Jonah Goldberg, Jim Geraghty, Andy Levy, S.E. Cupp, Philip Klein, and Ace’s own co-bloggers Drew and Gabe all thought it was rock solid.  

Jonathan Bernstein:

Recorded in real time:

Chatroulette, its glory days behind it, tries to monetize more schlongs.

The Corner had few reactions to last night's speech but all of them were effusively positive. Fox's pundits seemed more impressed than CNN's. At some point, conservatives will realize that Obama is the liberal they can talk to. Maybe this horrible week can lead to an actual dialogue between Obama and the GOP that could, I don't know, actually address our national problems with solutions both sides can compromise on.

Yeah, I know I'm getting carried away ...

Yes, that's the billboard for Limbaugh's show in Tucson. But no, the mainstream right does not have a problem with glorifying violence, does it? My view is that until someone senior in the GOP takes Limbaugh on, his racist, bigoted, polarizing extremism will rightly define the GOP. I'm so sick of the cowardice:

"I've always said that no radio show built on hate could ever survive ... There has been a radio network pop up that tried the exact opposite, say whatever you have to say, outrageous as it can be, whether you believe it or not, filled with disgusting hate.  It was called Air America, and look how long it lasted.  I mean even liberals who share the same hateful points of view did not find it worth listening to because they weren't hearing anything different than what they saw and experienced during their humdrum daily lives."

Joe Klein gets it so right:

He spoke as a son--I couldn't help but think of his personal regret over not being by his mother's side when she passed as he said, "Did we spend enough time with an aging parent, we wonder." You could see the devastation insinuate itself onto, and then be quietly willed away from, his face. He spoke as a brother to his fellow public servants, killed and wounded in the events--an eager brother bringing the glad tidings the Gabrielle Giffords had opened her eyes. He repeated it, joyously, three times. But most of all, he spoke as a father--rising to a glorious peak describing the departed 9-year-old, Christine Taylor Green, a girl near the age of his daughters, whose own deaths, perhaps in the line of fire, he had so clearly been thinking about. And he spoke, more broadly, as the head of our national family, comforting, uplifting, scolding a little, nudging us toward our better angels.

(Photo: Kevork Djansezian/Getty.)

That's what Conor proposes:

Folks on the right think leftists don’t confront the indefensible speech uttered by their side. And vice-versa. So why don’t the folks at The Corner enter into a bargain with a prominent blogger on the left?

A sudden outbreak of conservatism:

"[Reagan's] reaction to the Lebanon bombing was not to stay, it was to leave," Norquist said. "Ronald Reagan didn't decide to fix Lebanon. I think that's helpful in getting the conversation going on the right." Norquist said conservatives recognize the weakness of the arguments for the war, which is why they don't often make them. He scoffed at the notion that fighting two wars was making American stronger.

"Being tied up there does not advance American power," he said. "If you've got a fist in the tar baby Iraq and you've got a fist in the tar baby Afghanistan, then who's afraid of you?"

It's a huge strain on the budgets of the global poor. Yglesias asks whether the US is in any way culpable:

Yes many people have used the phrase "blood libel" - including yours truly - but I nodded to the term's history when I wrote:

Paladino speaks of “perverts who target our children and seek to destroy their lives.” This is the gay equivalent of the medieval (and Islamist) blood-libel against Jews.

Not many people use the anti-Semitic meme of Jews sucking others blood about a Jewish financier - but Fox News put it right up there, thanks to Glenn Beck.

The newly elected Governor of Florida has an education reform proposal:

[T]he creation of "education savings accounts," a voucher-type system that Scott had spoken about somewhat vaguely in recent weeks... Parents would be allowed to receive funding equal to 85 percent of the "amount the student would have generated in the public school system," presumably in per-pupil funding, to pay for private school costs, private tutoring, private virtual education, prepaid college plans, and other options. And the remaining 15 percent? Scott's team says it would flow back in the public coffers. "The state will save 15 percent for every public school parent who chooses this option," his team predicts.

Reihan explains why it excites him:

The reader who sparked the debate on heritage writes:

Following up on all the hackles raised by the original post, I of course, instinctively feel the need to defend myself, however futile that may be. (While I appreciate this reader's perspective, they still imply that we are closet racists.)

Andrew Sprung explores in detail Loughner's obsession with this subject. It seems like a metaphor along with "grammar" to describe government control of some sort or other. Andrew believes that Loughner is just mentally ill, without any politics as such. I pretty much agree on the evidence we now have, but then statements like these hang in the air:

The majority of citizens in the United States of America have never read the United States of America's Constitution. You don't have to accept the federalist laws. Nontheless, read the United States of America's Constitution to apprehend all of the current treasonous laws. You're literate, listener?

In some way, Andrew posits, Loughner seems to believe in "the inherent illegitimacy of the Constitution or its later corruption (again, it's not clear which)." Then this:

Marc Lynch cautions that recent protests have Arab world "on edge":

Defenders of the [Arab] regimes generally try to define the events as food and price riots, or else as externally fomented terrorism. Few independent columnists or activists agree with the idea that these are simply food and price riots, or external terrorism. They point to the underlying political problems which have enabled the economic mismanagement and corruption and lack of opportunity. 

Julian Sanchez explains:

Howard Gleckman begs Obama to address tax reform in his SOTU:

Watch what Obama says in two weeks. If he ignores [tax] reform, the issue is almost surely finished for the next two years. If, by contrast, he puts the issue at the top of his 2011-2012 agenda, something may actually happen.

Today on the Dish, Andrew live-blogged Obama's moving speech in Tucson. He still didn't buy Palin's victimization, which tightened her grip on the base. Readers broke down her skewed logic on whether rhetoric can inspire violence, Ezra Klein seconded Andrew on what she should have said, and Scott Benen focused on the ever-opaque Palin model of interacting with the press. We worked Dan Riehl over for his vile discourse and moral grandstanding, and Jews apologized to Palin. The left also had a bullseye map, and Andrew nominated Boehner to revolutionize the right in tone. Clive Crook pushed back against anger, Mark Thompson grew tired of debate over debate, and a reader amended Buchanan's Yglesias nomination. Nate Silver applied statistics to threats and tried to understand the evolution of the gun debate. Choire Sicha couldn't compute how we identify crazy, and Shafer sized up Loughner's mugshot. Tony Woodlief feared for his own parenting habits, and readers balked at involuntarily committing patients. Serwer and Sullum rejected Loughner's schizophrenic connections to cannabis, Andrew pored over his gamer days and political obsessions, and we grasped at the science of Giffords' survival here.

John Seabrook marked the Haiti earthquake anniversary on a personal note, Brazil whooped the US in combatting poverty, Cowen explained why the French succeed, and Stieg Larsson's trilogy upended our assumptions about Sweden. Larison had concerns about South Sudan, Schwarzenegger never wanted a safety net, and conservates and liberals both thought the other was illegitimate. Readers offered more background info on adoptions, and on the war against meth. Ta-Nehisi feared for the film adaptation of the Great Gatsby, Jessa Crispin decoded Berlin through books, some compliments were never doled out to restaurant websites, and 50 Cent made mad money off of Twitter.

Deep thought of the day here, unemployed in Brooklyn advice here, VFYW here, Malkin award here, cool ad watch here, MHB here and here, FOTD here, and dissent of the day here.

--Z.P.

9.42 pm To rate this address on any political meter would be to demean it. The president wrested free of politics tonight and spoke of greater things. I pledge myself to try and follow his advice and debate with vigor and spirit and candor and bluntness, but with more civility, more empathy, and, yes, more love.

9.35 pm I am glad that the president has said we should debate the manifold ways in which we can help prevent this from occurring again; but that we should debate these things in a way that is worthy of the victims, in a way that would make them proud. It's an elegant threading of a very small needle. Watching Christina Green's parents as the president speaks brings home the enormity of this crime. Making her brief nine years of life the focus for hope and inspiration is a lovely peroration.

"I want America to be as good as [Christina] imagined it."

And one senses palpably that Obama's own love for his own daughters is behind this message.

9.31 pm Obama suggests that this sudden tear in our communal fabric can be a chance to reconsider our lives and our loves. It has been a deeply spiritual speech, and it has transcended politics, which was not as easy as he made it appear.

9.27 pm "What we cannot do is use this as another occasion to turn on each other."

9.23 pm. The way in which Obama has made this about the heroism and character of those who were on the scene has been a grace-filled re-focus on the hope, rather than the anger.

9.20 pm. I find myself in tears, as the president speaks of Gabrielle Giffords' eyes opening for the first time since she was attacked. This is profoundly emotional in ways I did not quite expect. And cathartic.

9.13 pm. Another sentence that should not uplift us, but does: "A Republican, she took a liking to Gabby, and wanted to get to know her more." What a concept.

9.11 pm. I did not know that John Roll was on his way back from Mass - something he did every day, according to the president.

9.01 pm. Napolitano reading Isaiah was a lovely touch. Holder's invocation of Corinthians was also strikingly devout. How wonderful to see Scripture invoked this way by public officials. And restraint.

8.50 pm. I haven't written anything so far because it, well, seems inappropriate. This speaks for itself. All I can say is that hearing governor Jan Brewer being so graceful to the president in her introduction was uplifting. That such a courtesy should be uplifting is a terrible sign of where we now find ourselves.

Because on a day like today - after the last week - we need as many as we can find. Here's our kind of Republican:

A reader writes:

Your hatred of Palin has completely clouded your judgment on this incident. As Ezra Klein pointed out (and which you failed make note of in your posting of his comments), Palin should feel aggrieved.  She is being blamed partly for this horrible incident.  Maybe you need to step back and think how you would feel, if someone were to attack her or her family, and then have people blame you because you have written very critical opinions of her.

I do not hate Sarah Palin. I wish I had never heard of her. I just think it was farcical that she was proposed as a possible president of the United States, and fear that her polarizing, vindictive, divisive personality has hurt this country and could lead into very dangerous territory.

But the first problem with the meme that Palin was partly blamed for the shooting by the entire MSM is that it's wrong.

A reader made this point before, but it's worth making again. Palin's key point in her video is that no words can inspire or enrage or mislead or whip up someone to murder another person:

"Acts of monstrous criminality stand on their own. They begin and end with the criminals who commit them."

But then she directly contradicts this by arguing that airing concerns about violent rhetoric after such an incident - rhetoric that Giffords herself personally flagged as dangerous - "serves only to incite the very hatred and violence they purport to condemn." But if violence cannot be incited by language, then no harm could possibly come of such a discussion.

A voter's hand reflects in his sunglasses as he casts his vote in Juba on January 12, 2011. South Sudan's ruling party said Wednesday that the 60-percent turnout threshhold required for a landmark independence vote to be declared valid has been reached after just three days of polling. By Yasuyoshi Chiba/AFP/Getty Images.

A reader writes:

I think it is clear that we Jews owe Sarah Palin an apology.  For centuries, we have had the temerity to compare our suffering to Hers.

I must say the harmonic convergence of Alan Dershowitz and Pat Buchanan on this question is a little unnerving.

Some studies on the alleged relationship. They conflict. But actual violence has been declining very swiftly in the US in the past decade or so, as measured by rates of assault. Ever since Grand Theft Auto came on the scene.

Mark Thompson has grown tired of the "debate over debate":

"Sarah Palin has a perfect right, both legally and morally, to protest those who are trying to directly tie her, her rhetoric, or the rhetoric of her political allies, to Loughner. Doing so by asserting that her and her pals getting pinked for their political messaging is just like the entire nation of the Jews enduring centuries of pogroms and persecution because of the enduring lie that they murdered babies for their religious ceremonies? ...

Again: Palin perfectly correct to complain about those trying to blame her for Loughner’s actions. But of all the stupid, appalling, jackassed things Sarah Palin has ever said in the history of the time she’s inflicted herself on the consciousness of our great nation, this is, alas, merely the most recent," - John Scalzi.

Reading the WSJ's excellent reporting on Loughner's participation in various computer game forums, the same patterns emerge. He's obviously mentally disturbed, and the content of his addled mind is best described by the WSJ:

The postings exhibit fixations on grammar, the education system, government and currency, which some friends and acquaintances have described separately in the days since the attack. They are peppered with displays of misogyny.

As the Dish has noted from the get-go, he doesn't seem very political except in a broadly paranoid sense, which is why the core question that remains unanswered is why he decided to try to assassinate his congresswoman. But we do get weird diversions into currency and this:

First Read asks why Palin didn't wait until tomorrow: