One argument emerging from Congresswoman Giffords' shooting is that the rhetorical violence launched hither and yon in the hope of obtaining some sort of advantage, narrative, electoral, or other, ought to be dialed, as they say, back. Yesterday, I think it was, Sarah Palin, long of lung and short of ideas, emerged from her northern fastness to accuse "journalists and pundits" of creating a "blood libel" against honest and plain-spoken Americans like herself and the rest of the mama grizzles.
The use of "blood libel" rather than indicting the various pundits and journalist exposes Palin's fundamental lack of seriousness and her limited understanding of words and their meanings. The blood libel is the long running anti-Semitic claim that Jews needed the blood of health young Christians for cooking and religious purposes. Over the years, the blood libel led to and excused outbreaks of anti-Semitic violence and murder. Arguing that demonizing your political opponents as enemies is wrong was something Conservatives and the Right more generally was happy to do when Obama said it; however, from Palin et alia's perspective asking that people stop rhetorically murdering one another or predicting that if the Democratic Party succeeds in providing health insurance to more Americans at a reduced cost means that America has become a Maoist dystopia is identical to accusing them of killing the young to bake their bread. It is, in other words, an example of the rhetorical excess that makes reasoned debate difficult.
It is also such a deeply unserious response that I wonder if Palin and her image makers have a clue concerning their client's image among those not convinced that Obama was born on the moon.
UPDATE:
It's this kind of bizarre and self-serving ranting about Christianity or family values or whathaveyou that leads many to criticize Conservatives as more interested in whipping up division than in resolving crises.
UPDATE II:
With measured rhetoric like this, who needs deranged maniacs?
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