QUOTE OF THE DAY.... Rush Limbaugh actually said this on the air today. He wasn't kidding.
"What Mr. Loughner knows is that he has the full support of a major political party in this country. He's sitting there in jail; he knows what's going on. He knows that a Democrat [sic] Party -- the Democrat [sic] Party -- is attempting to find anybody but him to blame.
"He knows if he plays his cards right that he's just a 'victim.' He's the latest in a never ending parade of victims brought about by the 'unfairness of America.' The 'bigotry, racism, homophobia' of America. The 'mean-spiritedness of America.' [...]
"That smiling mugshot -- this guy clearly understands he's getting all the attention, and he understands he's got a political party doing everything it can, plus a local sheriff doing everything they can to make sure he's not convicted of murder."
No one could possibly believe this garbage. It's idiotic gibberish, disconnected from reality on multiple levels.
But here's the follow up for any Republican willing to answer: do you agree with Rush Limbaugh's assessment? Do you believe Democrats have offered their "full support" to a gunman who killed six innocent people and tried to assassinate a Democratic congresswoman? Is the GOP also convinced that Democrats want to ensure the killer's acquittal?
Or, for once in their lives, will Republicans have the guts and decency to say, "No, I think Rush Limbaugh is wrong"?
Of course, it's a good idea to try to put Republicans on the spot. But does Steve really understand what's going on here? Limbaugh's entire career has involved making outrageous accusations that no one can take seriously on one level. That's what his "I'm an entertainer" get-out-of-jail-free card is all about, if the going gets too rough. But until it gets too rough for Limbaugh, creating this sort of malicious, slanderous fantasy rap is just pure id-indulgence for his audience. He can say anything about liberals, or feminists, or Democrats, or anyone he chooses to pick on, and what are they going to do about it?
So you say it's a lie? Well, the very fact that he can lie about you with impunity just shows who's boss, now doesn't it? Not that he's going to come right out and admit it. But at one level, that's very much what the message is. And that sort of impudent lying is not just confined to Rush Limbaugh, or rightwing talk radio folks in general. The whole "death panels" lie was an example of that, with the whole GOP on board. The "global warming hoax" narrative, too.
Civility is about having some sort of social decorum, and incivility is about lacking that social decorum. But this is something that goes much deeper--it's about a total lack of respect for the truth, a total indulgence of id. Whatever you want to be true, you simply affirm it to be. Which gives you a Nazi socialist Muslim Kenyan president, presto-chango! And it's that total self-indulgence of the political id that's the missing element in most accounts of what's so terribly wrong with our politics today.
When Obama said yesterday that "only a more civil and honest public discourse can help us face up to our challenges as a nation," he blithely merged civility and honesty together. But they are not one and the same. Indeed, Obama himself has already proven quite adept at smoothly telling lies--about his commitment to civil liberties and the rule of, about fighting for the public option, about actually listening to those who elected him, who worked so hard for his election. He is, in short, a politician of only average integrity at best. He uses his civility shtick to skate on--and this, in itself, is a very dishonest thing to do.
Which is why an Obama-lead Democratic opposition is never going to effectively combat the Limbaughs of this world. There will only be a shadow-play, never anything substantial. Because both sides are lying through their teeth, and ultimately it is the lying, more than incivility, that marks our political sickness unto death.
To call his crime an attempted assassination is to acknowledge that it appears to have had a political and not merely a personal context. That context wasn't Islamic radicalism, Puerto Rican independence, or anarcho-syndicalism. It was the anti-government, pro-gun, xenophobic populism that flourishes in the dry and angry climate of Arizona. Extremist shouters didn't program Loughner, in some mechanistic way, to shoot Gabrielle Giffords. But the Tea Party movement did make it appreciably more likely that a disturbed person like Loughner would react, would be able to react, and would not be prevented from reacting, in the crazy way he did.
He went on to say:
At the core of the far right's culpability is its ongoing attack on the legitimacy of U.S. government-a venomous campaign not so different from the backdrop to the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995. Then it was focused on "government bureaucrats" and the ATF. This time it has been more about Obama's birth certificate and health care reform. In either case, it expresses the dangerous idea that the federal government lacks valid authority. It is this, rather than violent rhetoric per se, that is the most dangerous aspect of right-wing extremism.
Often the two issues are blurred together, because if government is illegitimate, rebellion is an appropriate response (hence the Colonial costumes). Conservative entertainers like Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin like to titillate their audiences with hints of justified violence, including frequent reminders that they are armed and dangerous. Palin went so far as to put a target on someone who subsequently got shot. Whether or not the man who fired the gun was inspired by Palin isn't the point. The point is that you shouldn't paint targets on people, even in metaphor, or jest.
Weisberg's onto something in shifting focus to the attack on government legitimacy, because it's been too little noted. But he's mistaken to elevate it too much in its own right, rather than stressing its importance as part of a constellation of factors, all of which play a role according to the model of overdetermined causation.
The easiest way to see this is to contrast the Bush-era anti-war movement, which profoundly questioned the legitimacy of the war and even the Bush government itself. There were a number of books written making the case for impeachment, for example, and these included quite serious and specific legal arguments.
But violent rhetoric was distinctly a fringe phenomena in this political context. You could find scattered signs at demonstrations that could be put together into a collage to create the appearance of an equivalence to the Tea Partiers. And you could even hear some such rhetoric on occasion at demonstrations organized by ANSWER Coalition. But the fact that such rhetoric sometimes appeared at those demonstrations is part of the reason that the hardcore anti-war movement never seriously threatened to take over the Democratic Party the way that the Tea Party has taken ove the Republican Party in many instances. Simply put, it was always inconceivable that violent rhetoric could have played a parallel role in the Democratic Party of the Bush era to that of Republican Party in the Obama era.
Those who are truly interested in understanding the sources of political violence in America today are going to have to devote themselves to an overdeterministic approach. We will not find ultimate answers from a single-cause approach, not because those causes are invalid, but because they are virtually never found to act in isolation.
This really isn't a hard concept to grasp. Unless, of course, you've got a vested interest in not grasping it.
[UPDATE 4:33 PM]: Shooting suspect Jared Lee Loughner's YouTube channel. Seems pretty crazy at first glance.
[UPDATE 4:25 PM]: From TPM: "Federal Judge John Roll was shot and killed in this morning's attack in Tucson. He had earlier been under protective custody because of threats tied to case tied to the illegal immigration issue in the state."
[UPDATE 4:04 PM]: Hospital spokesman "optimistic" about Giffords, who has left surgery and is in the ICU. She was shot in the head "through and through" off to the side. No word on long-term prognosis.
[UPDATE 3:50 PM]: MSNBC reports assistant city manager deputy mayor says Giffords is expected to pull through.
[UPDATE 3:11 PM]: Giffords was apparently talking as she was wheeled into surgery, according to a producer for the local NBC affilieate.
[UPDATE 3PM]: Giffords' opponent held incendiary event "Get on target" to "remove Gabrielle Giffords". Details below.
[UPDATE 2:37 PM EST]: Giffords is in surgery--Hospital spokesperson tells MSNBC
Giffords was shot in the head at close range at a routine public meeting in Tuscon. NPR had reported she was dead, but a sheriff in contact with hospital just told MSNBC/NBC news that she was still alive. MSNBC reports that 5 other people were killed and CNN reported 12 shot in all. From the NY Times:
A congresswoman from Arizona was shot on Saturday along with several others during at public event at a grocery store in Tuscon, according to her spokesman, C.J. Karamargin. The Tucson Citizen reported that Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, a Democrat, had been shot at close range in the head...
The shooting occurred at a Safeway supermarket in northwest Tuscon as Ms. Giffords hosted an event, called "Congress on Your Corner," to allow members of the 8th Congressional District to meet her individually. She has held several events since first taking office in January 2007. At one such event in 2009, a protester was removed by police when his pistol fell on the supermarket floor. This was her first event since her re-election to a third term in November.
Last March, her Tucson office was vandalized a few hours after the House vote overhauling the nation's health care system, the authorities said.
Earlier events in Tucson, Oro Valley, Green Valley, Sierra Vista, and Douglas had attracted between 75 and 150 people, according to a statement announcing the event.
Ms. Giffords was interviewed on Fox news on Friday to talk about a bill to cut to congressional salaries by five percent.
Nothing firm has been reported about the gunman, but Gifford was on the congressmembers on Sarah Palin's infamous "target list":
[UPDATE 3PM]: From Blog for Arizona last June:
A friend sent me a link to the Pima County Republican website, spotlighting a Jesse Kelly event.
I find the wording for the event (the part I circled) chilling.
There's nothing wrong with having a gun-themed event, if that's what you want to do. Count me out, but if you want to meet at a shooting range instead of a bowling alley or a baseball stadium, that's your right and your privilege.
There's also nothing wrong with having a "Help remove Gabrielle Giffords" event. That's what the R candidates in CD-8 are trying to do.
But to put it all together, starting with "Get on Target," moving to "remove Gabrielle Giffords," then finishing with "Shoot a fully automatic M16" . . .
That goes way beyond cute and clever and moves into a frightening linkage between shooting guns and removing Giffords.
Another bad campaign finance ruling: Federal Appeals Court unanimously strikes down the $5,000 contribution limit to Federal PACs.
Senate Adjourns with unfinished business: In addition to not passing an extension of unemployment and COBRA benefits, the Senate left town without passing a Medicare doc fix. This will result in Medicare doctors receiving a 21% cut in pay starting on April 1st. The Senate plans to solve this problem by passing an extension in mid-April that will restore the lost benefits and pay retroactively:
Meanwhile, COBRA benefits expire April 1; a 21-percent cut in Medicare doctor payments is scheduled to take effect that same day; and the filing deadline for UI benefits arrives April 5.
Senate lawmakers will tweak the bill to make the extensions retroactive, Reid's office said.
The money will come, but having it come late will still cause problems for a lot of people. Not good.
New foreclosure prevention program announced: The Obama administration is revamping their program to prevent foreclosures. Once again, it takes money from TARP (which is good) instead of appropriating new funds. I don't pretend to understand this policy very well, but Wonk Room is impressed. It better work, because this program is probably the last best chance for Democrats to improve the economy for average Americans before the midterm elections.
Nuclear arms reduction treaty: Russia and the USA have signed a nuclear arms reduction treaty. Details on the treaty can be found here. It is a good first step, but it will face the hurdle of ratification in the United States Senate. Anything that requires approval from that chamber is pretty much always in danger.
Democrats getting riled up?: Democrats might be narrowing the voter intensity gap, according to the weekly Daily Kos poll tracking poll. Whether this holds up as the year goes on, and in other polls, is another question. Kos is absolutely correct when writes, in his press release for the poll, that "this intensity gap will bear tracking the rest of this cycle."
Eric Cantor's office window bullet story The bullet that went through Eric Cantor's sort-of office window was fired into the air as an act of random gunfire. Unsurprisingly, Cantor's spokesperson defends Cantor originally citing the story as an example of equivalnce between left and right-wing political violence.
More right-wing violence: Meanwhile, a conservative attacked an Obama supporter, and his ten-year old, with his SUV. Pretty scary.
The dangers of over-promising and relaxing on health reform: David Dayen responds to my article from earlier today touting the expansion of public health insurance and public care for low-income Americans as a major progressive accomplishment in the far from perfect health reform legislation. He is worried about complacency and overpromising:
Student loan reform is smart and 100% defensible in concept. The Affordable Care Act involved legislative compromise and must be watched carefully to ensure it achieves the promise that many liberals are touting this week. Rather than labeling it, we have to work to make it actually operate properly.
I don't disagree. In fact, analogously, I think there was far too much complacency in the center-left after the 2008 elections. Everyone was tired and happy after the election, and didn't want to work to prevent bad transition appointments like Larry Summers and Tim Geithner. Those appointments resulted in bad policies like an ineffective foreclosure prevention program that helped far to few people, and which the Obama administration has now had to entirely revamp. And, those bad policies have resulted in an economic environment that is worse than it had to be for average Americans, which has in turn resulted in an electoral environment that is far worse than it had to be for Democrats. And, that will result in even worse policies down the road, as Republicans and conservatives accrue more power.
We have to always keep pushing. I just don't think that is incommensurate with feeling good, and pointing out that we have made some gains, too.
[UPDATE 3PM]: From Blog for Arizona last June:
