On Sarah Palin and Gabrielle Giffords

Many of you know of the shooting that occurred last Saturday in Tucson, AZ. It's truly a terrible tragedy and my heart goes out to the families that lost loved ones on that day.
Since then, there's been a lot of talk about what role Sarah Palin had to play in all this, because a couple months ago, she had put online a map of various congressional districts marked with sniper rifle crosshairs (meaning voters should vote those representatives out of office), one of which was Representative Gabrielle Giffords's district. Sarah Palin herself has posted a response in the form of a recorded video online to these accusations linking her and the map to the shooting.
I think it's clear at this point that the shooting was not politically motivated — the perpetrator was a first-class lunatic who was targeting figures of government in general, so I figure that if it wasn't Giffords, it could just as easily have been someone else (Democrat or Republican). People around him say that for the last two years ago he had been exhibiting rather erratic and disturbing behavior, and he never really got over the fact that when he asked a question at a town hall meeting held by Giffords, she didn't answer his question. These people around him say that may have pushed him over the edge to obsessively plan to harm her.
Obviously, this guy was alienated and never got the help he needed. But could that map (with the crosshairs) have made all the difference? I think Sarah Palin could be connected to the shooting, but only to the extent that J. D. Salinger is connected to the assassination attempt on Ronald Reagan (i.e. not at all). (The would-be assassin carried in his pocket at the time of the attempt a copy of The Catcher in the Rye and was very much influenced by its ideas of angst, alienation, and revolution.) Sarah Palin surely didn't mean for people to physically harm politicians (though some people debate that given that many of her supporters brought unconcealed weapons to opposing politicians' rallies), but that map, like J. D. Salinger's book for the would-be Reagan assassin, may have given the shooter the "official endorsement" (only in his own mind) he needed to carry out the attack. In short, Sarah Palin isn't responsible; loonies will always be loonies.
In her response video, Sarah Palin accuses the people accusing her of inciting the shooting of "blood libel". (Note: I haven't actually watched the video, but I think I have a decent idea of what she says based on other articles written about it that quote parts of the video.) While I think it's honorable that she defends the free speech clause of the 1st Amendment to the Constitution and even talks about how Giffords was the one who read that a few days ago in Congress (when members of the House of Representatives were made to read selected passages from the Constitution), how she accuses the critics is pure Palin-style politics; she automatically assumes that the critics are just trying to score political points, and she still refuses to acknowledge that maybe — just maybe — the current political discourse needs to be toned down.
In summary: no, Palin is not responsible; yes, the guy was deranged and may have been influenced (in all the wrong ways) by that map; and yes, I think we can all benefit from cranking the political shouting down a few notches. John Stewart, I think we could all use another "Rally to Restore Sanity". (Cue Stephen Colbert's competing "March to Keep Fear Alive".)

2010 February 8: Rahm Emanuel and the Super Bowl

This is an update to the previous story on Rahm Emanuel's use of the word "retarded" to describe certain liberal groups.
He has since apologized and signed a pledge to end the use of this word. I applaud him for this, though he shouldn't have made the comment in the first place.
Also, Sarah Palin's outrage showed a rift in the conservative base. Many (though certainly not all) conservatives are opposed to being overly politically correct. Palin has made reference to this before as well. However, as this directly insulted her son, she felt the need to defend political correctness and in the process blast Rush Limbaugh for not supporting her. I'm not taking sides in this particular dispute; I just thought it's an interesting thing to see.

Also, the New Orleans Saints won Super Bowl XLIV! New Orleans really needed this one.

On Political Correctness and Retard[suffix]

I've wanted to talk about this for a while, but this (Brent Dykes, Yahoo! News) provides a good starting point. It's about how Obama Administration Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel called liberal lobbies planning to air attack advertisements on conservative Democrats opposing the health care plan "[expletive] retarded".
I do not at all condone this. He should have attacked the plan on its merits rather than mindlessly foulmouthing it. I also think it would be best if he sincerely apologized for this, though knowing him, it probably won't happen.
Sarah Palin, who has a son with Down Syndrome, has responded by calling for his resignation/firing, saying that this will affect her son and other similarly affected people the same way African Americans would be affected by someone using the 'n'-word to insult them. While I don't agree with this extreme reaction, I think it is entirely reasonable to condemn him as she did.
That said, I wanted to use this opportunity to bring up something bigger about the word "retard"/"retarded" and political correctness.
I don't think it is at all right to use "retard"/"retarded" as an insult against mentally handicapped people. In our schools, we are taught to use words like "mentally handicapped", "mentally disabled", or "mentally challenged", among other words; "retard"/"retarded" aren't even part of this vocabulary (i.e. they are completely ignored altogether). Hence, I have never once met someone who used the word "retard"/"retarded" to [insultingly] refer to a mentally disabled person. This probably isn't true in other parts of the country, but from my own experiences, the word "retard"/"retarded" has solely taken on the meaning of a synonym for "idiot"/"imbecile".
That is probably what Emanuel meant; I still don't support him on this, because as it is, it is a pretty vicious insult to use against someone else.

Sarah Palin is Right - For Once and Once Only

I don't like Sarah Palin.
It's obvious that she wants to spread misinformation about current government policies for her own benefit. In fact, facts themselves are nuisances to her.
Thankfully she's not VP.
That said, Newsweek this week had a cover story on her and why she's bad for the GOP; while this in itself was not bad, Sarah Palin called the cover picture of her (stolen from some celebrity magazine or some such thing) sexist.
I totally agree.
It's obvious Newsweek wanted to provoke a visceral negative reaction, so they used the picture they did. Even editor-in-chief John Meacham had no excuse other than that they tried to use the "most interesting picture" possible.
Seriously, this level of sexism is too much, and it has got to stop. Newsweek does already have journalistic credibility; they lost a fair amount of it for this one picture, which they didn't need to use in the first place.