Just For The Record

since Nutella seems pissed I thought I'd dot some i's and cross some t's.
Insofar as extreme right wing politics and the accompanying rhetoric were, at most, a secondary factor in Loughner's motives, well behind being fucking crazy, sure, I overreacted a little. The idea that I had partisan gain in mind behind pointing to Palin's use of violent rhetoric against the future victim of violence is itself an overreaction, but to whatever degree I was blaming Palin in an attempt to make sense of a difficult event to process I was wrong. This probably wasn't eliminationist violence, at least not in any coherent sense.
That doesn't mean the ability of Palin, along with Beck and Limbaugh and many other lesser lights, to shape the tone and topics of national discourse isn't toxic and worth combating or that gun violence such as we saw can't be made less likely with some attempt to rationally approach how to decide who to entrust with the ability to murder others simply by squeezing a finger. And it doesn't mean the sheer coincidence of the nature of the poster naming Giffords and the events that occurred shouldn't give Sarah Palin reason to pause and consider the consequences of how she's playing the game. But maybe it does mean I don't have to jump in on it right away.

*Update*

Oh, wait. Blood libel, and her critics "purport" to condemn this violence. Geh. I take it back. She wants people who disagree with her to die. Regardless of whether Loughner was directly influenced by her, this blood is on her hands.