Bill Press Compares Palin in Tucson Remarks to Hostage With Guns to Her Head

Yet another example of the pathological left-wing meme in response to the Tucson bloodbath -- do as we say, not as we spew.

Here's Bill Press on his radio show this morning, telling all dozen of his listeners what he thought of Sarah Palin's remarks yesterday on the "blood libel" of liberals blaming conservative rhetoric as root cause of the gunman's rampage (audio) --

To me, it reminded me of those hostage videos we've seen where there's a terrorist on each side holding a gun to a person's head and they're forced to read a script, while she read the script, first of all, yesterday saying don't! don't! let's not criticize each other now.

Since Press said nearly the same thing yesterday on Ed Schultz's radio show -- promptly deflating the conversation -- apparently he thinks he's being clever. Here's the relevant exchange between Press and Schultz (audio) --

SCHULTZ: Excuse me, let's go style points here for a minute. Did she look like a person of conviction?

PRESS: No!

SCHULTZ: Or was this just manufactured stuff today? Did that really seem like Sarah Palin to you?

PRESS: No. To me it just looked like, like a Manchurian candidate basically, right, who is just wound up and put in front of the camera and said, read this. You know, she looked like one of those hostages, right, where they've got a gun to their head.

SCHULTZ (tentatively): Hmm hmm.

PRESS (groping for lifeline): And on the videos, yeah. I, I, I thought it was, uh, was strange. No humanity at all.

Needless to say, if Palin were ever kidnapped and held at gunpoint, God forbid, Press will promptly surrender to authorities for his complicity in the crime.

Also this morning, Press stated his fervent hope that the phrase "blood libel," having been so thoroughly sullied by Palin, is henceforth banished from political discourse (audio) --

Yeah, what she said is what is reprehensible. First of all, you hear what she's saying is, you know, yeah, if you don't like what people say you can criticize it -- except me!  You can't criticize me and my map with the bullseyes on it, that is blood libel. And of course, she has stirred up a storm of controversy using that phrase 'blood libel', which has no place in the American political dialogue. You know what it refers to. It refers to the charge back in the Middle Ages that Jews would take Christians, little Christian children, out to the woods and kill them so they could use their blood to make matzo balls for Passover. One of the most scurrilous, anti-Semitic, worst anti-Semitic remarks of all time, and she introduces it into the American body politic? What an idiot. Shame on her, but you just see, you know, the best of us yesterday in President Obama and the worst of us in Sarah Palin. Sick, sick, sick spin.

Press's kneejerk lurch to censor allegations of "blood libel" was demolished from an unlikely quarter -- attorney and legal expert Alan Dershowitz, as reported by Publius at BigGovernment.com --

The term "blood libel" has taken on a broad metaphorical meaning in public discourse. Although its historical origins were in theologically based false accusations against the Jews and the Jewish people, its current usage is far broader. I myself have used it to describe false accusations against the state of Israel by the Goldstone Report. There is nothing improper and certainly nothing anti-Semitic in Sarah Palin using the term to characterize what she reasonably believes are false accusations that her words or images may have caused a mentally disturbed individual to kill and maim. (emphasis added) The fact that two of the victims are Jewish is utterly irrelevant to the propriety of this widely used term.

Then again, Dershowitz teaches at that infamous right-wing bastion known as Harvard Law.