Open Thread: 'The Politics of Blood Libel'

January 10th, 2011 8:56 AM

In the Wall Street Journal, law professor Glenn Reynolds, of Instapundit fame, recounts some tactics of the left's ongoing crusade to pin Saturday's tragic Tuscon, Arizona shootings on Sarah Palin. Reynolds recalls points made at NewsBusters and elsewhere, and concludes thusly:

To be clear, if you're using this event to criticize the "rhetoric" of Mrs. Palin or others with whom you disagree, then you're either: (a) asserting a connection between the "rhetoric" and the shooting, which based on evidence to date would be what we call a vicious lie; or (b) you're not, in which case you're just seizing on a tragedy to try to score unrelated political points, which is contemptible. Which is it?

I understand the desperation that Democrats must feel after taking a historic beating in the midterm elections and seeing the popularity of ObamaCare plummet while voters flee the party in droves. But those who purport to care about the health of our political community demonstrate precious little actual concern for America's political well-being when they seize on any pretext, however flimsy, to call their political opponents accomplices to murder.

Where is the decency in that?

Indeed. What are your thoughts on the shooting and events since? Reynolds posits that some on the left wanted to turn the shooting into President Obama's Oklahoma City Bombing - a tragedy that would benefit him politically. Do you see that effort at work? Are there other factors at play here?