Call it a libel squared . . .
Ed Schultz has suggested that Sarah Palin employed the term "blood libel" to describe the way her critics have tried to hold her responsible for the Arizona shootings "as an appeal to an extreme Christian conservative base for 2012."
Citing no evidence for his grotesque allegation, Schultz first floated it during his opening monologue on his MSNBC show this evening. He raised it again with his first guest, Dem congressman Jan Schakowsky, and took things a despicable step further. Schultz suggested that Palin "got help from the speech from somebody who knows exactly what 'blood libel' means."
Put up or shut up time, Schultz. View video after the jump.
Watch Schultz make his contemptible, evidence-free, allegation.
ED SCHULTZ: Well once again, Palin is proving to be nothing more than an unguided missile in the political arena. Many people think she's used the term "blood libel" as an appeal to an extremist Christian conservative base for 2012.
Here was Schultz a bit later, floating his ugly fantasy to Schakowsky.
SCHULTZ: Why do you think she did it?
SCHAKOWSKY: Frankly, I think she didn't know what she was saying. That's the most charitable thing that I can say, is that she had no idea what it really means . . .
SCHULTZ: Well, let's just say that she does know what's it mean. And maybe she got some help on the speech from somebody who knows exactly what blood libel means. What kind of light does that shed on this?
"Let's just say," that making those kind of ugly and unsubstantiated accusations sheds considerable light--on Ed Schultz.
Note: As John Tabin at the American Spectator has pointed out, citing Jim Geraghty at National Review Online, "blood libel" has been used by many, including people on the left, in other than a Jewish context.
