Bill Maher has a point –

Maher is going for laughs, but I think a serious case could be made that the teabaggers represent the kind of mob factionalism the Founding Fathers most dreaded. See, for example, James Madison from Federalist #10 –

The latent causes of faction are thus sown in the nature of man; and we see them everywhere brought into different degrees of activity, according to the different circumstances of civil society. A zeal for different opinions concerning religion, concerning government, and many other points, as well of speculation as of practice; an attachment to different leaders ambitiously contending for pre-eminence and power; or to persons of other descriptions whose fortunes have been interesting to the human passions, have, in turn, divided mankind into parties, inflamed them with mutual animosity, and rendered them much more disposed to vex and oppress each other than to co-operate for their common good. So strong is this propensity of mankind to fall into mutual animosities, that where no substantial occasion presents itself, the most frivolous and fanciful distinctions have been sufficient to kindle their unfriendly passions and excite their most violent conflicts.

Madison goes on to say that “The regulation of these various and interfering interests forms the principal task of modern legislation.” However, he also believed factions would not be a threat to the nation as a whole because it was too big to be taken over by any one group –

The influence of factious leaders may kindle a flame within their particular States, but will be unable to spread a general conflagration through the other States. A religious sect may degenerate into a political faction in a part of the Confederacy; but the variety of sects dispersed over the entire face of it must secure the national councils against any danger from that source. A rage for paper money, for an abolition of debts, for an equal division of property, or for any other improper or wicked project, will be less apt to pervade the whole body of the Union than a particular member of it; in the same proportion as such a malady is more likely to taint a particular county or district, than an entire State.

However, modern technology has changed that, especially communication technology. Now “a general conflagration” can spread everywhere in an instant.

Maher is right that the Founding Guys were the elites — aristocrats, for the most part — of their time, and part of the objection some expressed to creating a strong central government was the possibility that it could be taken over by a mob of common, ignorant men.

First off, do not miss “Will We Remember Tucson? Was It Enough? Is Anything?” at Esquire (via Balloon Juice).

[Update: Must read -- "The Voices in Jared Loughner's Head Shall Not Be Respected."]

The Los Angeles Times has posted a video made by Jared Loughner that got him expelled from community college. I understand this is pretty standard schizophrenic “word salad” talk, although I don’t have a lot of direct experience with schizophrenics. Actually, some of it could pass for beat poetry.

My concern is that Loughner is being turned into a sideshow freak. Schizophrenia is not a character flaw; it’s a disease.

Elsewhere — Ron Reagan, Jr., has published a book that says signs of his dad’s Alzheimer’s surfaced during his first term as president. Apparently there are some discrepancies between what Ron Reagan remembers and what this historical record says, so Ron Jr.’s memory may be off.

It’s the sort of thing that can’t be proved, because Alzheimer’s develops very slowly, and the early signs may not be apparent even to doctors. It’s only after the diagnosis that people look back at this or that odd little episode and think maybe they were signs of Alzheimer’s. But there’s no way to know for sure. We all have our less than lucid moments.

However, it’s also my understanding that by the time Alzheimer’s is diagnosed, probably it’s been there in very early form for a long time, maybe years.

What bothers me about this story at U.S. News are the comments attached to it. Hundreds of people hurled hateful invectives at Ron Reagan Jr. for insulting his father. And while I am bothered by the tone of the comments, what really bothers me is the attitude that saying someone has Alzheimer’s is some kind of insult. It’s not a character flaw; it’s a disease.

It would be a really good thing if people could get their heads out of the Middle Ages regarding psychiatric disease or dementia.

Fascinating study of “The Geography of Gun Deaths.” Someone compared the rate of gun-related deaths (from all causes, including accidents) among the states and looked for correlations with other factors. It’s not surprising that there is a positive correlation between states with high gun death rates and states that voted for McCain in 2008, but it’s a stronger correlation than I would have guessed. The other strongest factors are high poverty rates, an economy dominated by blue-collar jobs, and lower levels of college graduates.

See also Paul Krugman, “A Tale of Two Moralities.” Basically, he says a “return to civility” isn’t possible as long as we are so sharply divided over the basic nature of government. The best we can hope for at the moment is an agreement that “both violence and any language hinting at the acceptability of violence are out of bounds.” That used to be the norm, but I don’t see us returning to that norm anytime soon.

Elsewhere — “Gateway Pundit” Hoft et al. are trying to make a controversy over President Obama’s announcement that Rep. Giffords had opened her eyes. I’m serious.

Update: Some Israelis are trying to stop the opening of a Buddhist center in Israel, because they think Budhism is idolotry.

“Fanning the Flames of Paranoia” by Peter Kramer

Recent Shootings by Right-Wing Paranoids and More Recent Shootings by Right-Wing Paranoids

I understand that the spin coming out of the Right this morning is that the Tucson memorial was too much like a pep rally or even a campaign rally. Some are comparing it to Paul Wellstone’s funeral, which righties ripped for being a political rally. Like someone made them the funeral police.

I only watched a bit of the memorial, and did find the cheering a bit jarring. But, y’know, I wasn’t there. Experiences are much more intense for people who are really experiencing them and not just watching from far away on the teevee. I believe it was David Gergen on CNN last night who said that you had to have been in Tuscon last week to appreciate the emotion of the crowd and why they were cheering.

Not to pass up an opportunity to hate someone, however, Little Lulu and others are ripping the event because it was “branded.” The event organizers even handed out free T-shirts with the logo “Together We Thrive.” (Too socialist? But whatever will Lulu do if she finds out what “E Pluribus Unum” means?)

Steve M:

Michelle is shocked, shocked — messaging is going on here! And really, that’s her problem: not that (in her opinion) this tragedy is being cynically exploited, but that (in her opinion) it’s being cynically exploited by people who aren’t Republicans! Cynical exploitation is their specialty! Messaging is what they do! In fact, it’s all they know how to do. They can’t legislate, they can’t govern — but they sure as hell can craft a meme and frame a debate. They do it every day! They have a near-monopoly in this country on effective memes and expertly deployed symbols and debate-framing. How dare anyone else muscle in on their territory!

And Paul the Power Tool is an unabashed enough bigot to complain that the invocation was a Pascua Yaqui prayer rather than a proper Judeo-Christian one. I’m serious. And these are the same people who have bellyached all week about people squelching their speech.

But here’s the kicker — Adam Nagourney writes for the New York Times, “Even as it began, some conservative commentators were posting comments criticizing the memorial service for being overly partisan and more like a pep rally.”

Even as it began? Sort of sounds like they had the spin ready beforehand.

It’s particularly curious that House Speaker John Boehner declined to go to the memorial even after he was offered a ride on Air Force One. I realize there were some Republicans in attendance, but the ones I know about are those directly tied to Arizona — Sen. John McCain, Gov. Jan Brewer, who was booed. They couldn’t very well get out of it. But Boehner’s absence makes me wonder if he’d already seen the post-memorial talking points and decided to stay clear.

I only caught part of it, but those of you who saw the memorial service this evening are welcome to comment here.

Update: Moosewoman’s statement today is being slammed nearly universally as narcissistic and petty. But instead of getting a clue, Palin’s staff is telling news media that she is getting death threats at an “unprecedented level.” And of course they have to make this claim today, on the day of the memorial.

She can’t stand not being the center of attention.

Prediction: The same people who today are saying that the Tucson shooting was completely random because Jared Loughner was too crazy to have been influenced by anything other than the moths in his head will, in a few weeks, spin on a dime and claim that Loughner knew what he was doing and is “sane” enough to be tried and executed.

Just watch.

Remarkably, some rightie bloggers are still trying to peg Jared Loughner as a “left wing radical.” This is true even as news media are doing their best to argue that only those nutty lefties are claiming politics had anything to do with the shooting in Tuscon. Chris Cillizza:

In the immediate aftermath of the shooting, liberals sought to paint Loughner as an anti-government, tea party conservative. Conservatives retorted that Loughner lacked anything close to a coherent political philosophy — a case strengthened by subsequent glimpses into his personal life that suggests someone struggling with mental illness.

And the rightie punditocracy, for the most part, is going for the meme that Loughner’s acts were entirely random, and anyone claiming a connection to political rhetoric is a “charlatan” (George Will) or a political opportunist (David Brooks).

In other words, they’re going overboard trying to squelch the thought that an overheated political environment had anything whatsoever to do with the Tuscon massacre. It was just a crazy guy doing this, see? We’re not even supposed to think that hate speech from the Right was in any way involved.

(Of course, when Loughner eventually goes on trial, and his attorneys try to present an insanity defense, suddenly the Right will decide his actions weren’t so random after all. Wait and see.)

Michael Tomasky points to a Republican senator who said some sensible things about “caution” and “reflection” and maybe the inflammatory rhetoric has gone to far. What’s remarkable about this is that the senator would not go on record; he is quoted anonymously. Tomasky writes,

What was this senator afraid of? Backlash, of course. From Limbaugh and Fox. From voters and constituents – on the right. Maybe, ultimately, afraid of being next. That this senator feels that fear, over remarks that should hardly be controversial to anyone, proves the point of those of us who’ve been writing that the climate matters and Republicans should do something about it.

A letter writer to the Boston Globe makes another good point —

IN YOUR editorial yesterday concerning the Arizona shootings (“A crazed loner, an old story, and a harsh political climate’’), you write, “But those who have rushed to blame conservative causes or leaders for the killings should pause and consider whether they, too, are waving a bloody shirt and feeding a culture of denunciation.’’

On the contrary, these are real bloodied shirts, and we must loudly and repeatedly denounce those who spit out anti-government hatred and advocate revolution. To be moderate in reaction to Saturday’s killings would vindicate the perpetrators of vitriol, and in a short time, we would be right back into the same rhetoric that led to this most recent violence.

In other words, hate speech coming from the Right over fantasy grievances like birth certificates and socialized medicine is tolerated year after year. But speak up immediately after a very real massacre, and the Powers That Be say “shhhhhh!”

What Brooks, Cillizza, et al. won’t acknowledge is that the mentally ill don’t live in a vacuum. They are affected very deeply by what’s around them. Although there’s no way to know, it’s entirely possible that if Loughner were living on some peaceful Quaker commune instead of in Arizona, a state roiling with hot-button controversies, as his assumed schizophrenia took over his mind he might have developed an entirely different — and less violent — set of illusions. Maybe he’d think the granola was singing to him or that goats channel messages from outer space.

In other words, just because Loughner’s political ideas were nonsensical doesn’t let the political culture off the hook.

We talk a lot about “political culture.” The word “culture” is related to growing things, as in cultivation. When one is tilling soil and preparing it for planting, one is “cultivating” the soil. Scientists use the word “culture” to describe growing microorganisms for study.

So, “culture” is not a static thing; it is a cultivation, or a process of growing. What is our whackjob political culture growing? Nothing wholesome, I would say. But we are being prepped to go into Official National Denial — that the incessant eliminationist rhetoric about “armed and dangerous,” “second amendment solutions,” and The Coming Nightmare Totalitarian State of an Alien Communist Black President being spewed not by fringe outsiders but by people in positions of authority had nothing whatsoever to do with the Tucson shooting, and if you even think such a thing you are a bad person.

Yep, nothing to see here. Move along.

Michael Tomasky makes another good point in another post. It seems many of his readers (and I’m seeing this everywhere) are incapable of understanding there’s a difference between expressing dislike for someone and threatening to kill someone. As a thought experiment, he asks which is worse

1. Mike Tomasky is a world-class idiot and a—hole and should go f— himself.
2. Mike Tomasky doesn’t have any problems that a Glock couldn’t solve.

Especially in a nation armed to the teeth, the second statement is far more irresponsible than the first. This should be obvious to any sensible person. However, in America, we’re not supposed to notice this.

Tomasky continues,

But if guns are part of your life, it may be the imagery that comes to mind, and it’s far worse than calling someone a dirty name or a war criminal. And sure it’s happened among liberals, but it’s worse among conservatives. Check this out, which another friend assembled:

*On October 9, 2009, House candidate Robert Lowry of Florida held an event at a Broward County gun range during which he fired at a series of symbolic political targets, including a silhouette with his opponent Rep. Debbie Wasserman-Schultz’s initials on it.

*On January 10, 2010, Nevada Senate candidate Sharron Angle spoke of the need for “Second Amendment remedies” to congressional policies, and hinted that such remedies might be needed to address “the Harry Reid problems.”

*On May 10, 2010, House candidate Brad Goerhing from California’s 11th District wrote on his Facebook page: “If I could issue hunting permits, I would officially declare today opening day for liberals. The season would extend through November 2 and have no limits on how many taken as we desperately need to ‘thin’ the herd.”

*On June 12, 2010, Rep. Giffords’ very own Republican opponent Jesse Kelly held an event advertised locally as follows: “Get on Target for Victory in November. Help remove Gabrielle Giffords from office. Shoot a fully automatic M16 With Jesse Kelly.” Get that again. Remove Giffords. Shoot an M16.

*On October 21, 2010, Dallas pastor and House candidate Stephen Broden, said the violent overthrow of the U.S. government in 2010 should not be “the first option,” but citizens ought to use “any means necessary” and that violence should remain an option “on the table.”

These weren’t 22-year-old loners or even local talk-radio hosts. These were candidates for Congress! Find me five Democrats from this past election who talked like that about their opponents or their government. Find me one.

See also Tom Schaller.

Among the dumber reactions to the Saturday massacre in Tuscon is the outrage that anyone dare suggest that people tone down their rhetoric!. For example, see libertarian Jack Shafer’s childish temper tantrum at Slate.

Some background — you might have heard that Pima County Sheriff Clarence Dupnik spoke out against inflammatory political rhetoric after the shooting –

“When you look at unbalanced people, how they respond to the vitriol that comes out of certain mouths about tearing down the government,” said Dupnik at a press conference Saturday. “The anger, the hatred, the bigotry that goes on in this country is getting to be outrageous. And unfortunately, Arizona I think has become sort of the capital. We have become the mecca for prejudice and bigotry.”

A little more background: Sheriff Dupnik is a 50-year veteran of law enforcement. After Arizona passed laws giving police broad powers to detain anyone who looks Latino suspected of being an illegal immigrant, Sheriff Dupnik actually spoke out and called the law a “national embarassment.” Sheriff Dupnik also wrote in the Wall Street Journal that the law is “unnecessary … a travesty, and most significantly … unconstitutional.”

Of course, we have now entered into the age of Tea Party Originalism, in which the Constitution means whatever some right-wing crackpot says it means. And those liberty-loving teabaggers prefer tough guys like Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio, who uses the Bill of Rights as toilet paper. Because, you know, that’s what the Founders intended.

So libertarian Shafer says,

Embedded in Sheriff Dupnik’s ad hoc wisdom were several assumptions. First, that strident, anti-government political views can be easily categorized as vitriolic, bigoted, and prejudicial. Second, that those voicing strident political views are guilty of issuing Manchurian Candidate-style instructions to commit murder and mayhem to the “unbalanced.” Third, that the Tucson shooter was inspired to kill by political debate or by Sarah Palin’s “target” map or other inflammatory outbursts. Fourth, that we should calibrate our political speech in such a manner that we do not awaken the Manchurian candidates among us.

And, fifth, that it’s a cop’s role to set the proper dimensions of our political debate. Hey, Dupnik, if you’ve got spare time on your hands, go write somebody a ticket.

Sheriff Dupnik’s political sermon came before any conclusive or even circumstantial proof had been offered that the shooter had been incited by anything except the gas music from Jupiter playing inside his head.

One suspects that Sheriff Dupnik has seen overheated rhetoric turn into violence way too many times in his 50-year career in law enforcement. Whether Shafer has ever seen anything other than the inside of his own ass is a point to be debated.

See, Jack, there are ways to insult people without threatening to kill them.

Meanwhile, one of our other perpetual pubescents, Michelle Malkin, is screaming that “Tucson massacre ghouls” are trying to “criminalize conservatism.” Her hand has been forced, she says, to crank out every example she could find of threatening and violent speech coming from progressives against conservatives, but her examples are (a) lame and (b) mostly are coming from unidentifiable people in crowds or entertainment celebrities, not the top leaders of a national political party.

See, Michelle, if some immature, unknown college student holds up a crude drawing of George Bush’s decapitated head at a protest, that is using very bad judgment, yes. If I had been the boy’s mother, I would have taken his sign away and grounded him. But it is not equivalent to nationally known political figures like US Rep. Michele Bachmann telling her constituents “”I want people in Minnesota armed and dangerous on this issue of the energy tax, because we need to fight back.”

And Madonna’s threat to kick Sarah Palin’s ass is not equivalent to, say, Erick Erickson’s rant on CNN –

At what point do the people tell the politicians to go to hell? At what point do they get off the couch, march down to their state legislator’s house, pull him outside, and beat him to a bloody pulp for being an idiot?

Erickson had become unhinged over some new state environmental regulations on dishwashing detergent. Of course, I admit that Erickson is no more a serious political analyst than is Madonna, or Jack Shafer’s ass, for that matter.

Reasonable people, of course, do not listen to Erickson and decide to go beat their state legislator to a bloody pulp. Unfortunately, the world is full of unreasonable people with bad impulse control.

Alex Pareene nails it when he writes,

It’s not strictly that language tinged with violent imagery is dangerous, or that heated denunciations of the motivations of your political opponents are out of line, or even that America’s pervasive gun fetishization is to blame (though our gun culture is insane and bizarre to every single other developed nation in the world) for violent crimes. But when elites don’t just condone but participate in the combination of that violent imagery with the idea that the government represents an existential threat — that representatives of the government are domestic enemies, that your liberty and even your physical safety are in danger — the idea of political violence is normalized. Terrorizing Congress members at town halls and “we surround you” and head-stomping and death threats and all the other bad craziness just becomes “the way we do politics in America.”

The implicit message of much of the rhetoric of the Right is that eliminating the opposition by any means necessary is the morally right thing to do, because those people are a real threat to you and America. Now, one can find some pretty hateful speech coming from the left, too, but you have to go back to the Vietnam era to find any lefties making a moral argument for violence. And even then, the ones making these arguments were not members of Congress, running for national office, or pretending to be political analysts on CNN. They were fringe outsiders.

Today’, you’ve got a huge subculture of mostly white, mostly middle-aged, and mostly reasonably affluent people who are channeling their frustrations into a mass fantasy of being daring, noble revolutionaries. It may be that most teabaggers are about as dangerous as drier lint. But in any large group of people there will be a few who are unhinged enough to take the fantasy into real-world action.

Because the world is full of people who are barely hanging on to reality with their fingernails, and who also own guns, it is irresponsible for people in media or in politics to even suggest that violence against the opposition or government in general is somehow permissible, even noble. As long as there are elections, it is not.

However, the Republican party is largely infested by radicals who do not respect the outcome of elections that go against them. Their position since Bill Clinton was elected in 1993, in fact, is that “liberal” participation in government is itself illegitimate, and if Democrats get elected it’s only because of voter fraud.

And, as Alex Pareene writes,

As the Republican Party has become more homogeneous, more regional, and more reactionary, they have tended to make up for their growing demographic shortcomings by making sure their supporters are more motivated and energized — and the most effective way to energize them has been to make sure they’re constantly enraged.

Some can argue that the Tuscon shootings were not caused by our political climate, since the accused shooter obviously is psychologically disturbed. But I agree with Michael Tomasky –

Of course he’s a nut. By definition, anyone who shoots innocent people like that has a screw loose. But nuts come in many varieties. There are some who think Dick Cheney planned 9/11, others who believe the CIA has installed eavesdropping devices in their fillings, and still others who insist they’re the reincarnation of Mary Queen of Scots. So what particular type of nut is Loughner? We don’t have a full picture yet. But we have enough of one. His coherent ravings included the conviction that the constitution assured him that “you don’t have to accept the federalist laws”. He called a female classmate who had an abortion a “terrorist”.

In sum, he had political ideas, which not everyone does. Many of them (not all, but most) were right wing. He went to considerable expense and trouble to shoot a high-profile Democrat, at point-blank range right through the brain. What else does one need to know? For anyone to attempt to insist that the violent rhetoric so regularly heard in this country had no likely effect on this young man is to enshroud oneself in dishonesty and denial.

However, I doubt very much that the shootings will change anything. Those most at fault deny their responsibility. When it’s suggested that some people ought to use better judgment in their speech, perhaps do some self-editing, they react (like Malkin and Shafer) like spoiled children told to stop torturing the puppy and go to bed. (Waaaaaaaa!)

More Stuff to Read:

Paul Krugman, “Climate of Hate”

Laura Miller, “The real message of Loughner’s book list”

Noam Schreiber, “How the Giffords Tragedy Made Me Anti-Anti-Anti Political Hate Speech”

First, toldja so: Newsmax declares “Shooter Linked to Left Wing Politics.” Yes, by Newsmax. Apparently it was reported the young man accused of shooting Rep. Gabrielle Giffords and several others owns copies of The Communist Manifesto and Mein Kampf, which of course (in the minds of righties, who cannot figure out why Hitler was a right-wing psychopath, not a left-wing one) proves he’s a leftie.

Anyway, the more I hear about the shooter, the more it appears he was deeply disturbed, possibly psychotic. I am not qualified to diagnose these things, of course, but this is in the Arizona Star:

The suspected shooter has made death threats before and been contacted by law-enforcement officers, but the threats weren’t against Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, Dupnik said. The suspect is unstable, Dupnik said, but the sheriff would not say he is “insane.”

A former classmate of Loughner at Pima Community College said he was “obviously very disturbed.”

“He disrupted class frequently with nonsensical outbursts,” said Lynda Sorenson, who took a math class with Loughner last summer at Pima Community College’s Northwest campus.

Sorenson doesn’t recall if he ever made any threats or uttered political statements but he was very disruptive, she said. He was asked to leave the pre-algebra class several times and eventually was barred from class, said Sorenson, a Tucson resident.

Now, it stuck me that if some student had shown up in the algebra class bleeding from some injury, the school would have hustled the student off to a hospital, not barred the kid from class. It turns out the school, a local community college, suspended Jared Lee Loughner and told his parents he would need to get a psych evaluation before they could let him return. I don’t believe Loughner’s parents have made any public statements.

Loughner faces a death penalty for murdering a federal judge, so we’re about to go through another round of arguing over the insanity defense.

If Loughner is as psychotic as he appears, the next question is one Michelle Goldberg asks — were his delusions and violent actions influenced by violent rhetoric?

Goldberg adds that “Loughner, while clearly in the grip of delusion rather than any coherent ideology, nonetheless shared many far-right obsessions.”

His videos, which mostly feature white text on a black background accompanied by trippy electronic music, are full of unintelligible messages about conscious dreaming and English grammar. But they also make it clear that Loughner has internalized some of the conspiracy theories common in the Tea Party. He is obsessed with currency manipulation and out-of-control government power. Toward the end of a YouTube video titled “My Final Thoughts,” he writes, “The majority of citizens in the United States of America have never read the United States of America’s Constitution. You don’t have to accept the federalist laws. Nonetheless, read the United States of America’s Constitution to apprehend all of the current treasonous laws.” Among his MySpace photos is an American history book with a gun on top.

See also Adele Stan at Alternet.

Matt Bai, who can occasionally make a point when he’s not too pre-occupied with being bipartisan, wrote,

In fact, much of the message among Republicans last year, as they sought to exploit the Tea Party phenomenon, centered — like the Tea Party moniker itself — on this imagery of armed revolution. Popular spokespeople like Ms. Palin routinely drop words like “tyranny” and “socialism” when describing the president and his allies, as if blind to the idea that Americans legitimately faced with either enemy would almost certainly take up arms.

It’s not that such leaders are necessarily trying to incite violence or hysteria; in fact, they’re not. It’s more that they are so caught up in a culture of hyperbole, so amused with their own verbal flourishes and the ensuing applause, that — like the bloggers and TV hosts to which they cater — they seem to lose their hold on the power of words.

He’s right about the “culture of hyperbole, so amused with their own verbal flourishes and the ensuing applause.” For example, a quote that’s being tweeted around on the Right today is “If Jared Lee Loughner had any political heroes they would have to be Dennis Kucinich & Al Gore.”

I went clicking around to find the source, or at least everyone who seems to have thought this quote actually says something profound, and all I found was the quote. No reason, no explanation. It’s like little boys on a playground egging each other on to do something gross or stupid, for their own amusement. The actual acts, the actual words, have no meaning.

So for the next few days we may talk a little about toning down the rhetoric, but the people who most need to take the words to heart — won’t.

And Palin and her people clearly don’t know when to shut up:

In a radio interview Saturday night, one of Ms. Palin’s top aides, Rebecca Mansour, said of the map of lawmakers: “We never, ever, ever intended it to be gun sights.” Ms Mansour said attemps to tie Ms. Palin to the violence were “obscene” and “appalling.”

“I don’t understand how anyone can be held responsible for someone who is completely mentally unstable like this,” Ms. Mansour said. “Where I come from the person who is actually shooting is culpable. We had nothing whatsoever to do with this.”

She added: “People who knew him said that he is left wing and very liberal. But that is not to say that I am blaming the left for him either.”

You see? They can’t stop. They’re like crack addicts. I have no doubt that Moosewoman will add the remarks about her “target” image to her endless whine list of personal grievances.