Liberal Cynicism and Hypocrisy Has Perhaps Gone Too Far This Time

Maybe the liberal media and liberal politicians are over-reaching with their reaction to the Arizona shooting tragedy. Maybe they have reached the point where they just plain look ridiculous to the vast majority of the voters. Maybe they are only hurting themselves by their attempts to exploit this tragedy for political purposes.

The Washington Post has an opinion piece by Glenn Reynolds this morning entitled: "The Arizona Tragedy and the Politics of Blood Libel," which asks the obvious question: "How, exactly, does seizing on every flimsy pretext to accuse the Tea Party and Sarah Palin of being an accomplice to murder contribute to the civility of public discourse?" Reynolds writes:

Shortly after November's electoral defeat for the Democrats, pollster Mark Penn appeared on Chris Matthews's TV show and remarked that what President Obama needed to reconnect with the American people was another Oklahoma City bombing. To judge from the reaction to Saturday's tragic shootings in Arizona, many on the left (and in the press) agree, and for a while hoped that Jared Lee Loughner's killing spree might fill the bill.

With only the barest outline of events available, pundits and reporters seemed to agree that the massacre had to be the fault of the tea party movement in general, and of Sarah Palin in particular. Why? Because they had created, in New York Times columnist Paul Krugman's words, a "climate of hate."

The critics were a bit short on particulars as to what that meant. Mrs. Palin has used some martial metaphors—"lock and load"—and talked about "targeting" opponents. But as media writer Howard Kurtz noted in The Daily Beast, such metaphors are common in politics. Palin critic Markos Moulitsas, on his Daily Kos blog, had even included Rep. Gabrielle Giffords's district on a list of congressional districts "bullseyed" for primary challenges. When Democrats use language like this—or even harsher language like Mr. Obama's famous remark, in Philadelphia during the 2008 campaign, "If they bring a knife to the fight, we bring a gun"—it's just evidence of high spirits, apparently. But if Republicans do it, it somehow creates a climate of hate.

There's a climate of hate out there, all right, but it doesn't derive from the innocuous use of political clichés. And former Gov. Palin and the tea party movement are more the targets than the source.

Read the rest here.

John Hayward at Human Events chronicles liberal hate speech and documents the hypocrisy:

Krugman wraps up his piece by asking, “Will the Arizona massacre make our discourse less toxic? It’s really up to G.O.P. leaders. Will they accept the reality of what’s happening to America, and take a stand against eliminationist rhetoric? Or will they try to dismiss the massacre as the mere act of a deranged individual, and go on as before?” I wouldn’t pretend to be a big fan of the Times under the best of circumstances, but this kind of irresponsible, degenerate slander is simply beneath the standards that should be expected of a major media outlet, liberal or conservative. The insinuation that GOP leaders are somehow responsible for the murderous insanity of Jared Loughner is an unforgivable insult, and expresses a philosophy best described as totalitarianism.

The New York Times website editors made absolute fools of themselves by allowing Krugman’s piece to run. Readers who are content to be insulted by his absurd and dishonest brand of “economics” should look within themselves and ask if they can stomach this affront to the very liberty and humanity of their fellow citizens on the Right. You can disagree with someone’s politics, and even express personal dislike for them, without blaming them for murder. If you agree with Krugman’s idea that every lunatic with a gun is an agent of whatever ideology he endorses, you are starting down a very dark road, which invariably ends with the use of force to suppress unacceptable dissent.

Even someone as senseless and ignorant as Paul Krugman shouldn’t want to take a single step down that road. After all, we’ve learned over the weekend that every kid who knew Jared Loughner described him as a far-left liberal. Daily Kos founder Markos Moulitsas, who recently published a hate screed that damned the entire conservative movement as the “American Taliban,” declared Gabrielle Giffords was “dead to him” after she voted against Nancy Pelosi for Speaker of the House, and that was just a couple of days ago. We have learned that Loughner was a 9/11 conspiracy theorist – a liberal movement that claimed something like 40% support from Democrats in opinion polls, at its high-water mark. Maybe we should be taking a closer look at that “climate of hate” on the Left.

Read it all here.

The hate-mongering done by the Left here is hypocritical for sure, but the indictment is even deeper. Gabrielle Giffords is being used by the Left for cheap, ideological purposes. The grief of her family and friends is being exploited to push the Democratic Party up a point or two in the public opinion polls. In the wake of this tragedy, the concern of Republicans was for Giffords, her family and the grieving, shocked public and their response was compassionate, mature and non-political. But the response of the Left was immediately to seize on this as an "opportunity."

The Left does not care about individuals; it is built into their creed. The individual is nothing; the collective is everything. They accuse conservatives of not being compassionate despite the fact that conservatives are as eager (actually more eager) to help those in need. Where the two sides differ is whether or not it is a good idea to make the huge middle class dependent on government handouts to compensate them for debilitating taxation. That is a power grab and has nothing to do with compassion. It is the naked will to power disguised as compassion and it was decisively and thunderingly rejected by the American people in November.

What the Left wants is power and it is even willing to exploit human tragedy to advance this fanatical and ultimately totalitarian agenda. But maybe this time they exposed their true motives unintentionally by jumping too quickly for the quick and cheap political score. Let us hope that it plays out that way - for sake of civility in political discourse in America.