Last spring, Sarah Palin asked her followers to "take aim" at Democrats including Gabrielle Giffords, placing the Arizona representative's name in rifle cross hairs. Today Congresswoman Giffords was shot through the brain at a constituent meet-up north of Tucson, critically injured in a flurry of gunfire where at least five others, including a U.S. Federal Judge, were fatally wounded.
Is it a surprise that violent rhetoric leads to violent results? That character assassination leads to actual mayhem? Just how are Mama Grizzly's remarks different than Osama Bin Laden's exhortation to his followers to "kill Americans"? The connections of the gunman to the Tea Party or radical Republican movements are unknown at this point. Doubtless leaders of both parties will condemn the shooting. But blood will continue as long as cult figures like Palin are permitted to shoot from the lip.
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