GRITtv: John Nichols on Gabby Giffords: "The Right to Peaceably Assemble" (video)

GRITtv, video (02:15):
When Rep. Gabrielle Giffords' Congress on Your Corner event was attacked on January 8th, gunman Jared Loughner did more than just go on a shooting spree. John Nichols notes that he attacked the very right of U.S. citizens to peaceably assemble and communicate with their representative in the government. When the 112th Congress first met this year, their first order of business was to read the Constitution out loud, and Rep. Giffords was the one who read the portion of the First Amendment that deals with the right to peaceably assemble, and Nichols argues that we need to honor Giffords and those killed that day by standing up for that right.

Frank Rich: "No One Listened to Gabrielle Giffords" (with video)

Frank Rich, with video (04:55):

For the sake of this discussion, let’s stipulate that Loughner was a "lone nutjob" who had never listened to Glenn Beck or been a card-carrying member of either the Tea or Communist parties. Let’s also face another tragedy: The only two civic reforms that might have actually stopped him — tighter gun control and an effective mental health safety net — won’t materialize even now.
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Did Loughner see Palin’s own most notorious contribution to the rancorous tone — her March 2010 Web graphic targeting Congressional districts? We have no idea — nor does it matter. But Giffords did. Her reaction to it — captured in an interview she did back then with Chuck Todd of MSNBC — was the most recycled, if least understood, video of last week.
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Last week a conservative presidential candidate, Tim Pawlenty, timidly said it wouldn’t be his “style” to use Palin’s target map, but was savaged so viciously by his own camp that he immediately retreated. A senior Republican senator told Politico that he saw the Tucson bloodbath as a “cautionary tale” for his party, yet refused to be named.

What are they and their peers so afraid of? No doubt that someone might reload — the same fears that prompted Gabrielle Giffords to speak up, calmly but firmly, last March. Unless and until they can match her courage and speak out too, it’s hard to see what will change. MORE...

"Amanda Terkel: Violent Rhetoric and Gabrielle Giffords" (with video)

GRITtv, with video (08:28):

"On the eve of the shooting that left her critically injured, Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-Ariz.) wrote an email to Kentucky Secretary of State Trey Grayson (R), asking his help in toning down the partisan rhetoric in the country." Amanda Terkel reported that Giffords had been asking for help, as one of the few Democrats and the only woman remaining in a Republican district, toning down the anger and violence running through much of political discourse.

Terkel has had her own experiences with right-wing language and media attacks: she was harassed and stalked by Bill O'Reilly's producer, and she notes that especially as a woman, it can be easy to feel threatened when you're targeted by politicians or other public figures. She joins us via Skype from Washington, D.C. to discuss the Giffords shooting, her own experiences, and more.

Howie P.S.: Cenk Uygur answers the question, "Was Jared Loughner's Act Political?" Matt Taibbi answers another question: "The Giffords Tragedy: Is the Media Partly at Fault?"

"Gabby Giffords, a tragic prophet"

E.J. Dionne, Jr.:

There is one commentator whose words should enlighten us on the meaning of Saturday's shooting of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords and the savage murders that took the lives of, among others, a federal judge and a 9-year-old girl. The person is Giffords herself.

In an interview last March, the Arizona Democrat anticipated almost everything being said now and explained why what happened on Saturday is a violation of our national self-image as "a beacon." Our pride, she said, is that "we effect change at the ballot box" and not through "outbursts of violence."

She spoke on MSNBC after the front door of her Tucson office was destroyed. Giffords had strongly supported health-care reform, which made some of her constituents very unhappy.

Asked if leaders of the Republican Party should speak out more forcefully against violence, she replied that this task fell as well to Democrats and "community leaders."

"Look, we can't stand for this." There were problems with certain ways of "firing people up," she said, and then offered an example close to home.

"We're on Sarah Palin's targeted list," she said, "but the thing is that the way she has it depicted has the crosshairs of a gun sight over our district. When people do that, they've got to realize there's consequences to that action."

MSNBC's Chuck Todd pressed her then, noting that "in fairness, campaign rhetoric and war rhetoric have been interchangeable for years." He asked what she thought Palin's intentions were.

"You know, I can't say, I'm not Sarah Palin," Giffords replied evenly. "But what I can say is that in the years that some of my colleagues have served - 20, 30 years - they've never seen it like this. We have to work out our problems by negotiating, working together, hopefully Democrats and Republicans.

"I understand that this health-care bill is incredibly personal," she continued, "probably the most significant vote cast here for decades, frankly. But the reality is that we've got to focus on the policy, focus on the process, but leaders - community leaders, not just political leaders - have to stand back when things get too fired up and say, 'Whoa, let's take a step back here.' " MORE...

Howie P.S.: Peter Daou lays out "the bogus equivalency between right/left extremism:"

We do not yet know whether the Arizona massacre was directly fueled by rightwing rhetoric. But we do know this: one of the most dangerous myths promulgated by the media and political establishment is that there is a comparable level of extremism among conservatives and liberals, that left and right are mirror images.

Even the most cursory perusal of rightwing radio, television, blogs and assorted punditry illustrates a profound distinction: in large measure, the right’s overarching purpose is to stoke hatred of the left, of liberalism. The right’s messaging infrastructure, meticulously constructed and refined over decades, promotes an image of liberals as traitors and America-haters, unworthy of their country and bent on destroying it. There is simply no comparable propaganda effort on the left. MORE...

Maddow Blog: 'This is a democracy. We can't govern if we don't respect each other.' (with video)

Laura Conway (Maddow Blog) with video (07:52);

"You'd go to these health-care town halls, where you get 2,000 screaming, hissing, booing, shouting-down-everybody people on the right, and you got the sense that there was this kind of primeval allure to being in a mob," Rep. Farley tells us. "It's driven by politics, and not rational politics at that."
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Rep. Farley says that it's unlikely Loughner acted out of political motivations, at least in the way that most folks understand politics. But he argues that violent political rhetoric has an effect on people like Loughner. "They're loners and they're looking for something to belong to, and those big angry mob things, they're a rush," Rep. Farley says. "It doesn't matter what we believe in -- we've got to tone it down. Because this is a democracy, and we can't govern if we don't respect each other." MORE...

Switzerblog on the AZ Massacre: "Because it IS political, that’s why." (with video)

Switzerblog: with video (01:36).

In the wake of yesterday’s assassination attempt on the life of Congresswoman Giffords, Twitter was filled with retweets of Sarah Palin’s infamous “Don’t retreat – reload!” exhortation, her bullseye map, Sharron Angle quotes (“Second Amendment remedies"), and news that Palin had pulled the bullseye map off her website. By late afternoon, we began to see calls for civility, which have increased by this morning. Predictably, of course, right-wingers want to insist that the only responsible party is the shooter, but those of a “moderate” bent (not that I doubt they’re moderate, btw…the quotes are just to indicate I’m using the word as a blanket qualifier) seemed to hit on a common chorus: Can’t we just grieve without making this about politics?

In a word, no. We cannot. We can’t because it is political. This wasn’t just a crazed shooter at the mall. He attempted to assassinate a Congresswoman because of her political stands, and successfully killed a Federal Judge, aide, three supporters, and a 9-year old girl in the process. Truly grieving this loss requires examining what brought it on, and being honest with ourselves about the context in which the crime took place. Doing less insures it will be repeated, and does an injustice to those who’ve lost their lives or had them greatly altered by injury. MORE...

"Pima (AZ) Sheriff Clarence Dupnik Calls Out Vitriolic, Hateful Rhetoric" (with video)

Karoli (Crooks and Liars), with video (07:12):

In one of the most remarkable press conferences I've ever seen, Pima County Sheriff Clarence Dupnik called out for an end to the violent rhetoric that leads to acting-out by people who are 'unbalanced' not once, but three times.

Calling Arizona a "Mecca for prejudice and bigotry", Dupnik spoke sharply about the rhetoric coming from radio and television sources.

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The presence of a second suspect, or involved person, suggests there is much more to this than an unbalanced person showering a crowd with bullets, but without details it's just too early to tell. Just now on MSNBC, Eugene Robinson said that the violent rhetoric now is coming exclusively from the right wing, and they should be accountable for it. MORE...