I had a fascinating exchange with a dear friend last night.
It was short, and cordial .. but important to me.
As I type, U.S. Representative Gabrielle Giffords (D-AZ) lies in a post-operative intensive care room. A gunman put a bullet in her head yesterday morning.
His spree killed six people, including nine-year-old Christina Green and Federal Judge John Roll, 63. This morning's reports say 20 people are injured.
It is tragic to start a Sunday mourning.
But our conversation wasn't about grief. Sadness and anger are a given.
Our discussion was about timing. He has a view I respect, and understand to have some legitimacy, even as I disagree. I bring my point of view here; to my space, because it is on my mind this morning.
At issue was the timing of allusions to Sarah Palin during yesterday's chaotic coverage of the Tuscon violence.
He is a liberal, who despises her rise to prominence. But his perspective was that it is inappropriate to address the possible political undertones of an elected Representative being gunned down at a political event "before the bodies were even cold."
For what it is worth, he may be right. Mine is not a particularly political point of reference. My interest in the question goes to responsibility and how much accountability public figures have for their words.
On March 23rd of last year, Sarah Palin sent a controversial tweet to her 300-thousand plus followers:
Commonsense Conservatives & lovers of America: "Don't Retreat, Instead - RELOAD!" Pls see my Facebook page.The issue at the time was a Health Care Reform Bill, now law, against which the the former Vice Presidential Candidate and Alaska governor was spearheading opposition.
I want to be up front about two facts:
1. I am not a supporter of Mrs. Palin. Her picture of America doesn't resonate with me. I find her voice shrill and irritating, and her words more often nonsensical than profound on any level.
2. I do not believe Governor Palin's intent with this tweet was to call for the execution of politicians. I believe she was using reload as a metaphor for not backing down from a political point of view; calling instead for re-engagement in the legislative fight.
That said, it was a poor choice of words. And the criticism was fast and furious.
Representative Steve Israel (D-N.Y.); among others, responded via twitter and a series of television interviews. His concern was the imagery:
Reload? @SarahPalinUSA Is your choice of words inciteful or ignorant?For context, I ask you to recall that at that time there were numerous reports of personal threats to several Democratic lawmakers.
Death threats are common in America. I have always wondered about the people who make them. It seems a rather extreme response to go through all the trouble of promising to kill a person with whom you disagree. But yet, nothing controversial in America happens without allegations of threats to life.
Make a world-series losing error in game 7? Death Threats.
Say the wrong thing to the wrong crowd? Death Threats.
Vote an unpopular way on a legal matter? Death Threats.
Express an unpopular opinion on television or radio? Death Threats.
Run for President as a black guy? Death Threats.
Write a book with a contrarian view? Death Threats.
Dare to draw the Prophet Muhammed (peace be upon him) in a cartoon? Death Threats.
The point of acknowledging these threats isn't that we expect every vow of violence to manifest in a sidewalk assassination. Rather, that collectively "we" have to be aware that these morons with the hair-trigger threat gene walk among us.
And we expect the grown-ups to be cognizant of their existence, because being a public figure in America means that your words tickle millions of hammers, anvils, and stirrups ... and some of those inner canals feed directly into brains where the chemicals aren't balanced just right.
In a nation that prizes free speech, we don't expect you to put out those fires of insanity .. but from your public platform, we do ask you not to fan the flames.
We expect President George W. Bush to stand on his bully pulpit and publicly say to America:
The enemy of America is not our many Muslim friends; it is not our many Arab friends. Our enemy is a radical network of terrorists, and every government that supports them. --20 September 2001
To his eternal credit, he delivered. The non-partisan in each of us knows this paragraph saved lives and prevented lynchings.
Rights and responsibilities are the peanut butter and jelly of American citizenship. One without the other is either too sweet, or makes your gums stick together.
So when Political King and Queenmaker Palin chose to follow her OWN advice .. reloading instead of retreating on the issue, she gets the whole sandwich.
I am not prone to hyperbole, so let's speak of facts. Double click on the image that accompanies these words. Make it bigger. Take off your partisan hat for a moment, and just look at it.
A map of my beloved country, with 20 targets. Not metaphorical targets; actually scope views of specific districts in which it is "time to take a stand."
Then it lists by name, the people to be targeted:
#4: Gabrielle Giffords, AZ - 8
She now of respirators and scars, critically hanging on to life at Tuscon's University Medical Center, thank you to a man with a gun who picked her event as an appropriate target.
If this poster were a CD album cover, pointing out police districts instead of political ones, and our Sunday mourning was for Officers, would there be calls for cooler heads? Calls to slow condemnation of the artist? Same poster, same outcome ..
How about a racial separatist group, from any side of that minefield -- calling for its members to "stand up" against pockets of whites, or blacks, or hispanics? If this were their poster, and we were lighting candles over a Jewish Center, or at an NAACP rally, or Republican headquarters, would we seek to slow down the anger before we called for responsible speech?
I do not blame ex-Governor Palin for the crime. But that's not the standard for behavior we promote. The standard is to not speak words that everyone so easily calls to mind when the idiots among us do something horrendous.
Imagine this: Mrs. Palin could just have easily said "return."
Peace,
--Stew.
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