On 01-11-11, JOHN MASSEY said to ALL:


JM>While Paul Krugman and other liberal commentators continue to exploit this
JM>weekend's tragedy by making hay out of supposedly extreme rhetoric on the
JM>right, perhaps they would do well to examine some of the rhetoric that has
JM>come from the left. On October 23, The Scranton Times reported that Rep.
JM>Paul Kanjorski, D-Pa., said this about Florida's new Republican Governor


JM>Rick Scott: "That Scott down there that's running for governor of
JM>Florida," Mr. Kanjorski said. "Instead of running for governor of Florida,
JM>they ought to have him and shoot him. Put him against the wall and shoot
JM>him. He stole billions of dollars from the United States government and
JM>he's running for governor of Florida. He's a millionaire and a
JM>billionaire. He's no hero. He's a damn crook. It's just we don't prosecute


JM>big crooks." Read more at the Washington Examiner:
JM>http://washingtonexaminthe
JM>"hate"er.com/blogs/beltway-confidential/2011/01/ex-rep-paul-kanjorski-d-pa


JM>fla- gov-rick-scott-they-ought-put-him-#ixzz1AkCjVYbc And to hear some
JM>people spin it, you would think all hate speech comes from the right.


Here's an interesting article along those lines:


Tucson Aftermath: Not the Left's First Political Witch Hunt


Posted by Michael Freund Jan 14th 2011 at 9:42 am in Israel


As he sits behind bars awaiting trial, Jared Loughner is undoubtedly relishing
every moment of the ruckus that he managed to stir up with his deadly rampage
in Tucson. In addition to murdering six innocent human beings and wounding
more than a dozen others in an act of sheer evil, the deranged gunman has set
off a media and political frenzy that refuses to abate.


By various accounts, this is precisely what Loughner was hoping for. As his
close friend Bryce Tierney told Mother Jones, "I think the reason he did it
was mainly to just promote chaos. He wanted the media to freak out about this
whole thing. He wanted exactly what's happening."� Ironically enough, then,
many of those now engaged in the shameless finger-pointing are inadvertently
advancing the goals of the madman, by fulfilling his desire to create an
environment of mayhem in society.


Deploying the most acerbic members of its verbal firing squads, the left has
launched volley after volley of vitriol in recent days in an effort to score
some political points and paint conservatives as extremists. But in so doing,
they are merely extending the damage inflicted by Loughner into the sphere of
public discourse, thereby undermining the very same foundations of
civilization that the gunman himself was targeting.On a certain level, it is
perhaps to be expected that the attempted murder of a popular Congresswoman
would conjure a very human need in some quarters to pin responsibility on a
larger collective.


After all, none of us wish to believe that it is within the power of one
scoundrel to set off such bedlam. Surely, there must be larger forces at work,
we tell ourselves.


But that is little more than an illusion, a somewhat comforting tale we cling
to in order to try and make sense of the otherwise inexplicable. Like it or
not, one individual can, and frequently does, alter the course of history.


Nonetheless, however predictable that deep-seated need to find larger forces
at work may be, that does not give people license to engage in an irrational
blame-game, which is precisely what the left is now doing.


Despite a gaping absence of even a shred of evidence, liberal commentators and
pundits have sought to link Sarah Palin, Rush Limbaugh, and Fox News, among
others, to the noxious carnage. Among the most egregious examples was Paul
Krugman of the New York Times, who invoked what he described as the
"eliminationist rhetoric" of the right. Others went further still, with
Michael Russnow asserting at the Huffington Post, "With all the terrorism
happening in our country and around the world, isn't most of it coming from
the right?"


Tossing logic to the wind, these critics have attempted to identity
conservative fingerprints at the scene of the crime where none can, or will,
be found.


Watching these events unfold from afar, I was reminded of the aftermath of
another shooting, one which also brought in its wake a chilling amount of
political bile. In November 1995, a lone gunman assassinated Israeli Prime
Minister Yitzhak Rabin after a rally in Tel Aviv, sending shockwaves
throughout the young country. It did not take long for the mourning to turn
into acrimony, as Israel's left took aim at then-opposition leader Binyamin
Netanyahu, who instantly became a lightning rod for some of the most hateful
rhetoric imaginable. I remember walking in the streets of Jerusalem at the
time, seeing graffiti scrawled on walls saying, "Bibi is a murderer."

�
Shortly thereafter Rabin's widow went so far as to declare that she would
prefer to shake PLO Chief Yasser Arafat's hand rather than that of Netanyahu.

It made little difference that the Likud Chairman was not linked in any way
with the perpetrator and had vigorously condemned the assassination. Even the
fact that Rabin's own Attorney-General, Michael Ben-Yair, said, "The person
who killed the prime minister did not do so under the influence of
incitement," had no effect.


Quite simply, the opportunity to take political pot-shots at Netanyahu and
Israel's right was one that the left simply could not pass up. They accused
the Likud of creating an atmosphere that led inevitably to the shooting, just
as America's liberals are claiming about conservatives today. And they sought
to tar Netanyahu with the brush of extremism, much in the way that Palin and
others are now being unfairly maligned.


However infuriating the slurs may be, the targets of today's post-Tucson
witch-hunt should not despair. Despite months of withering assaults on his
character, Netanyahu went on to win the 1996 Israeli elections. The public was
shrewd enough to see through the muck, recognizing a falsehood for what it
was.


And there is no reason to think that the American people are any less
discerning. A CBS poll found that just 32 percent thought that the political
tone in the country had anything to do with the Tucson shooting, while 57
percent did not.


There's a lesson in here for those on the left, one they ignore at their
political peril: when you start playing with mud, the only one you end up
dirtying is yourself.

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