It was predictably predictable. A tragedy in Tucson chased within minutes by the shouts of leftist zealots clamoring for more government and less freedom. This time, they are shrill, gleeful and, at least so far, comically ineffectual in their frenzied attacks on conservatives. While their hysterical fury may baffle most, it may turn out to be a very good thing.
A crazed, disaffected, apolitical 22-year-old druggie is charged with shooting Rep. Gabrielle Giffords in a hail of bullets at a Tucson grocery store. Six died; 14 were wounded, including Giffords.
The shots were still echoing as the left rushed to politicize the carnage and blame Republicans and conservatives in an attempt to curb guns and free speech. It was Sarah Palin's fault, they said, or her silly map targeting Giffords' district. Or Rush Limbaugh's "hate" speech, or Glenn Beck's. Or high-capacity magazines, or guns in general. It was talk radio or TV -- even if the suspected shooter's friends said he never watched television or listened to radio; that he could not have cared less about politics. It was heated political rhetoric (never from the left, mind you), or the DREAM Act's failure to win congressional approval. Or maybe the moon was full. But most important, Republicans did it.
Even President Barack Obama, at a memorial service in Tucson on Wednesday night, noted the polarized nature of recent discourse and called for civility. (The T-shirts and applause were nice touches, you betcha.)
All that yada-yada blissfully ignores the inconveniently obvious. The shooter likely is as batty as an outhouse rat. The shootings are his fault. His alone.
If I get that and you get that, why are our leftist friends baying like coon hounds lost in a swamp? Well, they cannot cynically exploit the pain and misery of Tucson if only one person, and a nut to boot, is to blame. They need the shooter to be a victim, hounded to insanity by easy access to guns and inflamed political speech from Palin and the rest. They know better, but who cares? This is their (pardon me) shot.
"You don't," Rahm Emanuel said famously, "ever want a crisis to go to waste. . . ," and those words have been taken to heart by the left. In the shootings' wake, there were immediate calls from that side of the political spectrum for all manner of unconstitutional rubbish.
You may see that as a bad thing. I say hooray! Let Americans see leftists for what they are; what's in their heads and their hearts; what they stand for. Let them parade their moral bankruptcy and intellectual dishonesty for all to see. Let them show us the disdain they have for average Americans. In my view, the radical, vocal left is only the flip side of Palin -- and the more you know, the less there is to like. Let the leftists go forth and be loony. Let them (pardon me again) shoot themselves in their collective foot.
It already is paying off. Americans are people of common, good sense and at least one reputable poll shows a majority early on figured out the shooter, not political rhetoric or guns or Palin or talk radio, is to blame for the Arizona spree.
But leftists will not give up. They will do what they do -- patiently await tragedy, then exploit the confusion and emotion of the moment to push their anti-gun, big-government agenda. "In the wake of these kind of incidents, the trick is to move quickly," said Kristen Rand, legislative director of the Violence Policy Center, a gun-control outfit, in speaking about Tucson.
Instead of getting angry, we should follow Napoleon's advice to never interfere with an enemy while he's in the process of destroying himself. We must politely and unemotionally counter the left's nonsense with facts and then stand out of the way. The American public will see the left's tactics for what they are: cheap, sad, exploitive politics that are part of a desperate effort to advance rejected policies. The public will be able to smell the rank opportunism. It will understand that a call for civility really is a call for critics to sit down and shut up.
The odds of the left succeeding in quashing free speech or stripping us of other freedoms because of Tucson are slim. The odds of it severely hurting itself in the aftermath are incredibly high.
Good for us.
Paul Jenkins is editor of the anchoragedailyplanet.com.
PAUL JENKINS
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