The Foundation

“We must take human nature as we find it, perfection falls not to the share of mortals.” –George Washington

Editorial Exegesis

“The Tucson shooting was an unspeakable horror, [as] a characteristic exercise in American democracy – a townhall meeting outside a Safeway store – [was] interrupted by gunshots and bloodshed. The gunman targeted Democratic Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, who was shot through the head but survived, and killed six and wounded thirteen others. Any time someone attempts to assassinate a public official it is an attack on the entire country, and the Tucson shooting has been appropriately treated as such by politicians across the political spectrum. We barely knew all the facts in the immediate aftermath of the shooting, though, before this vicious act was being milked for political advantage by ghoulish opportunists on the Left. Their argument was that the suspect, Jared Loughner, was effectively sent from the Tea Party. … The irony of criticizing the overheated rhetoric of your opponents at the same time you call them accomplices to murder apparently was lost on these people, most of whom have never been noted for their subtlety (or civility). It is vile to attempt to tar the opposition with the crimes of a lunatic so as to render illegitimate the views of about half of America. Jared Loughner is clearly deranged, his fevered mind drawn to irrational extremes, whether those of Adolf Hitler or Karl Marx. He was anti-government the way paranoiacs who think the government is controlling their minds are anti-government – think John Nash, not Milton Friedman. … That said, all of us have an obligation to speak with truth and charity in making our political arguments. Not because hateful talk will drive the mentally ill to criminal acts, but because civility is a good in its own right. … [I]f we all can endeavor to be more civil, a place to start is to not to try to score gross political points off the heinous act of a disturbed individual.” –National Review

Upright

“In the final analysis, when we get the final answer [to] why did this fellow do this, the answer will come from psychology, not from sociology or political science.” –former House Majority Leader Dick Armey

“If crazed gunmen are sadly a periodic characteristic of American culture, so are political vultures who scavenge political capital as they pick through the horrific violence.” –historian Victor Davis Hanson

“Those who try to connect Sarah Palin and other political figures with whom they disagree to the shootings in Arizona use attacks on ‘rhetoric’ and a ‘climate of hate’ to obscure their own dishonesty in trying to imply responsibility where none exists. But the dishonesty remains. … [T]hose who purport to care about the health of our political community demonstrate precious little actual concern for America’s political well-being when they seize on any pretext, however flimsy, to call their political opponents accomplices to murder.” –law professor Glenn Reynolds

“If there is anything more frightening or sad about [the Arizona shootings], it is that anyone would try to lay the blame on anyone else’s doorstep, other than that of the sick kid who carried this out.” –Arizona’s Cochise County Sheriff Larry Dever

“Far from serving as fodder for the anti-gunners (save as they pervert the story to make it fit their template), the shooting in Tucson reminds us that when the criminal mind acts on its inclinations, its would-be victims must be prepared to take the necessary steps to stop the perpetrator in his tracks. Clearly, this is best achieved by lawfully carrying a handgun on our persons: a handgun with which we are familiar, and which we are willing to use to defend our own lives and the lives of other innocents.” –columnist AWR Hawkins

“This shouldn’t happen in this country or anywhere else, but in a free society, we’re going to be subject to people like this. I prefer this to the alternative.” –John Green, the father of 9-year-old Christina Green, who was murdered in Tucson

Dezinformatsia

Blame game: “It is facile and mistaken to attribute this particular madman’s act directly to Republicans or Tea Party members. But it is legitimate to hold Republicans and particularly their most virulent supporters in the media responsible for the gale of anger that has produced the vast majority of these threats, setting the nation on edge.” –New York Times editorial

“We’ve been following the fallout from the Tucson shooting and there is a lot of blame to go around. People are blaming the vitriolic right-wing talkers and the Tea Party.” –MSNBC’s Contessa Brewer

A lecture in the mirror: “[W]e live … in a dangerous, hair-trigger time when tempers always seem near the boiling point and patience seems a lost trait. … We scream and shout, hurl charges without proof. Those on the other side of the argument become not opponents but enemies. Dangerous, inflammatory words are used with no thought of consequence. … Those with sick and twisted minds hear us too, and are sometimes inflamed by what the rest of us often discard as hollow and silly rhetoric. And so violence becomes part of the argument.” –CBS’s Bob Schieffer

Screaming and shouting, hurling charges without proof: “It’s all about taking down President Obama. [Republicans] don’t want to create jobs. They’re not about that at all. And I’ll guarantee you, if you do see the numbers change, which I believe they will, you won’t hear [Speaker John] Boehner or any of these new righties give one ounce of credit to the last Congress for fighting like hell for a jobs bill. This is an ideological war. I say it on camera tonight here on MSNBC – I will fight these bastards every night at 6 o'clock because I know what they’re up against. I know what they want to do. They want to take down American workers. They want to outsource jobs. They want to destroy the American dream. Concentrate the wealth to the top, and control minorities. That’s what they’re about.” –MSNBC’s Ed Shultz

Pot and kettle: “Republicans these days can’t get through a sentence without tossing in their new favorite adjective, ‘job-killing.’ There’s ‘job-killing legislation,’ in particular the health-care reform law. And ‘job-killing regulations,’ especially anything coming out of the EPA and the IRS. … What’s particularly noteworthy about this fixation with ‘job killing’ is that it stands in such contrast to the complete lack of concern about policies that kill people rather than jobs. Repealing health-care reform, for instance, would inevitably lead to thousands of unnecessary deaths each year because of an inability to get medical care. … I wonder how Republicans and their media posse would like it if Democrats started referring to ‘genocidal’ deregulation or the ‘murderous’ repeal of health-care reform.” –Washington Post business columnist Steven Pearlstein

Newspulper Headlines:

Especially in Detroit at Night: “Walking Faster May Lead to a Longer Life” –WebMD.com

Questions Nobody Is Asking: “Why Do People Keep Fainting Around Bill Clinton?” –Salon.com

We Blame George W. Bush: “Fairbanks Teens Accused of Theft Blame Boredom, TV” –News Miner (Fairbanks, AK)

The Constitution Explains the NY Times – Now That Would Be News: “The NY Times Explains the Constitution” –PowerLineBlog.com

It’s Always in the Last Place You Look: “Police Find Drunk Man at Church” –Free Lance-Star (Fredericksburg, VA)

Bottom Stories of the Day: “Obama Threatens to Veto Healthcare Repeal” –TheHill.com

(Thanks to The Wall Street Journal’s James Taranto)

The Demo-gogues

Way to “represent” the U.S.: “[W]e have extremists in our country. A wonderful and incredibly brave young woman Congress member was just shot by extremists in our country. We have the same kinds of problems. So rather than standing off from each other, we should work to try to prevent the extremists anywhere from being able to commit violence. … The extremists and their voices, the crazy voices that sometimes get on the TV, that’s not who we are, that’s not who you are, and what we have to do is get through that and make it clear that that doesn’t represent either American or Arab ideas or opinions” –Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, berating our nation in Dubai

On gun control: “Again, we need to look at how this is going to work, to protect people, certainly citizens, and we have to look at what I can pass. I don’t want to give the NRA – excuse the pun – the ammunition to come at me either. … Guns kill. And those who glamorize gunplay or worship gun ownership do no service to humanity.” –Rep. Carolyn McCarthy (D-NY), who is preparing to introduce more gun-control legislation in the wake of the Arizona shootings

Jumping to conclusions: “There are a whole lot of people in the Tea Party that I see in these polls who don’t want any compromise. My presumption is they have unhappy families. All of you have been in families: single-parent, two-parents, whatever. Multiple parent and a stepfather. The fact is life is about trying to reach accommodation with one another so we can move forward. That is certainly what democracy is about. So if we are going to move forward compromise is necessary.” –Rep. Steny Hoyer (D-MD)

Deriding the Constitution: “All this stuff taking place in the [House] Chambers the other day, when the Constitution was being read – all that stuff is uncalled for.” –South Carolina Demo Rep. James Clyburn

Village Idiots

To protect and serve: “When you look at unbalanced people, how they respond to the vitriol that comes out of certain mouths about tearing down the government – the anger, the hatred, the bigotry that goes on in this country is getting to be outrageous. And unfortunately, Arizona I think has become sort of the capital. We have become the mecca for prejudice and bigotry.” –Pima County, Arizona, Sheriff Clarence Dupnik, a Democrat, who has offered no evidence to support his theory

“[I]t used to be that politicians from different parties could sit down, forget about their ideology, and work on the country’s problems. We don’t see that happening today. As a matter of fact, we see exactly the opposite. We see one Party trying to block the attempts of another Party to make this a better country.” –Sheriff Dupnik

Speaking of politicizing: “They [the White House] need to deftly pin this [Arizona shootings] on the tea partiers. Just like the Clinton White House deftly pinned the Oklahoma City bombing on the militia and anti-government people.” –an anonymous “veteran Democratic operative”

Gun grabbers: “Sensible gun laws can save lives. Congress should move now to enact tougher restrictions on guns, ammunition, and who can legally possess them, and President Obama should help lead the way.” –Paul Helmke, president of the Brady campaign to Prevent Gun Violence

It would be funny if it weren’t so hypocritical: “No organisation anywhere in the world is a more devoted advocate of free speech than Wikileaks but when senior politicians and attention-seeking media commentators call for specific individuals or groups of people to be killed they should be charged with incitement – to murder. Those who call for an act of murder deserve as significant share of the guilt as those raising a gun to pull the trigger.” –WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange

Short Cuts

“Illinois officials report that drug sniffing dogs are wrong as much as 70 percent of the time – probably because they’re sniffing drugs all day.” –comedian Jay Leno

“When pesky literalists object to wishful constitutional law by reciting text, remind them that laws written more than 100 years ago are necessarily incomprehensible. Who’s to say the Reconstruction Senate didn’t intend the 14th Amendment as a proto-Equal Rights Amendment – just as who’s to say Mark Twain wouldn’t want us to redact the bad words from Huckleberry Finn? Pretend the Constitution says what you want it to say and call someone a hater when they say otherwise.” –author Daniel J. Flynn

“The Tucson atrocity has prompted the usual tedious calls for more gun laws. The distinguishing characteristic of every ‘gun-free utopia’ on earth is a mountain of bullet-riddled corpses. The great wisdom of our Second Amendment is that self-defense is an inalienable right of free men and women. Stripped of that right, they are sheep, whose ‘protection’ consists of endless attempts to outlaw wolves.” –columnist John Hayward

“But don’t forget, the people who conclude that the actions of a lunatic prove that the Tea Party inspires violence are the same people who conclude that record cold winters are proof of global warming.” –columnist Ross Kaminsky