The Tucson Shootings

A reminder that tonight, 7:00 pm cst, the memorial service for the victims of the shootings in Tucson this past weekend will take place. I would encourage you to tune in and to pay particular attention to President Obama's remarks. Many observers have noted the similarities in "political time" between the situation now and the aftermath of the Oklahoma City bombing by Timothy McVeigh in 1995. Clinton was credited at the time of setting the right tone in calling attention to the pervasive and powerfully destructive effects of heated anti-government rhetoric and hostility. President Obama faces a similar opportunity, but in some ways his task is more challenging than was Clinton's. Why? Because now, unlike 1995, "hate speech" is arguably much more integrated into the mainstream partisan political discourse of the time. Those on the right -- particularly Sarah Palin and Tea Party candidates -- have been using language to refer to the President and Democrats that is "borderline" for some time now. Sharron Angle, the Tea Party Senate candidate in Nevada, talked of "Second Amendment remedies" in the event that she and her followers didn't get their way at the Ballot Box. Sarah Palin's infamous, "don't retreat, just reload," coupled with the crosshairs targeting those Democrats she actively campaigned against in 2010 (including Gabrielle Giffords) is pointed invective, despite the difficulty of drawing a clear line of causation from such speech to the evil acts of Jared Loughner. Rush Limbaugh, predictably, has accused Democrats of using the tragedy to score political points, in the process "blaming everybody and everything except Loughner." In this environment, the President and his speech-writers face a challenging task.

DT