Quotes of the day

“One veteran Democratic operative, who blames overheated rhetoric for the shooting, said President Barack Obama should carefully but forcefully do what his predecessor did.

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“‘They need to deftly pin this on the tea partiers,’ said the Democrat. ‘Just like the Clinton White House deftly pinned the Oklahoma City bombing on the militia and anti-government people.’

“Another Democratic strategist said the similarity is that Tucson and Oklahoma City both ‘take place in a climate of bitter and virulent rhetoric against the government and Democrats.’

“This Democrat said that the time had come to insist that Republicans stand up when, for example, a figure such as Fox News commentator Glenn Beck says something incendiary.”

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“Representative Bob Brady of Pennsylvania told The Caucus he plans to introduce a bill that would ban symbols like that now-infamous campaign crosshair map.

“‘You can’t threaten the president with a bullseye or a crosshair,’ Mr. Brady, a Democrat, said, and his measure would make it a crime to do so to a member of Congress or federal employee, as well.

“Asked if he believed the map incited the gunman in Tucson, he replied, ‘I don’t know what’s in that nut’s head. I would rather be safe than sorry.'”

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Via the Blaze.

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“Embedded in Sheriff Dupnik’s ad hoc wisdom were several assumptions. First, that strident, anti-government political views can be easily categorized as vitriolic, bigoted, and prejudicial. Second, that those voicing strident political views are guilty of issuing Manchurian Candidate-style instructions to commit murder and mayhem to the ‘unbalanced.’ Third, that the Tucson shooter was inspired to kill by political debate or by Sarah Palin’s ‘target’ map or other inflammatory outbursts. Fourth, that we should calibrate our political speech in such a manner that we do not awaken the Manchurian candidates among us.

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“And, fifth, that it’s a cop’s role to set the proper dimensions of our political debate. Hey, Dupnik, if you’ve got spare time on your hands, go write somebody a ticket

“Any call to cool ‘inflammatory’ speech is a call to police all speech, and I can’t think of anybody in government, politics, business, or the press that I would trust with that power. As Jonathan Rauch wrote brilliantly in Harper’s in 1995, ‘The vocabulary of hate is potentially as rich as your dictionary, and all you do by banning language used by cretins is to let them decide what the rest of us may say.’ Rauch added, ‘Trap the racists and anti-Semites, and you lay a trap for me too. Hunt for them with eradication in your mind, and you have brought dissent itself within your sights.'”

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“So as the usual talking heads begin their ‘have you no decency?’ routine aimed at talk radio and Republican politicians, perhaps we should turn the question around. Where is the decency in blood libel?…

“To be clear, if you’re using this event to criticize the ‘rhetoric’ of Mrs. Palin or others with whom you disagree, then you’re either: (a) asserting a connection between the ‘rhetoric’ and the shooting, which based on evidence to date would be what we call a vicious lie; or (b) you’re not, in which case you’re just seizing on a tragedy to try to score unrelated political points, which is contemptible. Which is it?

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“I understand the desperation that Democrats must feel after taking a historic beating in the midterm elections and seeing the popularity of ObamaCare plummet while voters flee the party in droves. But those 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.

Where is the decency in that?

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