The Giffords shooting, as only a Pulitzer Prize-winning cartoonist could render it

In this set of images, I think we get a good sense of how the media will memorialize the Tucson shooting and reference it in the future (indeed, Frank Rich is already traveling back in time to argue that point). That is to say, the rush to judgment that Tea Party/Sarah Palin/redneck rage was the root cause of it all regardless of any evidence in support of that thesis will stand. Because we should never forget that all the violence that was predicted by everybody with a brain back during the summer of 2009 (read: supporters of health-care reform) that never came to pass was really just the tinder for the current moment, when political violence remains thankfully shockingly rare and not even politically motivated when it does come to pass. Which isn’t any reason not to marginalize anybody who disagrees with you on political issues.