In the fall out of the shooting of Rep. Giffords and others at her public meeting in Arizona, the politics of demonization of the political right has been quick and ruthless by the political left. Their puppets in the news media have been quick to try to pin blame on the Tea Party, Sarah Palin, Glenn Beck, and Republicans. Claims that violent rhetoric from Republicans inspired this has become a chanting point. while the real facts that keep trickling out show that the shooter, Jarod Loughner, was a pot smoking, anti-religion, anti-war left winger with an obsession with Giffords dating back to 2007.
1. feigned high principles: the false claim to or pretense of having admirable principles, beliefs, or feelings
It would be sheer hypocrisy for them to turn around and do what they criticize in others.
Warning: NSFW in some cases -- Michelle Malkin has an astounding and very long list of the violence called for and perpetrated by the left in the past ten years. Read through it and the definition of hypocrisy above is well proven, I think. As I mentioned, beware foul language and crude imagery at the link.
The desire to vilify the right has trumped anything approaching fairness or rationality on the left. Glenn Reynolds of Instapundit fame has an editorial at the Wall Street Journal that further points out the hypocrisy going on. I will quote him:
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?
Frankly, I don’t expect an honest answer from the left on that one. But I don’t expect honest answers from them on anything these days.
This rant by krakatoa at Ace of Spades pretty sums up how fed up we are with this. It is horrible that the acts of an extremely mentally ill young man are being used for attempted political gain by the left. Appalling barely begins to describe it.
I used to defend people on the left as being well intentioned if misguided. The events of the last several years have taught me otherwise. Dishonesty, intolerance, and hate is all I’m seeing out of them and it is getting worse. This trend cannot be good for the country and will lead to real conflict down the road.