The missed point(s)

I'm not sure anyone is surprised that Sarah Palin made a sporting effort to turn today, a national day of mourning for the victims of the Tucson shootings, into a day about her. (Note that she--or rather, her staff-- released the video at 4 a.m. AK time, which is perfect to dominate the morning news in the rest of the country.)

The media has been focusing on the "blood libel" statement. And rightly so, as it was a ridiculous gaffe. (Note that the phrase has been batted around right-wing web sites for a short time, notably Andrew Breitbart, who apparently started the meme. I will speculate here, but I think a lazy speechwriter simply spent too much time reading the echo chamber web sites and simply used the same verbage in Ms Palin's speech.)

I think the buried lede is twofold. First, she spent less than 45 seconds talking about her sorrow and feelings for the victims, and seven minutes talking about how she is the victim, ticking off talking points, and various other canards. Almost all of those points are either irrelevant or easily disprovable.

More importantly, her logic is (to paraphrase) as follows:

• The rhetoric that's been tossed around did not cause this one lone wolf; we should not give up rights; words cannot hurt people in a vibrant debate.
• If people continue to disagree with me, that will only foment the folks on the right to violence.
• Therefore, it's fine when the right uses incendiary language, but evil when the left uses the rhetorical technique of "criticism".

Pretty thin skin for a presidential aspirant.

Methinks they doth protest too much

Media figures and politicians on the right are up in arms that they would be accused of causing the Tucson shootings. Beck is livid, and demands that he doesn't use violent rhetoric on the air or off. O'Reilly spent an entire primetime hour railing against it. The Tea Party Express has sent out a mailer telling their people that they're under attack from the left, and then urging them to send in a generous contribution. (Yes, they're exploiting the tragedy to solicit money.)

In short, this horrible tragedy is all about them.

The Scrambling

The 24-hour cable news channels are of course eating up the attempted Giffords assassination (and murder of several others in the process.) I suppose that's their role now, although I don't consider it "reporting".

No one will soon (if ever) know what the motivations were. But we want to know. The temptation to draw conclusions from flimsy, unverified sources is great. Some are actively doing this to sate the public's want.

And conclusions are flying on the internet of course. The latest is the whole "Sarah Palin/Glenn Beck/Rush Limbaugh/Bill O'Reilly drove this maniac to this act". The media, predictably, is most often reporting this as a single lunatic. Some are saying he's an anti-Semite, others are saying he's an ultra-Leftist.

Again, it'll be a long time, if ever, before we know.

So, why is Sarah Palin going into damage-control mode?

In April of last year, she was criticized for having a graphic with images of crosshairs on them, targeting Democrats. One of them happened to be Giffords. Lots of criticism has been heaped on this at the time, and now that one of the "targets" has been taken out, the incitement accusation has been huge.

Her people tell us that this is appalling to accuse them of anything like that. No, in fact, those graphics were cartographic "survey marks".

Unfortunately, that doesn't jibe with Ms Palin's own tweets:

Or this:

Palin's website has apparently tried to scrub the site of the crosshairs graphic. Whomever manages her Twitter account has tried to scrub the above tweets from her account. Of course, as every tween should know by now, if it goes onto the internet, it's out there forever whether you like it or not.

My question is, why the panic if you feel you did nothing wrong?

UPDATE: (HT Slog):
Palin has scrubbed her Facebook comments of any critical comments. But she left in comments like this, which are apparently perfectly OK:

"It's ok. Christina Taylor Green was probably going to end up a left wing bleeding heart liberal anyway. Hey, as 'they' say, what would you do if you had the chance to kill Hitler as a kid? Exactly."

 Christina was the 9 year old girl killed.

On Scalia, Boehner and Twain

Supreme Court Associate Justice Antonin Scalia has famously given an interview implying (well, more than implying) that sex discrimination and sexual orientation are not covered by the fourteenth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. From section 1 of the amendment:

No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States;

So women aren't citizens, and neither are your gay/etc. neighbors.

To a small degree, I can see the wiggle room Scalia built in to his reasoning. But that's the originalist argument. It's still wrong.

The Tea Party advocates originalism famously. Now-Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives John Boehner has somewhat kowtowed to the Party by insisting the U.S. Constitution be read at the opening of the 112th Congress, to remind lawmakers of the original intent of the Founding Fathers. It only cost taxpayers $1.1 million.

Except, he decided to skip over certain parts (some which had been negated or altered by later amendments.)

Also, earlier this week, a book publisher has decided to censor/edit Huckleberry Finn, an American classic.

What do all these have in common?

Each chooses to ignore ugly, vast and unpalatable parts of our history as Americans. We cannot, as a great country, understand the original intents without looking at the whole story.

Originalists, apparently, choose to selectively ignore.

Originalism

Amazingly glib interview with Associate Justice Scalia. Extended outtake:

In 1868, when the 39th Congress was debating and ultimately proposing the 14th Amendment, I don't think anybody would have thought that equal protection applied to sex discrimination, or certainly not to sexual orientation. So does that mean that we've gone off in error by applying the 14th Amendment to both?
Yes, yes. Sorry, to tell you that. ... But, you know, if indeed the current society has come to different views, that's fine. You do not need the Constitution to reflect the wishes of the current society. Certainly the Constitution does not require discrimination on the basis of sex. The only issue is whether it prohibits it. It doesn't. Nobody ever thought that that's what it meant. Nobody ever voted for that. If the current society wants to outlaw discrimination by sex, hey we have things called legislatures, and they enact things called laws. You don't need a constitution to keep things up-to-date. All you need is a legislature and a ballot box. You don't like the death penalty anymore, that's fine. You want a right to abortion? There's nothing in the Constitution about that. But that doesn't mean you cannot prohibit it. Persuade your fellow citizens it's a good idea and pass a law. That's what democracy is all about. It's not about nine superannuated judges who have been there too long, imposing these demands on society.

What do you do when the original meaning of a constitutional provision is either in doubt or is unknown?
I do not pretend that originalism is perfect. There are some questions you have no easy answer to, and you have to take your best shot. ... We don't have the answer to everything, but by God we have an answer to a lot of stuff ... especially the most controversial: whether the death penalty is unconstitutional, whether there's a constitutional right to abortion, to suicide, and I could go on. All the most controversial stuff. ... I don't even have to read the briefs, for Pete's sake.

Should we ever pay attention to lawyers' work product when it comes to constitutional decisions in foreign countries?
[Laughs.] Well, it depends. If you're an originalist, of course not. What can France's modern attitude toward the French constitution have to say about what the framers of the American Constitution meant? [But] if you're an evolutionist, the world is your oyster.

7000000000

The world was at 3 Billion when I was born, and has significantly more than doubled in my short lifetime.

Enjoy the holidays