In the morning, Sarah Palin offered her statement, her defense, really, on the Giffords shooting and the fears that it sprang from the violent political rhetoric she and her ilk have employed so liberally. Not surprisingly, Palin rejected the notion that martial imagery might lead to violent actions. As one wag put it, "Today has been set aside to honor the victims of the Tucson massacre. And Sarah Palin has apparently decided she's one of them." Palin issued all the platitudes about the criminal bearing responsibility for his actions, not society. She quoted Reagan, and threw up some straw men about her own persecution.
But one must wonder why Bill Ayers' crimes didn't end with him. One must wonder why the books we read and the movies we see do so much to promote violence, while the words that are spoken on the campaign trail and the images posted from there, words and images that are about real people doing things that directly touch our lives, do so little.
"Journalists and pundits should not manufacture a blood libel that serves only to incite the very hatred and violence they purport to condemn. That is reprehensible," Palin writes on her facebook page.
Reprehensible (and we'll leave the reprehensibility of her use of the term "blood libel" for to others). A strong word. A very strong word coming from a woman who has decided that large swathes of this nation are not "real America." Palin clearly has no problem with the violence used in political rhetoric, as long as it's directed outward, at the "other," which is a disturbingly large group for the erstwhile governor of Alaska.
"We certainly must not be deterred by those who embrace evil and call it good." I wonder, just who does Palin believe is embracing evil and calling it good? Loughlen? Gifford? Obama? The media?
"There are those who claim political rhetoric is to blame for the despicable act of this deranged, apparently apolitical criminal. And they claim political debate has somehow gotten more heated just recently. But when was it less heated?"
That question was answered last night when Palin's great nemesis spoke. Unlike Palin, the president's choice of adverbs was not limited to "they" and "those." Instead he used "we," "us," and "our." And therein lies the difference between the two visions for this nation that have been put forward in the past decade. One vision refers to the days when politicians settled their arguments with duels. The second refers to scripture, to unity and, through Lincoln, to the better angels of our nature.
The president, aging faster than any president I can remember in my lifetime, did not point fingers. He did not defend anything, but instead tried to lift up this nation, tried to get it to see that through tragedy lies the path to a slightly better world. While the organized right focuses on ensuring that government does nothing to better the world, Obama wants all of us to better the world. While Palin threw blame, Obama sought unity.
"We must examine all the facts behind this tragedy. We cannot and will not be passive in the face of such violence. We should be willing to challenge old assumptions in order to lessen the prospects of violence in the future.
"But what we can't do is use this tragedy as one more occasion to turn on one another. As we discuss these issues, let each of us do so with a good dose of humility. Rather than pointing fingers or assigning blame, let us use this occasion to expand our moral imaginations, to listen to each other more carefully, to sharpen our instincts for empathy, and remind ourselves of all the ways our hopes and dreams are bound together"
I suspect that Palin will simply fade away in the wake of the two statements. I believe that Americans will embrace bitterness for a time, but I don't believe Americans are willing to permanently embrace her dark vision of division for the long term. In the end, we are a nation of optimists and we will buy the vision of the candidate who can best tap shine the light on the city on the hill. As he showed in 2008, and reminded us last night, no one does this better than Obama
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