Dog Bites Man: Politicians Say Mean Things About and To Each Other

This article came to me via Facebook.  It attempts to posit a theory about what spurred Jared Loughner to open fire on Rep. Giffords event.  There's one problem with this totally partisan theory -- it is absurd.  Rhetoric doesn't kill people, people kill people.  And to believe that only conservatives dish out violent rhetoric towards their liberal opponents is to live in a world that is entirely different than the one I inhabit.

Setting aside the fact that whatever Loughner is, he is not some ultra right-wing activist who shot at Rep. Giffords to make a political statement -- or at least not a political statement that would be at all recognizable to any mainstream conservatives or liberals in this country -- let's look at the facts.  And the facts are this -- the aggressive tone of criticism against President Obama and the Democrats does not even approach the level of insanity and violent rhetoric aimed at his predecessor.

The Republicans are not the sole arbiters of vitriol in Washington and America at large as this author Jeremy Bloom seems to think:

Everyone decries the “incivility in Washington”, but nobody is willing to point the finger where it belongs. And no, it’s not “the same thing” when some random guy on the Internet spews anti-Republican hatred, and the leader of the House Republicans foments hatred against his Democratic colleagues.

The article then goes on to scold John Boehner for using the term "dead man" when speaking of his opponent's vote for the healthcare bill.  Ugly stuff -- also ugly is Senator Harry Reid's comparison of the healthcare bill's opponents to opponents of the abolition of slavery and women's suffrage.  Last I checked, Senator Reid, although he often impersonates one, is not "some random guy on the Internet spew[ing] anti-Republican hatred."  We can go round and round comparing and contrasting the ugly things people on both sides say to and about each other.  There are no political points to be won here, so why is this author even trying and why are people buying it?

As a commenter at Althouse pointed out:

Anyone else find it creepy that new standard what me may and may not say is: How will it affect the behavior of an abviously crazy person who may or may not hear it?

Unfortunately, not enough people find it creepy.