The Arizona Tragedy

This past weekend’s tragic shooting in Arizona of Representative Gabrielle Giffords has drawn a lot of criticism of the current state of political discussion in the US. Many pundits, from both sides of the isle immediately used the situation to capitalize politically. Without all the facts, these pundits inflamed an already tense situation.

Liberal bloggers and pundits on MSNBC immediately tried to blame former Governor Sarah Palin for the tragedy. Since Palin’s PAC had used crosshair symbols in their publicity earlier this year to advocate for the defeat of Representative Giffords. According to the Washington Post, on Saturday night MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann, “blamed Sarah Palin’s rhetoric, saying that if she did not ‘repudiate her own part, however tangential, in amplifying violence and violent imagery in American politics, she must be dismissed from politics.” As recently as last week, liberal site Daily Kos had a column penned by Markos Moulitsas claiming that Representative Giffords was “dead to him.” One would have hoped that followers of both Gov. Palin and Markos were smart enough to understand that imagery and language used by both were to prove a point, not to instigate the shooting/killing of Representative Giffords. However, in today’s world, one must be careful in how they express themselves since there are crazy people out there who will take language and graphics literally. While there has been no proof that this murderer followed either Palin nor Moulitsas, that has not stopped the media and other blogs from pontificating on how they were responsible for this terrible shooting. Folks must realize that the only person responsible for the shooting of Representative Giffords is the murderer, Jared Loughner. All too often, we try to blame others for our own failings, but in this case, it is clear that the responsible party was not some political pundits on either side of the isle, but rather a deranged young man from Arizona who went outside of a Safeway grocery store and opened fire killing and injuring way too many people. We must start taking responsibility for our own actions and quit blaming third parties for the mistakes made by ourselves. Personal responsibility, now that is something that folks on both sides of the isle should start thinking more about and hopefully that will lead to a better political dialogue in the future. Hopefully, Representative Giffords will survive the shooting and continue to serve her constituents in Arizona to the best of her ability in the US House of Representatives.