We think you're near Los Angeles

Currently in Los Angeles

Location: Los Angeles Current temperature: 62°F: Current condition: Clear See Extended Forecast

Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, caught in Sarah Palin's crosshairs, shot in Arizona

 Democrat Gabrielle Giffords, the Arizona congresswoman shot Saturday morning outside a Tucson Safeway, was one of Sarah Palin's targets on a now infamous "crosshairs'" map, which targeted legislators who voted in favor of health care reform.

Sarah Palin was widely criticized last year for encouraging Tea Party violence when her political action committee singled out 20 Democratic members of Congress by using rifle scopes to "target" them on a map. Giffords was one of the 20 House Representatives targeted by Palin.

After the historic health care reform vote Palin told her followers On Twitter "Don't Retreat, instead - RELOAD!"
 
 Palin's careless and inflammatory words sparked this comment from Gifford at the time:
Advertisement
"We're on Sarah Palin's targeted list. But the thing is the way that she has it depicted has the crosshairs of a gun site over our district. People do that they've got to realize there's consequences to that action."
 
Today Palin is singing a different tune, as the following Facebook statement from Palin indicates:

My sincere condolences are offered to the family of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords and the other victims of today's tragic shooting in Arizona. On behalf of Todd and my family, we all pray for the victims and their families, and for peace and justice.

Today Palin may be sincere in her condolences. Yet one can only wonder if Palin's senseless and idiotic "call to arms" last year was not in some way a catalyst for the tragic series of events that unfolded Saturday morning in a Safeway parking lot.

, Democrat Examiner

Michael Stone is a progressive freethinker and freelance writer residing in Portland, Oregon. Informed by science, inspired by art, and motivated by compassion, Michael’s task is to question the world in pursuit of the good. You can reach Michael at stonemichael@hotmail.com.

Comments

  • Billy 1 year ago

    Palins' poster and comments are highly irresponsible.

    So were Sharon Angle's comment about "2nd Amendment remedies" and gun brandishing politicos at Tea Party rallies and protests.

  • Palin in Crosshairs 1 year ago

    "peace-seeking Muslims, pls understand, Ground Zero mosque, is unnecessary provocation; it stabs hearts,"
    Well, Sarah Palin, hear this: "peace seeking TeaPartiers, pls understand, crosshairs and retreat/reload rhetoric, is unnecessary provocation, it stabs hearts."

  • Adam 1 year ago

    This is exactly what we have been talking about and the Right Wing say we were overreacting. Damn you Sarah Palin and your tea party wackos. You now have real blood on your hands!

  • Yawn... 1 year ago

    Yeah, right - gun-banning liberals use gunslinging rhetoric.

    Moron; lefties have their own extremists - but they don't play with gun imagery.

  • Everyman 1 year ago

    Of course, given the result, Palin must be arrested. This has been standard procedure for such cases, as we are all aware. She should be considered an accomplice and sent to prison.

  • David 1 year ago

    Sarah Palin only insights the Right Wingnuts to do this violence. She should be held accountable.

  • Everyman2 1 year ago

    ...but she won't be. Faux "News" is already censoring the news on her behalf. Hannity waited almost five minutes for a live feed to Tucson, and then cut away in about nine seconds for a commercial, just as the man on the camera said,

    "And I just want to say to Sarah Pali-" (he didn't even finish saying "Palin" before they cut.)

    Sooner or later, the right is going to figure out they've been played for fools, by their "masters."

  • Michael 1 year ago

    I would like to see the whole media system rebuilt. This senseless violence is caused by idiots listening to idiots screaming fear messages. I feel fortunate that I am not dumb enough to swallow all the crap shouted on television. All the more reason to educate the idiots in this country. If you or I had posted the posts that some politicians have posted in recent years, we would certainly have gone to jail folks. Think about that before you dismiss blaming anyone in politics or in the media, AKA Sarah Palin, Fox News, and everyone who has used the "Second Amendment" of this country to instill fear of government and violence. Sure, they say that's not the way they meant those comments, gut the idiots listening can't understand because they are too afraid, and lets face it folks, they're racists.

  • Lanette 1 year ago

    The Daily Beast has said, "This isn't about a nearly year-old Sarah Palin map; it's about a lone nutjob who doesn't value human life."
    Your hate, jealousy, fear, and most importantly and gut wrenching, the destruction of truth, is doing nothing but actually inciting anger and dear God let us hope not violence.
    When, in the course of your life, did you sell out truth for hate and political views?
    Shame on you. Let us hope and pray that the thousands of you attacking and blaming Sarah Palin do not cause the Palin family to be harmed beyond the emotional hell you are putting them through.
    In closing, I am not a Sarah Palin supporter. I appreciate her drive, determination, and the successes she has been able to maintain. I do not, in any way, feel she is, at this time or in the near future Presidential material. However, Mrs. Palin has done nothing, absolutely nothing to you other than cause you to be jealous to the point of hate and fearful to an unhealthy and possibly harmful degree.
    I hope you and those who agree with your sick Palin views seek a psychological professional, as soon as possible. Obsession is a sickness and can be treated.

  • KD 1 year ago

    Watch the video of the reaction after Palins glorious determination

  • Primo 1 year ago

    There's 2 openings at the psych ward for you and Palin. I don't know how you people sleep at night, honestly.

  • You "Appreciate" Sarah? 1 year ago

    ...and yet you say that you are not a supporter? Those two statements don't fit together, because you ARE supporting her, right here, right now.

    And as an Alaskan, who saw 'WAY too much of Sarah even before she went on tour and sold out the Governorship for a book contract, I see nothing at all to "admire" in her golddigging (oh, sorry: in her "success")

    As for us piling on her, this is the comeback she invited over a year ago, when she first let her PAC roll out this map. I knew then, that it was a sore invitation to violence. Why didn't she? She looks through a scope at an animal every day on teevee; why did her brain not tell her that its dangerous to use those tools on humans as well?

    And don't believe SarahPAC for an instant, when they claim that those were alway "survey marks." What "surveying" has Sarah ever done, as compared to the hunting she's popular for?

    It's pure CYA, is what it is.

  • KD 1 year ago

    to Lanette- i felt the same way that you did until i watched the video of G Giffords comments on the attacks AFTER PALINS CROSSHAIRS
    and note that nothing has ever been 'targeted' like Palin has done now
    Palin should be ashamed and fault could easily be put on her

    WATCH THE VIDEO OF THE WOMAN WHO IS NOW IN CRITICAL CONDITION
    *WHILE OTHERS ARE DEAD

  • kd 1 year ago

    To yawn , Are you always asleep?

  • Disgusting 1 year ago

    It's disgusting that you blame this sick liberals actions on Palin. You liberals can never take responsibility for your own deviant actions.

    You have the most degenerate filth coming out of Hollywood by limousine liberals producing SAW and all of their other sick movies, and you have the nerve to say it's Palin's fault. What ignorant children!

  • Dave 1 year ago

    It bothers me deeply the double standards of the people in America. The left in this country thinks it's ok to kill an unborn child, yet murder takes them mentally over to edge. Murder is murder people... I am so fortunate to have a mother that chose the life side of your "Prochoise"

  • Pretty Sad, 1 year ago

    Pretty sad, Disgusting, that you have to resort to blaming an attack on a Liberal politician on "Liberals." Do keep telling that lie, however; someday someone might believe it.

    Read Loughler's YouTube posts. It's clear that he watches Glenn Beck every day, he's so obsessed with the "currency." He was a gold freak as well, so obviously no faith in Big Government making things right.

    Some "Liberal..."

  • velvethammer 1 year ago

    Well, well, well, look what we have here: http://www.verumserum.com/?p=13647
    The Democratic Leadership Committee and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) have their very own bulls eye maps.

  • Me too 1 year ago

    Remember that that map came out in 2004, and that it followed a season of Reich-run web pages targetting abortion providers by publishing information that would lead people to them -- along with caged statements that carefully stopped JUST short of advocating the murder of those people.

    In other words, the Left was striking back at something the Reich started.

    But let's not let the "who was first" blame game distract from the important point that such rhetoric is getting out of hand. The media is frankly partisan these days, and in the Reich direction, at that.

    And people who lack the mental resources to sort out the chaff from the chaff WILL get upset at what they hear from Glenn Beck and O'Rielly and Limbaugh (as proof, YOU are upset, aren't you?)

  • KD 1 year ago

    Whos crosshairs was it then ?

    Your an idiot to support Palins ignorance

    And who said i was a liberal ? go join westboro you scum

  • Dave 1 year ago

    How come when liberals get all flushtard, they hafto resort to name calling. Grow up KD...

  • truthteller 1 year ago

    did you vote for obama?

  • Primo 1 year ago

    How come when conservatives get all flushtard, they kill people?

  • Albert 1 year ago

    Palin is responsible for willfully inciting the lunatic fringe of her followers. There is no plausible deniability here. The 'mainstream' of her and fox's followers are too unsophisticated in thought, uneducated in facts and history, to see the charade. Rifle scope crosshairs superimposed on photos of living human beings, elected officials; is not a cute metaphor to match oral rants, "take them out", "Don't retreat. Reload". It is a call to arms to expendable lunatics who follow her showbiz political career. From the time of her awful, uncivilized posting of the crosshairs photos; Palin and her indispensable handlers knew that, should shootings of their "Wanted poster subjects occur, they would simply invoke god, family, prayers and throw the lunatic under a bus. She takes no accountability for inciting murder.

    No one has claimed that the killer saw her disgusting posting or that he was responding to her "take out order". But her despicable karma is out there and it will take real leadership on behalf of the sane, to slow and stop it.

    If there is any one who has Palin's ear, although there may be no profit motive any more to do so, please implore her to stop the pandering to haters. She had her best shot at her overriding goal, big income, with the first book. The second and we hope, others to follow, are flops. Tell her that she should lose the grizzly leitmotif, grow up and be accountable with the crowd that she's attracted.

  • Primo 1 year ago

    Thank you.

  • Flower Child 1 year ago

    There are far more good people in America than bad.... the media draws our attention to the negative.
    What happened yesterday morning was so tragic.
    Don't perpetuate hatred, fellow Americans, but instead spread goodwill & peace to one another. We must strive to 'Think Good Thoughts'. Did anyone ever read The Hundredth Monkey?

  • Anonymous 1 year ago

    I thought everything was Bush's fault. At least that's what Obama says.

  • Primo 1 year ago

    The conservative apple doesn't fall far from the tree. And the rest of you are tiny little maggots that find comfort in rotted, festering said apple. Ok?

  • Um, No. 1 year ago

    No, that's not what Obama says. He's NEVER said that EVERYTHING is Bush's fault (though I will point out that MOST of what Obama has had to fix IS Bush's fault).

    Rather, that's what people like YOU say he says, to try painting him as an ineffectual sissy who "can't take responsibility."

    Well, no, he can't -- not for things he didn't do...

    And if you have any prayer of coming off as a balanced thinker, you must also admit the myriad ways in which George Herbert Walker Bush screwed up his job, and our country.

  • yourmomma 1 year ago

    Leave it to liberals to politicize a tragedy.

  • Primo 1 year ago

    Leave it to you to minimize this tragedy as strategic political move. I'm curious what you'd say if Palin took a bullet to the head.

  • Yeah, right, er Reich! 1 year ago

    Next you'll be saying that this whole thing is a gigantic Liberal plot from the get-go. Let's see what they would have had to do to bring it off...

    1) (the big one) find a Congresswoman who's willing to take a bullet through the brain for the cause.

    2) assemble the sterling cast of characters the shooter killed

    3) manipulate his media (wait, maybe the LEFT invented Beck's hateful rhetoric just for this event!) to drive him loopy.

    4) install Reich-Wing nuts in the AZ statehouse to legalize the purchase of assault weapons...

    5) somehow manipulate SarahPAC and Sharron Angel into making their hateful statements...

    6) --

    oh, fudge, even I can't believe the Liberals have it that together...

  • WFBjr 1 year ago

    Let's see how long it takes our justice system to exterminate this whack job. Instead of being marched in front of a firing squad sometime next week, he'll probably get a life sentence complete with non-stop counselling, cable TV, and college courses. All at your expense, of course.

  • CB 1 year ago

    I'm an independent, and all of you following your pathetic media are sad people. LEARN how to place the blame where it lies. With the shooter.

    When this advertisement was run by the LEFT, did you see people run out and start shooting children in the street? No.
    http://i52.tinypic.com/vg1sn9.jpg

    Even Palin didn't put crosshairs on kids. Not on a face. Not on a name. On a map. A map.

    So learn some personal responsibility, accept it, and let the shooter accept his.

  • Primo 1 year ago

    Ok, so you wouldn't mind having crosshairs over your house, for the world to see? And some nut making you out to be an evil person? Then spreading the message to reload on your ass? I'm sure that you'd be perfectly comfortable with that. Huh?

Add a new comment

Join the conversation! Log in here or create a new account if you've never registered before.

Got something to say?

Examiner.com is looking for writers, photographers, and videographers to join the fastest growing group of local insiders. If you are interested in growing your online rep apply to be an Examiner today!

Don't miss...