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Title: Blowback Erupts For Palin Over Arizona Shootings
Source:
Alaska Dispatch
URL Source: http://www.alaskadispatch.com/blogs ... ngs-just-like-the-gulf-blowout
Published: Jan 11, 2011
Author: Craig Medred
Post Date: 2011-01-11 11:38:54 by Brian S
Keywords: None
Views: 6295
Comments: 12
So suddenly the Mama Grizzly has become the Mama Gandhi? For those of you who might have missed it, former Alaska Gov. Palin, the self-proclaimed mother of all Mama Grizzlies, reportedly e-mailed radio talk show host and buddy Glenn Beck a message Sunday saying, "I hate violence. I hate war." Could this be the same Palin who only a couple months ago told ABC's Barbara Walters, "We need essentially a surge strategy in Afghanistan, so that we can win in Afghanistan. And that means more resources, more troops there." Did Palin think the military wanted to do some sort of hug surge, wherein they'd send a bunch of young soldiers in to love the Taliban to death? Does Palin really hate war? Does she really hate violence? I have no clue because the longer you're listening to Palin the harder it is to figure out what she thinks. She is the self-proclaimed "commonsense Conservative" who not that long ago was the de facto leader of the liberal Alaska state House Republicans who put a tax bite on North Slope oil companies that would have made Venezuelan leader Hugo Chavez smile. And now the woman who abandoned the nickname of "Sarah Barracuda" to assume the mantle of the "Mama Grizzly," the most aggressive and sometimes violent animal in Alaska, has become a peacenik? Or so her friend Beck would lead us to believe. But who knows what Palin really thinks. She has been, for her, astonishingly quiet with her Facebook and Twitter communiques since a madman gunned down U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, D-Ariz., and 12 others in Tuscon on Saturday, and Palin World once again exploded. Giffords is now clinging to tenaciously to life; six others, including a federal judge and a child born on Sept. 11, 2001, are dead. And Palin is caught in political blowback because of a graphic posted on her fundraising website, SarahPac.com, that put crosshairs on legislators Palin said needed to be removed from office because of their support for national health care reform. Giffords was one of those targeted. A Palin spokeswoman early this week claimed the crosshairs on the map were really surveyor's symbols, but Giffords herself months ago identified the marks on Palin's map as crosshairs, adding that there could be dangerous "consequences" for everyone because "of the way (Palin) has depicted a gunsight over our district." None of the discussion of crosshairs is known to have had any influence whatsoever on alleged shooter Jared Lee Loughner, but Giffords warning about "consequences" has proven prescient. There are proving to be consequences for Palin, the would-be presidential candidate whose energy motto was "Drill baby, drill" up until a gusher erupted a mile deep offshore of the southern U.S. coast and the Gulf of Mexico was smeared with more oil than anyone had ever imagined could get free in the ocean. Palin somehow politically survived her connection to offshore oil production as America's best option for future energy ... And now there is another crisis. The map with the crosshairs has raised the issue of what part Mama Grizzly Sarahcuda might have played in setting aflame American political discourse. And she no doubt helped to amp things up a notch as the Republican vice-presidential candidate in 2008 when she trooped around the country accusing future President Barrack Obama of "palling around with terrorists." Everyone in this country knows how we treat terrorists and the people who associate with them. We hunt them down with Predator drones, and we kill them. Palin, it must be noted, has never suggested killing Obama, but her message that he is a despicable character started during the election and has rung loud and clear since she and running mate John McCain lost. Palin notoriously accused Obama of trying to slip "death panels" into the national health care legislation, possibly to get rid of her disabled son and her elderly parents. That would be just the sort of thing a terrorist would do. To be fair to Palin, she has never publicly advocated violence, and she may simply be immune to the recognition her rhetoric sometimes encourages it. When told that her slogan "don't retreat, reload" hinted at gun violence, her response was to repeat the phrase and keep repeating it. She even made a joke of it on her reality show "Sarah Palin's Alaska" while handing daughter Bristol more ammunition for a shotgun. Still, there is not even the scent of the possibility that any of this had so much as a hint of influence on an Arizona madman intent on doing what madman do in whatever way their twisted brains direct. I confess I don't know exactly what the situation is in Arizona. I'm not a reporter there. All I know about what happened in Tuscon comes from sources on the left, who blame poor Sarah for everything, and on the right, who cling to the idea that the Mama Grizzly is a poor, innocent victim of the media -- liberal, lamestream, blogosphere, you name it -- and from an ever-shrinking pack of reporters somewhere in the middle trying to ferret out a few facts about the shooter. It would be tempting, in fact, to agree fully with those on the right, at least so far as Palin being an accidental victim, if not an innocent one, but for the thuggishness that entered Alaska politics as she rose from small town mayor to half-term governor. Personally, I haven't found myself threatened, subtly or otherwise, so much since back during what Alaskans call the "D-2" days in the late 1970s. That is when the federal government was in the midst of creating almost 100 million acres of new national parks and refuges in Alaska, and a reporter could end up in serious trouble for simply recording the views of those damned environmentalists. They were to be hung in effigy, not heard. Even then, though, there weren't any visiting national politicians overtly worried about getting shot, let alone Alaska politicians worrying party leaders might have put a hit out on them. Palin managed to so superheat things that by the time she became governor her supporter and later protégé Joe Miller was worried the chairman of the state Republican Party might be trying to kill him. And the tensions haven't gone down much since. The empty anger and tendency toward violence the Mama Grizzly helped to set to simmering just below the surface of Alaska politics erupted during this year's election when some of Miller's security guards or henchmen -- which they are depends on your point of view -- manhandled and then handcuffed Alaska Dispatch editor Tony Hopfinger because he was asking too dang many questions while chasing the uncooperative candidate down the hallway of an Anchorage middle school. Palin's response to that was even less than her response to the Arizona shootings. She at least posted a Facebook statement of condolences to the families in Arizona. She didn't say a word in Alaska when her boy Joe had his goons put hands on a reporter. That might have been a good time to say "I hate violence. It has no place in a democracy. We should all try, even when it is difficult, to remain civil with each other." But, of course, the Mama Grizzly didn't say that. Instead, she devoted her efforts in the 49th state to attacking Murkowski for failing to vote for the funds to build a border fence to keep Mexicans out of Arizona -- a contentious issue in that state and one that might in fact appear to connect one of Palin's interests to the interests of the crazed Tuscon shooter -- and berated the incumbent senator for questioning whether Miller, a West Point graduate who had never won an elective office, had the political experience necessary to serve in Washington. Miller, who won the Republican primary, eventually lost the general election to Murkowski. He fought the outcome in court, but eventually gave in. In his most recent press conference, he tried to tamp down the fire on the rhetoric that had flamed around the Miller-Murkowski race and talked about a desire to become a statesman. A smart, Yale-educated lawyer, Miller seemed to grasp that America could use some statesmen in these trying days. But statesmen are kind of at odds with grizzlies, mama or papa. Grizzlies, in their natural habitat, sort of wander through life hoping to avoid confrontations but somewhat regularly finding themselves in them. This now appears to be Palin's fate. She clearly had nothing directly to do with the shooting in Arizona, which appears political mainly in the sense that a politician and a judge were among the victims, but she's now smack in the middle of a discussion about civility Americans have needed to engage for some time. Good parts of the country seem to have gone all South Central L.A. after the Rodney King verdict, and it's hard for reasonable people -- right or left; Democrat or Republican; liberal, conservative, socialist or other -- to avoid the desire to simply plead "Can't we get along here? Can't we all just get along?" Getting along, unfortunately, isn't really in the nature of grizzlies and even less so the nature of barracudas.
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#1. To: Brian S (#0)
Why? The shooter was a far lefty. Voted far left. Supported far left. Even had a satanic shrine in his backyard. What has that got to do with Sarah Palin?
Well, [war's] got to do something for attention, his multiple personalities aren't speaking to him any more, and his imaginary friends keep finding excuses not to come over.
The "killa from wasilla" would never have been linked to this tragedy to the degree that she is had it not been for her web graphic of the 'rifle-sights'. She left herself wide open by allowing the graphic to remain even after being warned about it months ago.
Never swear "allegiance" to anything other than the 'right to change your mind'!
She left herself wide open by allowing the graphic to remain even after being warned about it months ago. Well, [war's] got to do something for attention, his multiple personalities aren't speaking to him any more, and his imaginary friends keep finding excuses not to come over.
Palin's statement to Beck: She's about as literate at Lougher.
Since January 3, 2011, Republicans have controlled the power of the purse.
It is quite hilarious how this woman causes the nail-biting liberal types to become incontinent and soil themselves on a regular basis.
You'll notice they don't even mention this kid led a lifestyle that cannot be reconciled with anything but a brain-dead liberal. Palin and the Tea Party are the arrows they've go. It's alos funny it takes them 20 minutes between posts to vacuum the 'Net for more info on this mental case. Then they deny it!
Well, [war's] got to do something for attention, his multiple personalities aren't speaking to him any more, and his imaginary friends keep finding excuses not to come over.
Great Tea Potty rhetoric.
Did I call it? Check out my above post and this turkey chimes in! Priceless.
Well, [war's] got to do something for attention, his multiple personalities aren't speaking to him any more, and his imaginary friends keep finding excuses not to come over.
Going for your master baiter rating? Go ahead and apply, you have more than enough points to be a weiner of one.
Well, [war's] got to do something for attention, his multiple personalities aren't speaking to him any more, and his imaginary friends keep finding excuses not to come over.
My Boofie took a knife to a gunfight once. If I recall correctly it was the first time he gave someone a Hummer. I remember when I used to blowback Boofie's father. Sight.
Blowback Erupts For Palin Over Arizona Shootings
#2. To: Rudgear (#1)
Why? The shooter was a far lefty. Voted far left. Supported far left. Even had a satanic shrine in his backyard. What has that got to do with Sarah Palin?
#3. To: Brian S (#2)
The "killa from wasilla" would never have been linked to this tragedy to the degree that she is had it not been for her web graphic of the 'rifle-sights'.
#4. To: Brian S (#2)
I hate violence. I hate war. Our children will not have peace if politicos just capitalize on this to succeed in portraying anyone as inciting terror and violence.
#5. To: Rudgear (#1)
Why? The shooter was a far lefty. Voted far left. Supported far left. Even had a satanic shrine in his backyard. What has that got to do with Sarah Palin?
#6. To: eskimo (#5)
#7. To: eskimo (#5)
"...soil themselves on a regular basis."
#8. To: eskimo, Ferret Mike (#7)
#9. To: Rudgear (#8)
"Did I call it? Check out my above post and this turkey chimes in! Priceless."
#10. To: Rudgear (#3)
#11. To: Abu el Banat (#10)
#12. To: Rudgear (#11)
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