TARGET: PALIN

After days of being blamed, vilified, and spoken of by pundits on MSNBC and in the leftist bloggersphere in the most unspeakable terms for the shootings in Tucson, Sarah Palin has finally spoken.
In a video posted on her Facebook page, Palin said, "Like many, I've spent the past few days reflecting on what happened and praying for guidance...After this shocking tragedy, I listened at first puzzled, then with concern, and now with sadness, to the irresponsible statements from people attempting to apportion blame for this terrible event."
She was referring to those very pundits and self-labeled journalists who spout the hateful, misleading and downright untruthful vitriol on outlets like MSNBC and also in the mainstream press.
In today's Los Angeles Times, reporter James Oliphant begins his story by saying, "In a forceful and unapologetic statement released early Wednesday..."
First - what a great example of unbiased journalism! Not!
Second - for what does Palin need to apologize?
Palin has it right when she referred to Jared Lee Loughner "as a deranged...apparently apolitical criminal." Which is what the FBI is finding. And what at least one friend of the mass murderer has verified. That friend said he never knew Loughner to listen to what he termed "political radio or television." Loughner was a registered, albeit nonvoting, voter.
Reason and truth seem not to stem the vitriol spilling forth from MSNBC and other outlets on the left. During the five minutes I tuned into something called The Ed Show on MSNBC Tuesday evening, I heard a steady stream of derogatory and deplorable adjectives describing Palin, but the best was some radio talk show host I've never heard, nor heard of, insinuating the term "mama grizzlies", coined by Palin, was somehow a hate inciting moniker.
Excuse me!
Palin nor anyone else is to blame for the horrific crime in Tucson except the immediate family of Loughner and the shooter himself. His parents had a duty to get him psychiatric help and commit him for institutional care if needed. Arizona has one of the best rated state hospitals for the care of the mentally ill in the nation.
Despite numerous warning signs, what we have been told so far is the parents did not take these steps. The father is being labeled an "abusive alcoholic" by some who know him and have spoken with the media on the promise of anonymity. If this is true, then there is a double tragedy at work in this clearly dysfunctional family.
Which leads me to ask, why was the mother not seeking help for both her husband and her son?

WHERE POLITICS HAS NO PLACE

Like fellow Americans, I share the shock and sadness at the unspeakable killings and woundings in Tucson Saturday. Those emotions remain.
But on Saturday night, the Democrat Sheriff of Pima County, Arizona, Clarence Dupnik, began his update on the senseless crime by ascribing blame to what he termed "the rhetoric of hatred." He was clearly blaming conservative talk radio and television pundits. I knew at that moment his words would ignite a rancorous political discourse that is misplaced at this time, and clearly wrong.
Only moments after making his unfortunate statement laying blame, the sheriff admitted investigators had not determined the motive for the mass shootings.
We know from a much more reasoned FBI Director Mueller the perpetrator was a mentally troubled man, a high school dropout, rejected for enlistment into the armed services, kicked out of a Tucson community college for threatening and erratic behavior, who had a history of drug use, of posting irrational rants on his social websites and who listed his favorite books as Mein Kampf and the Communist Manifesto. A socialist philosophy is espoused in both books, the antithesis of writings and advocatings of the likes of Rush Limbaugh, Sarah Palin, Glenn Beck, Bill O'Reilly and Shawn Hannity, at whose feet Sheriff Dupnik placed blame.
Elected officials like Dupnik do a great disservice to this nation by injecting politics into the tragedy that befell Congresswoman Gabby Giffords and the other victims who were killed or badly wounded.
It is Dupnik's words that have no place in our political discourse. The sheriff's abuse of the forum granted him Saturday night by virtue of being the top law enforcement officer in Pima County reminded me of the memorial service for the late Minnesota congressman Paul Wellstone, a democrat who died in a plane crash while campaigning.
The politically partisan rhetoric whipped up by Iowa Senator Tom Harkin and Wellstone's son was so vitriolic that several Republican members of Congress had to be removed from the service by security personnel who feared for their safety.
The one Democrat who has stood above the partisan crowd is President Obama. His empathetic words on Saturday afternoon set the right tone for all Americans. I may disagree with many of President Obama's policies, but never have I seen him look and act more presidential.
His is the example those in his party, and his supporters, should follow.