After nearly a week of left-wing, media and Democrat accusations that she was an accessory to murder, Sarah Palin made a video defending herself (see below). While many liberals think conservatives, for the good of the country, should just shut up and turn the other cheek when accused of the dastardly things liberals make up, Palin, as the one named in almost every early story about the Arizona shootings, felt the need to speak up. Reasonable people understand this.
As the left is wont to do, they sputtered in false outrage when she used the term “blood libel” to characterize accusations made against her and the Tea Party. It’s not that they really thought her use of it was inappropriate or anti-Semitic (which it isn’t; it’s been used many times to describe outrageous charges), which is their stated reasoning. The charge of anti-Semitism is laughable in that Israel has no better friend that Palin in American public life. It was just another way to criticize her.
The seeming assumption of liberals is that Palin should not have defended herself and, instead, should have given a “healing” and “presidential” speech. But how could she discuss the divisive rhetoric in American political life without addressing the slander of the previous four days that was directed explicitly toward her? Again, most reasonable people understand that she couldn’t.
Confirming my charge in the first paragraph, that Obama is letting his minions do his dirty work, The New York Times today ran an editorial deeming Obama’s speech wonderful and special, and supporting his call for a more reasonable dialogue between liberals and conservatives. And then they add this:
The president’s words were an important contrast to the ugliness that continues to swirl in some parts of the country. The accusation by Sarah Palin that “journalists and pundits” had committed a “blood libel” when they raised questions about overheated rhetoric was especially disturbing, given the grave meaning of that phrase in the history of the Jewish people.
To The New York Times, the “ugliness” wasn’t the left’s outrageous behavior after Saturday’s events, but Palin’s defense against charges of being an accessory to murder. To the editors at the Times, it was Palin’s defense that was ugly, not the orgy of slander in which the Times and most other mainstream media participated from Saturday to Thursday.
Obama’s speech did nothing to quell the left’s ugly methods. He didn’t condemn them, and, I have a suspicion, he fully expects them to continue. Otherwise he would have condemned the assault on Palin and the Tea Party explicitly as a living example of the problem he purported to address Wednesday night in Tucson.
UPDATE: Speaking of those Obama minions…. It’s just started, folks. Obama never intended to have any effect on these people. If he makes a statement soon condemning this kind of thing, I’ll be proved wrong. But I don’t think it will happen.
UPDATE 2: Kirsten Powers, a liberal Democrat, views it as I do:
Sure, the president provided his usual inspiration, but he failed to shut down the ridiculous media meme that right-wing talk radio was responsible for the Arizona shootings. And how are ordinary Americans to blame?
