GOP Senator: Rhetoric Needs To Be Toned Down After Giffords Shooting

No official motive has been given for the shooting in Tucson, Arizona that left six people dead and 14 others, including Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, wounded, but many are looking to the heated political rhetoric prevalent on talk radio and cable television as at least a contributing factor.

"We have become the Mecca for prejudice and bigotry," Pima County Sheriff Clarence Dupnik said on Saturday after the shooting.

Now, he's being joined by at least one Republican senator.

"There is a need for some reflection here -- what is too far now?" the unnamed senator told Politico. "What was too far when Oklahoma City happened is accepted now. There's been a desensitizing. These town halls and cable TV and talk radio, everybody's trying to outdo each other."

When it comes to the Tea Party, the senator stressed that they should not be unfairly blamed for the attack. "They're talking about things most mainstream Americans are talking about, like spending and debt," he said. But, he acknowledged, "tone matters."

Some Tea Partiers have acknowledged as much in the wake of the tragedy. "These heinous crimes have no place in America, and they are especially grievous when committed against our elected officials," said Tea Party Express Chairwoman Amy Kremer in a statement. "Spirited debate is desirable in our country, but it only should be the clash of ideas."

But others are fighting back. "The hard left is going to try and silence the Tea Party movement by blaming us for this," Tea Party Nation founder Judson Phillips wrote. "The left is coming and will hit us hard on this. We need to push back harder with the simple truth. The shooter was a liberal lunatic. Emphasis on both words."

Comments

[its miller time]

02:50 AM on 01/14/2011

I'm sure there are several out their who can answer this question, "since January 20, 2009"
what has "President Obama" said that you would call toxic rhetoric?

[its miller time]

02:54 AM on 01/14/2011

oops "there"

[its miller time]

01:55 AM on 01/14/2011

America

Our level of acceptabil­ity has been too high for too long.

No one is saying to stop impassione­d rhetoric, but there is toxic, blatantly disrespect­ful,
inciting, inflammato­rily, hateful, vile, etc language.

If people use such language they need to be told by their peers, they should not just stand by because doing so is just as bad as having said those words themselves­.

Now, for a while, we will have people who will be over sensitive and borderline words will
have a double meaning. That is apparent throughout this thread, people not being able
to distinguish between impassioned rhetoric and toxic rhetoric.

But hopefully sooner than later we can regain our common sense, realize that words to have consequenc­es (not knowing yet whether this language played a part in Arizona) and get back to common courtesy and civility.

[PiedType]

01:57 PM on 01/12/2011

To the Tea Party, the Republicans, the Democrats, the pundits and commentaters -- did you contribute to this tragedy? If the shoe fits ... We all need to do some soul-searching.

[FreewheelinFranklin]

01:37 PM on 01/12/2011

Violent rhetoric? What, from a country that uses war as a solution for disagreements with the world? War on drugs. War on poverty. War on Christmas. How about a war on war?

[Inkosi]

02:57 PM on 01/11/2011

NYT - Krugman's column -
"Where’s that toxic rhetoric coming from? Let’s not make a false pretense of balance: it’s coming, overwhelmingly, from the right. It’s hard to imagine a Democratic member of Congress urging constituents to be “armed and dangerous” without being ostracized; but Representative Michele Bachmann, who did just that, is a rising star in the G.O.P.

And there’s a huge contrast in the media. Rachel Maddow or Keith Olbermann, and you’ll hear a lot of caustic remarks and mockery aimed at Republicans. But you won’t hear jokes about shooting government officials or beheading a journalist at The Washington Post. Listen to Glenn Beck or Bill O’Reilly, and you will.

the likes of Mr. Beck and Mr. O’Reilly are responding to popular demand. Citizens of other democracies may marvel at the American psyche, at the way efforts by mildly liberal presidents to expand health coverage are met with cries of tyranny and talk of armed resistance. Still, that’s what happens whenever a Democrat occupies the White House, and there’s a market for anyone willing to stoke that anger.

But even if hate is what many want to hear, that doesn’t excuse those who pander to that desire. They should be shunned by all decent people"

Unfortunately, that hasn’t been happening: the purveyors of hate have been treated with respect, even deference, by the G.O.P. establishment. As David Frum, the former Bush speechwriter, has put it, “Republicans thought that Fox worked for us now we’re discovering we work for

[beaker55]

04:29 PM on 01/11/2011

Chew on THIS Mr. Krugman, et al. Hard to imagine inflammatory rhetoric from the Democrat side, huh? Here, for your listening pleasure (and a taste of reality), are some our current President'­s examples of... toning down the rhetoric: “I don’t want to quell anger. I think people are right to be angry! I’m angry!”; “Republica­ns are our enemies"; “They bring a knife to a fight, we bring a gun”; “Hit Back Twice As Hard”; “We talk to these folks so I know whose a$$ to kick.“; “Republica­n victory would mean hand to hand combat”; “Punish your enemies.”; “I’m itching for a fight.”; “Don’t you think we’re not keeping score, brother”; "Get ready for hand-to-ha­nd combat with your fellow Americans”­; “I want all Americans to get in each others faces!” And Biden: “I am going to strangle all Republican­s who don’t agree with me politicall­y” “God Damn America” – Obama’s Spiritual Advisor. Democrat/L­eftist commentato­r and spokesman Ed Schultz: “We should rip the heart right out of the chest of a former Vice President of The United States!” Democrat/L­eftist influence peddler Alec Baldwin: “Henry Hyde and his family should be stoned to death!” Democrats are such a calm, reflective, peaceful lot, aren't they Mr. Krugman!

[jlyn]

03:29 PM on 01/15/2011

Give us more, because those are just several drops in the bucket compared to the ocean of rhetoric coming from the right.

The right knows that their whole identity is tied up in hate and fear and violence, and without those, they have no purpose on this earth.

[beaker55]

09:48 AM on 01/11/2011

Rush is right on this one: "Just ask yourself this. If the shooter had been a 22-year-old named Muhammad, would we be hearing that Muslim talk radio and the Muslim Internet blamed for it?" the top-rated host asked today. "No, we'd have been told that we can't blame Muslims for the action of one kook."

[Reincarnation TPS]

11:18 AM on 01/11/2011

Yes we would......, from the right......

[liberal in texas]

01:09 PM on 01/11/2011

The right, especially your leaders glenn,hannity,sarah, billo, and the rest of the fox nation
would be absolutely trying to tie all things Muslim to young muhammad ! They would have
tried to implicate anyone who ever ate a falafa!. They would blame msnbc, HP, any pundit
who defended the building of the "Terror Mosque" in NY. PLEASE!

Oh wait a minute. were u just kidding?............ never mind.

[beaker55]

09:32 AM on 01/11/2011

If this weekend has taught us anything politically, it’s that the left is not interested in facts. Once a template has been established, no amount of evidence is going to usurp their idea of how and why certain events have transpired.

[SeesBeyond]

01:51 AM on 01/11/2011

Rhetoric, schmetoric. The only rhetoric I see whipping anyone up is what's going on on this blog. A plague on all of you!

[Vcubed]

06:50 PM on 01/10/2011

How does this post rate 14,000 comments? I think we should wait and see how the trial plays out. Nobody denies now that McVeigh was a right-wing lunatic. This murderer's true colors will be revealed, too.

[beaker55]

08:22 PM on 01/10/2011

McVeigh was not a right wing lunatic, he was an Anarchist. Hardly right wing.

[CAPTK]

08:46 PM on 01/10/2011

He was part of the Patriot Movement, saw anti-government motivation most places except for what he called "The People's Socialist Republic of California," wrote a letter to the ATF titled "Constitutional Defenders," and believed the nation was divided into socialist wannabes and free men.

What exactly does that sound like to you?

[wonderfullone]

09:45 PM on 01/10/2011

This NUT is a confirmed "Bagger".

[SeesBeyond]

10:59 PM on 01/10/2011

Confirmed? Link/reference, please.

[tony wise]

06:00 PM on 01/10/2011

i see the angry dems are hard at work deleting posts again. skylover, quit bgeing a coward. you are abusing your delete function. nothing about my post violated TOS and if you keep this up im going to report it. i counted 45 wrongful deletions last night.

[PurpleTomato]

06:11 PM on 01/10/2011

When you post the same thing over and over that's considered spam.Please follow the HuffPost Guidelines.

[tony wise]

06:21 PM on 01/10/2011

funny, you dont delete the spam that that link is in relation too. 

and i did not post the same thing over and over. thats an outright lie.

[Jeany]

01:45 AM on 01/11/2011

I'm a liberal and I've complained several times about posts being deleted.

Stop feeling sorry for yourself, it happens to everyone.

[TheRagingModerate]

05:35 PM on 01/10/2011

I love that this Republican senator, making a statement that smacks of common sense and basic human decency, feels he or she has to remain anonymous for fear of being called on the carpet before Rush Limbaugh and the other high-priests of rightwing hate.

Nice party you've got these days, conservatives. Those who, like this lonely and scared Republican senator, maintain hope that civility might return should ban together and form a new Republican Party and let the radicals twist in the wind as the defacto third party.

It'll never happen, I realize, because the GOP is the party of HUGE corporate money (not that the Dems do badly either) and the corporate backers understand that divisiveness helps them get what they want by obscuring the real, economic issues that most ordinary Americans would all basically agree on if given the chance. Still, one can dream...

[tony wise]

05:41 PM on 01/10/2011

"not that the dems did badly"

thats the understatement of the year. why dont you try finding out just how "well" they did.

heres a start. harry reid has tripled in personal worth over the last 4 years, as his unemployment rate doubles despite 2 billion taxpayer dollars. maybe cause he only created 3000 jobs with it. 

how has harry reid become one of the richest in this economy?

[tony wise]

05:45 PM on 01/10/2011

and btw, how come not one of you stop and consider that maybe the guy is remaining anonymous because hes making you all look like fools as you jump to strange conclusions about the shooter. like  " this is somehow related to tea party rhetoric".

[PurpleTomato]

05:55 PM on 01/10/2011

Do you have a link?Do you have any proof for this assertion?

[Mikdow]

05:34 PM on 01/10/2011

From the replies to my posts I must have hit some nerves. Interestin­g that Huff Post lets me see the replies that don't get posted.

I mention it because they prove the point the article is making. The replies not posted are hitting me from both sides. And why? Because I suggest that curbing the violence is better served by restrictin­g access to guns than by trying to legislate speech. Yet no one disagrees that the shooter was an unbalanced individual­.

To those on the left who disagree with me I say - saying that right wing talk radio caused this tragedy is not a very strong argument. Truth requires that we acknowledg­e the insanity of the shooter. And besides, I don't want some hastily written law abridging my right to say what I think, no matter how golden the principle involved, and no matter who is writing it.

The those on the right who disagree with me I say - keeping guns out of the hands of crazy people is common sense. No one's rights are being abridged by this very sane policy.

Can we be friends now?

[carbolaw]

01:03 AM on 01/11/2011

I completely agree with you about the gun control and what needs to be done.  However, the reality is that there have been many studies about the results of violent rhetoric.  There are studies that have been conducted by the DHS, the United Nations, the FBI. the Secret Service and in academia.  All of these show direct and clear links between such rhetoric and tragic behaviors.  We cannot continue to simply ignore these.   A call to tone down the rhetoric does not stifle debate, in fact it is the rhetoric that is meant to cut off the debate. By limiting this we will be able to engage  more openly in meaningful debates that are based on facts and evidence rather than hyperbole and fear.

[Mikdow]

11:15 AM on 01/12/2011

Those are all good points. My concern is not to become embroiled in defining what should and should not be said; tone perhaps, but even that is very subjective. The immediate short term hostilities inflamed by hate speech are more effectively addressed by lessening the opportunity for great bodily harm. The thornier question of how to get along with each other must take a great deal longer to address.

[waldob]

04:24 PM on 01/10/2011

I saw something interesting last night on line. It was a map put out by the Democratic party in 08 showing a bullseye on several states that GWB carried an that Obama was targeting in order to win. Interesting if anyone would have gotten shot in one of those states if Obama would have gottent the blame.

[Semolina Pilchard851]

04:26 PM on 01/10/2011

I saw that too.

No, it would not have come up if a Republican was shot.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=385&topic_id=541660&mesg_id=541685

[Epistemon]

05:56 PM on 01/10/2011

I'm not sure how many times over the past couple days I have seen this post or references to Malkin's post. Each time it sounds like a 5 year old caught doing something wrong and trying justify his actions by pointing out how much worse something someone else did is. What we try and teach the five year old is the irrelevance of others behavior when they do something wrong. In essence, it is an admission of guilt. You know it is wrong and indefensible at some level so you resort to this kind of juvenile finger pointing to deflect attention.

[Hill Dweller]

04:07 PM on 01/10/2011

"The way that she has it depicted has the cross hairs of a gun sight over our district. When people do that, they have got to realize there are consequenc­es to that action." Gabby Giffords

[Le Facteur 99]

04:10 PM on 01/10/2011

That video has finished off Palin for good.

[mpp77019]

04:21 PM on 01/10/2011

"finished off"... what are you suggesting!?

[SeesBeyond]

11:08 PM on 01/10/2011

Where have we heard this before, that this or that will mark the end of Palin's political career? The Left might try pondering what it never quite seemed to work out that way. (Hint - a lot of people get sick of your constantly ragging on her, and every time you do she picks up supporters. Amazing, isn't it?) I doubt if this will be the end of Palin's political career this time, either. And like before, you guys won't have clue about why.

[ALfarmgirl]

03:53 PM on 01/10/2011

Why unnamed? What a coward.

[TheRagingModerate]

05:56 PM on 01/10/2011

Because King Rush and Queen Sarah won't stand for such heresy! "Off with his head!" would no doubt be the sentence from the rightwing autocracy if this reasonable Republican were ever unmasked.

[Angie Tyne 1]

07:39 PM on 01/10/2011

Because he doesn't want to be labeled a RINO and wind up on the same list.