(side note: all things stated here are hereby personal opinion. So don't bitch at me for libel or anything.)
So the Reps and Dems are all set to make a big show of "reaching across the aisle" tonight in the President's State of the Union Address. They'll even, *gasp*, be sitting in mixed order, rather than separated by party!
What an amazing symbolic gesture.
The problem is that that's all it is.
They're doing this because a fellow politico got shot. They don't seem to truly care that the nine year old girl actually died and the forty-something woman lived. Even this insensitive bastard can see the injustice in that situation. No, mostly they care about their own asses. A politico was shot because some radical dumbass got all hopped up on rhetoric and stupidity. Now people are screaming about how there is too much violence in politics, to much demonization and recrimination, so the pols are making symbolic overtures so they don't have to take any real action. Palin, for example, took down a graphic from her site (or rather, told her PR people to do, because, let's face it, no politicians seem to really even know what the fuck computers even are...) which marked districts carried by republicans containing democrats representatives which voted for the Health Care Bill with cross hairs ( seen here ). This graphic actually marked Giffords, even. Now it's absurd to say it led to the attack. It was a poor choice, not a calculated call for hits. One more charitable than I might buy that it was taken down for reasons of empathy and sensitivity, but let's be honest here, it was a PR move. Some one on the map was actually shot, and whatever else Palin may have felt, she realized "oh shit, I could be blamed..." The fact that she thought that semiotic piece of crap was a good idea is damning, but not in that way, and given that she apparently did think it was a good idea, she would not be so swayed by motives of empathy, only image.
I'm not saying Palin wanted people shot, I don't know whether she thinks people should be shot, only wolves and moose with automatic weapons, but I digress. But obviously she believed it pushed the desired buttons in her constituents. Or at least the constituents of those pols she supports because she's CLEARLY not a pol herself, how could anyone ever think that? (note, I may bill her for the lung I almost coughed up laughing derisively while typing that). Whatever her feelings on the shooting of democrats, it's ridiculous to propose that single image and a rally against the shot woman held at a shooting range in anyway caused the shooting. It's also ridiculous, however, to approve that graphic for your site and not expect to be held accountable for your choice.
On the other hand... while it's ridiculous, she was not, apparently, too wrong. It seems no one, save some supposed morons on Twitter, actually is holding her accountable for those poor choices, or, really, any of her poor choices, save spending.
That's rather telling in itself, actually, of the real tone of politics in this country. We really don't give two tugs of a dead dog's cock about the violent dialect of politics until someone's shot, and then we hurriedly make up shit about how it's terrible before going right back to that tone in an amazingly short period of time. But spend money a little frivolously and suddenly people show up with the fucking torches and pitchforks and effigies upon which to practice. "Fucks sake! She spent campaign money on clothes! Get her!" versus "Huh? Someone said the gays should all die? Well... that's, um, terrible, yeah... slap his hand..." Now granted, there are always people who feel strongly about public individuals opine someone should die, namely the people or person who are told to "piss off, in perpetuity." But if you're going to say that it's terrible when you're targeted, then you need to either show some empathy when others are, or own up to being a self-interested bastard.
There is the fact that the public actually does care about the little dead girl, in a remarkable show of sensitivity in a group that is usually even more self-interested than the politicos. This is the real source of the uproar about the violent tone of politics and politician rectal concern. What many don't seem to realize is that politics is surprisingly tame compared to about two hundred years back. The presidential race between Jefferson and Hamilton saw accusations of rape and racial miscegenation agendas bandied between them. A fear of monsterdom, of truly biblical proportions, and nightly assault by crazed, horny black men equipped with truly terrifyingly prodigious penises was raised. I think we've come a long way to reach a point where the biggest concern in politics is that someone else might be shot rather than having assault with three-foot phalluses become nightly routine.
