If you're looking for someone to blame for the horrific shooting of National Guardsmen at a Carson, Nevada IHOP yesterday look no further: I blame president Obama.
Allow me connect the dots.
On Labor Day Monday, the day before the shooting, the president took to the stage in Detroit to address a Labor Day Rally. Shortly before Obama's speech, Teamster leader James Hoffa spoke. Calling Republicans "sons of bitches" he assured the president that "this is your army. We are ready to march" and that it was time to take the other side "out". The president didn't disavow the remarks when he spoke shortly thereafter which would imply, if he were a Republican and the media cared about covering it, that he agreed with Hoffa.
Obviously the crazed Carson gunman heard the call to arms and shot at military members, a segment of the population traditionally aligned with those Republicans he was instructed to "take out." Taking the president's silence as tacit agreement, the gunman followed the instructions given to him. President Obama really should apologize to the families of the dead and to the country.
No? That sounds crazy? Is it disgusting that someone would take a tragedy like the one in Carson and distort and politicize it? Are you repulsed that someone would even make this kind of ridiculous, random and unfounded connection? Welcome to our world, liberals. Did you think the same thing when Sarah Palin was essentially blamed for the shooting in Tuscon? Was it ok that the NY Times pushed the line that "rhetoric", especially rhetoric on the right, was to blame for the actions of a deranged man, even after it became crystal clear that it wasn't?
Writes the brilliant Allahpundit:
Speaking of change, my favorite part of the Hoffa story is the left’s defense that he was talking specifically about voting when he called for taking those tea-party “sons of bitches” out. That’s super, but the whole point of the “new tone” demagoguery after Tucson was that intent doesn’t matter. Go re-read Palin’s Facebook post from March 2010 showcasing the crosshairs map that the media would make famous 10 months later.
Sample quote: “This is just the first salvo in a fight to elect people across the nation who will bring common sense to Washington.” Elections. Voting. And yet it didn’t matter to our liberal betters after Giffords was shot; the argument then was that the political “climate” in America had become so heated that it was irresponsible to use violent rhetoric or imagery even in service to a perfectly pedestrian nonviolent call for voter turnout.
Remember? We were all going to clean up our language lest the scrambled brains of the Jared Loughners of the world derive some sort of incitement to murder from them where none was intended.
It's been months since Tucson but it's hard to forget the repulsive behavior exhibited by so many on the left. The finger-pointing in the wake of that tragedy was unacceptable and unforgettable. To have the president shrug at these sorts of comments from someone on his own side, while sharing a stage, is a problem.
As with so many ridiculous things president Obama does, I invite you to imagine if it were a Republican president instead. It would be wall to wall coverage of Hoffa's comments, probably interspersed with footage of the Republican shaking his hand, taking the same stage, etc. If you believe in fairness, and you so much as mentioned "rhetoric" or Sarah Palin's map after Tucson, there's only one thing to do today: hold president Obama accountable for the Carson shootings.
Born in the Soviet Union and raised in Brooklyn, Karol Markowicz is a public relations consultant in NYC and a veteran of Republican campaigns in four states. She blogs about politics at Alarming News and about life in the city with her husband and baby at 212 Baby. She can be followed on Twitter.