Gabrielle Giffords

The implications actually made me throw up. 

Democratic Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords of Arizona was shot in the head, at point blank range, while hosting a community event this morning in Tucson.

She is one of ten members to have been targetted for harrassment last year during the health care reform debate.

Twelve people were reported shot and the gunman is in custody.

There is a serious discussion to be had, and some serious blame to be assigned that go beyond the actual gunman to those whose "leadership" incited this crime.

NPR and CNN confirm that she is dead, as are six other people. 
[AND THEY WERE WRONG!  Hooray!  According to a hospital spokesperson, she has just come out of surgery for a wound that went "through and through" the brain, is alive, in critical condition, but will likely survive!  Sadly, a child was also shot, and is dead.  The total of those shot now stands at an incredible 18, 6 of whom are reported dead.  If we can trust reports...]

Sarah Palin and her fellow demagogues best hold their tongues today.

From WSJ:

The shooting was not the first time the congresswoman has had brushes with violence. Following the health care overhaul vote this year, her district office was vandalized.


"The rhetoric has gotten incredibly heated," she told MSNBC in March. "Not just the calls, the emails, the slurs. Things have really gotten spun up."


She also specifically called out on a "targets" website created by former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin for the 2010 midterm elections that featured a crosshair over hers and other districts. Republicans campaigned heavily against Ms. Giffords, a moderate Democrat in a Republican-leaning district, this year.


"We can't' stand for this, we do really need to realize that the rhetoric and firing people up, and you know things for example we're on Sarah Palin's targeted list, the thing is the way she has it depicted has the crosshairs of a gunsight over our district," she told MSNBC.


Rep. Giffords earned a reputation as a strong fundraiser and campaigner who was deeply engaged in Arizona's bitter immigration debate.

If somehow the demagoguery of the last few years has escaped you, and you feel the need, as you doubtless do, to lighten your mood, here are some rapidly assembled palinesque moments from this blog:

Palin Pales
Polyanna's Glad Game
A Thousand Little Wacos:::Apples and Cabbage
The Philpot Shoots the Schlessinger and I Need Yogurt
Barack Obama and William Ayers = John McCain and Charles H. Keating, Jr.


*i rarely blog about real time events, but tennis and politics are my usual exceptions.  given that, i don't go back and change anything about such posts beyond grammar, spelling, and factual corrections.  if i piss you off by blaming right wing extremist politicos (and, okay, an occasional wayward idiot on the extreme left, not to mention the odd annoyingly tepid numbnut from the middle realm), i will offer you my ear, but not my apology.