Republican Violence "Metaphors"

US today's polling shows a majority of Americans don't think conservative inflammatory rhetoric caused the Loughner shooting, but that they're evenly split over whether heated political rhetoric in general was a major cause.

On the surface, conservatives seem to have a point: Palin's use of words like "reload", and her placement of Giffords and other democrats' names in gun sights only represented metaphorical shooting. Similarly, when Obama said “If they bring a knife to the fight, we bring a gun,”, it wasn't meant to imply violence is okay.

But a deeper look at mainstream Tea Party rhetoric reveals a more frightening truth:

• Palin enthusiastically endorsed Sharon Angle, who last January suggested using "second amendment remedies" to "take out Harry Reid":
  

  Angle: You know, our Founding Fathers, they put that Second Amendment in there for a good reason, and that was for the people to protect themselves against a tyrannical government. And in fact Thomas Jefferson said, it's good for a country to have a revolution every 20 years," Angle said. "I hope that's not where we're going, but, you know, if this Congress keeps going the way it is, people are really looking toward those Second Amendment remedies and saying, my goodness, what can we do to turn this country around? I'll tell you, the first thing we need to do is take Harry Reid out."

• Palin published her democratic "hit list" right after health care reform was passed in March. At that same time, militia leaders like Mike Vanderboegh urged followers to "throw bricks through windows" of certain democratic offices, including that of Giffords. This vandalism was committed at DNC offices across the country, including the Alaska office. Despite the violence, Palin continued her charged rhetoric, and has not to this day taken down her "hit list", even after Giffords was shot. She never really spoke out against the vandalism of the offices, and only now when Giffords has been shot, has she strongly condemned this use of violence.

Everyone is focusing on this second issue, but I think the Sharron Angle situation is far more damning. If Palin was serious about preventing violence, she should have withdrawn her Angle endorsement the moment Angle spoke of using "second amendment remedies" to "take out Harry Reid" if Republicans couldn't win at the ballot box. There is nothing remotely metaphorical about this Angle's violent rhetoric. What she called for is exactly what happened to Gabrielle Giffords. America deserves an apology from both Giffords and Angle for instigating this violence.