Open Season on Democrats?

I got home tonight to the news that Arizona Democratic Congressional Representative Gabrielle Giffords had been shot in the head at a public event.

Apparently she is going to survive (I don't know how...being shot in the head seems like a pretty serious thing), but that's not true for six others at the scene, including a Federal judge.

There is apparently no proof yet that the shooting was political, according to authorities, but come on...

I'm willing to bet my next paycheck that this asshole is an avid listener to the Glenn Beck program. If not him, then Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, etc etc etc. And I'm also willing to bet that he watches Clusterfox "News". Tragically, the loudmouths of the right have lowered the bar on reasonable political discourse so fucking much that it seems a rational course of action to kill a politician if s/he doesn't agree with the Unholy Trio.

The wingnut media have created such an atmosphere of hate in this country that I am afraid that this is not the last attempt on the life of a Democratic office holder.

After all, Sarah Palin had Giffords in the crosshairs during last fall's election. In the crosshairs. Everybody knows what that means, and just because the Killa from Wasilla now says that the shooting is "tragic", she's the one who put Giffords in the crosshairs in the first place. Maybe Sarah thinks that the phrase is a metaphor, but she has to know that her base is firmly planted in the knuckledragging set who wouldn't know a metaphor if it, metaphorically, slapped them in the face.

I used to live in Cochise County, Arizona, and if I still lived there, I would have actively campaigned for Gifford. Would that have put me in the crosshairs as well?

Maybe. But for sure this shooting -- and killing -- will create a chilling effect on the next election. After all, who is going to want to run for office knowing that if you are a liberal, you are 1,000 times more likely to be assassinated than if you run as a Teabagger.

When was the last time you learned that a political assassin was a "liberal"?

And there's an additional sad note to this, and that is Giffords isn't all that liberal. She is, in fact, a "blue dog" Democrat. Not that I blame her much for that -- it was probably the only way she could get elected in that largely conservative district.