There are grown up and constructive reactions to the tragic Arizona shooting. And then there are the puerile and destructive reactions.
So far, President Obama has chosen the high road, and shown grace and dignity in this time of sorrow. Let’s hope that he goes tomorrow to the memorial service for the fallen in Arizona with the intent to help heal the hearts of the mourners. He should continue to condemn violence, and lay the blame where it belongs. The alleged shooter, Jared Lee Loughner, is neither a right-wingnut or a left-wingnut. He is just a complete non-partisan nutjob. And the president should remind us all that a nutjob’s violence is not an excuse to suppress free speech and robust debate which, in a free society, are intended to replace violence as a means to resolve differences.
Unfortunately, some members of Obama’s party have taken the low road. They are exploiting the tragedy for political purposes.
For example, Illinois Senator Richard Durbin, a Democratic leader in the Senate, told CNN’s “State of the Union” that “toxic rhetoric” created the climate for the shooting. By the way, wasn’t this the same Senator who had to apologize for comparing the treatment of the prisoners at the U. S. military base at Guantanamo as equivalent to the behavior of Nazis and their concentration camps, the Soviet gulags and Cambodia’s Pol Pot?
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