Welcome to the backlash against the backlash.
In the aftermath of this weekend’s Tucson shootings, there was a decent amount of momentum behind the notion that the nation’s political discourse should move toward civility, and away from the caustic, sometimes violent, and often absolutist form it has taken lately. This line of reasoning held that although talking heads trading in gun metaphors didn’t put a gun in the hands of the Tucson shooter, they helped conjure up a political climate in which enemies are born from disagreements on federal policy, and revolution is something you prepare for on a Tuesday afternoon, in between buying milk and picking up the dry cleaning. Even Fidel Castro said we’d gotten a little nuts.
Today, the yakking heads swung back.
In his regular Herald column, Michael Graham satirically suggested shutting down Target stores and banning steak-bomb sandwiches, and mocks the idea that “We can kill with a Web site graphic and turn people violent with a single word – even when, like Loughner, there’s no evidence they’ve seen or heard them.”
“If you’re going to accuse me of being an accessory to murder, it would be nice if you had at least some small evidence,” Graham told the Herald. And Todd Feinburg argued that since investigators haven’t pinned any blame on Glenn Beck, the drop-the-gun-talk reasoning amounts to “a deliberate attempt by the Democrats to kidnap the event that occurred on Saturday and turn it into a weapon to beat up the Tea Party and Sarah Palin and conservative talk radio.”
The New York Times, which camped itself in front of an Arizona radio tuned to AM talk, reports on similar rebuttals. In one exchange, a caller berates a talk host, Mike Gallagher, and other “individuals like yourself [who] instill fear” in people. “Was Jared Loughner a Mike Gallagher listener?” Gallagher shot back.
It was the same line of reasoning across the board – if you couldn’t put Loughner on Sarah Palin’s crosshairs-littered Facebook page, then Palin’s rhetoric and Facebook page couldn’t possibly be objectionable, and Giffords’s own words be damned. (The day before being shot, she emailed the Kentucky Republican now heading Harvard’s Institute of Politics, saying, “we need to figure out how to tone our rhetoric and partisanship down.”)
Jacob Weisberg posted a piece on Slate last night that won’t play well on radio because it’s full of links and such, but it’s worth a read anyway. His argument: Strident rhetoric doesn’t put a gun in anybody’s hands, but it can delegitimize democracy, and when that happens, all bets are off. “At the core of the far right’s culpability is its ongoing attack on the legitimacy of US government…. It expresses the dangerous idea that the federal government lacks valid authority. It is this, rather than violent rhetoric per se, that is the most dangerous aspect of right-wing extremism. Often the two issues are blurred together, because if government is illegitimate, rebellion is an appropriate response.”
–PAUL MCMORROW
TUCSON, CONTINUED
Nearly all Massachusetts members of Congress and state officials say they won’t add security that would interfere with interactions with constituents. US Rep. Niki Tsongas appeared to be the one possible exception, telling the Globe her office will be thinking through security arrangements at events in the wake of Saturday’s shooting.
Gov. Deval Patrick, Senate President Therese Murray and House Speaker Robert DeLeo talk about the shooting and security issues facing public officials.
Former US Rep. William Delahunt was on “Greater Boston” to talk about the assassination attempt on Gabrielle Giffords, his one-time colleague on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, the state of political discourse and the vulnerability of elected officials while out in public.
William Galston, on The New Republic site, says we need to revisit laws that have set a high bar for involuntary commitment of the mentally ill.
The New York Times spotlights Giffords’s district, which has been roiling with political tension for some time.
The Chronicle of Philanthropy reports the appeal by Giffords’ husband that people looking to show their support donate to a Tucson food pantry or give blood to the American Red Cross resulted in an immediate and overwhelming response.
New Hampshire lawmakers aren’t thinking twice about a recent vote to open up their State House to firearms. One state rep. tells Joe Battenfeld she’ll be strapped while voting.
Sarah Palin, under mounting pressure, stays at her computer terminal.
Meanwhile, the National Review uses a photo of Giffords aiming an AK-47 to argue that you can’t lay the blame on political imagery for the actions of a madman unless you point the fingers at the victim as well.
BEACON HILL
Peter Lucas, writing in the Lowell Sun, says the Dominic Cinelli case will be Gov. Deval Patrick’s Willie Horton.
Middlesex DA Gerry Leone talks with Broadside’s Jim Braude about the Cinelli case and the Arizona shootings.
CRIME AND POLITICS
Boston magazine adds a strange coda to the Ron Wilburn-Dianne Wilkerson saga. It turns out Wilburn didn’t need to bribe Wilkerson, or solicit sympathetic columns in the Globe, or bend the Boston City Council to his will. All he had to do was redraw the Déjàvu floor plans to make the place a restaurant, not a night club. “It was pretty easy,” Wilburn’s licensing lawyer tells the magazine. “It was actually one of the easier [approvals] we’ve had.”
Federal prosecutors tell Chuck Turner they want their $1,000 back.
HOUSING
The Globe reports on a rising tide of foreclosures in small towns far from the Massachusetts urban centers initially hit hardest by the housing crash. Meanwhile, the paper’s editorial page likes a proposal by Mayor Tom Menino to require mediation between Boston homeowners and lenders before any foreclosure can be finalized, suggesting that such a mandate be extended statewide. And Secretary of State Bill Galvin wants a tribunal to sort out foreclosures of murky legitimacy following last week’s Supreme Judicial Court ruling on the issue.
Time magazine questions whether the recent decision by the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court on foreclosures will give a boost to the housing market.
After years of inertia, developers have started construction of the first house at SouthField, the mixed use development project at the old South Weymouth Naval Air Base.
HAITI
The Globe looks at the overwhelming needs in Haiti a year after the devastating earthquake – and how Boston-based Partners in Health is handling the growth of its services there that has been possible with the outpouring of donations following last January’s disaster.
ECONOMY
The recession hasn’t just thrown millions out of work. It has also upended wages across the country, the Wall Street Journal reports.
The city of North Adams, Mass MOCA, and the Massachusetts Colleges of Liberal Arts join forces to work on economic revitalization projects. A North Adams Transcript editorial applauds the effort.
Tech pioneer Bob Metcalfe is leaving Massachusetts to teach in Texas, WBUR reports.
EDUCATION
Former state Sen. Joan Menard didn’t have time to file for unemployment, agreeing to become acting vice president of workforce development, lifelong learning, grant development, and external affairs at Bristol Community College, the Fall River Herald News reports. Menard will be paid $120,000, but no word on how big the business card will be for that mouthful of a title.
An Arlington Advocate report examines teacher contracts in the town and several neighboring communities.
HEALTH CARE
No Massachusetts hospitals joined a voluntary effort to reduce small businesses’ health care costs last year.
INTRO TEXT Municipal Affairs
Pittsfield officials want to talk to Sen. Scott Brown about funds for a new public safety building during his Wednesday visit.
As more and more communities opt into the Community Preservation Act, the state’s pot of funds is dwindling so what was once a 100 percent match is now down to about 27 percent and dropping, according to the New Bedford Standard Times.
North Shore mayors are optimistic about gaining some control over rising municipal health care costs, the Salem News reports.
Lynn Mayor Judith Flanagan Kennedy says she fired the city’s chief financial officer for just cause, but says she won’t provide details until she appears before the city council, the Item reports.
ENERGY AND ENVIRONMENT
An Attleboro hydroelectric plant felled by a sour economy is getting its second wind.
WASHINGTON
The state’s two western US representatives say the partisan split in the House means the only bills that will become law are those the Senate decides should pass.
US Rep. Barney Frank calls Commerce Secretary Gary Locke a “weakling” without the courage to stand up to his subordinates on fishing issues, reports the Gloucester Times.
TRANSPORTATION
Governing magazine, citing research conducted by the US Public Interest Research Group, says roads don’t pay for themselves in the form of higher gas taxes and other fees.
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