That's not targeting...THIS is Targeting (Comments Closed)

(Note:  I have a personal rule that I close the comments section after the fourth or fifth mention of Hitler.)

Democrats are all in a huff because Sarah Palin used crosshairs to show targeted districts. 

Democratic officials and liberal Web sites are upset that Palin used an image of crosshairs in a Facebook post this week listing 20 vulnerable Democrats who voted for the legislation. She plans to target them this election year with money from her political action committee.

Three of the 20 districts are in Arizona; all three have were represented by Republicans a few years ago and all three have strong Republican challengers.  In fact, Republicans see so much opportunity in those three districts that the Republicans challengers all face tough primary elections.  I predict that at least two and probably all three districts will go Republican in November. 

But I digress.  Democrats claim that the crosshairs on a map are a call to violence.  Really?  I don't seem to recall the lefty bloggers or the Democratic party calling out Harry Mitchell when he put crosshairs on J.D. Hayworth's head and broadcast the image as part of a TV commercial.

Ironically, the Republic called J.D. a "bully" in that race.  Some how they forgot about Harry Mitchell personally trashing Gary Richardson's political signs. (police found them in the dumpster behind Harry's house.)  Naturally, the Republic was also silent about the image on the right.

Political intimidation and violence has been a key tool of the radical left since the days when Obama's mentor Saul Alinsky wrote the field manual on the topic.  How may times has Ann Coulter had to cancel speeches because police couldn't guarantee her security?

So give me a break with the faux outrage.  While it's nice to see the left finally codemn political violence.  They are a little late to the party. 

Comments

[todd]

I agree that the complaining about Palin's crosshairs is very silly. The few bricks being thrown through windows seem far from an terror campaign. I always thought the image from the Mitchell ad was supposed to be the viewfinder of a camera as I believe it mentioned him being under investigation.

Since Obama was 11 when Alinksy died and they two never met, how exactly does he qualify as a mentor? Anyway, Alinsky wasn't a proponent of violence so I don't see the connection.

Lastly, I can't find any record of Coulter canceling speeches outside of the recent one in Canada. Have there been others? Alinksy would have been quite critical of that protest since it so clearly played right into Coulters game. Alinsky was way too smart to do something like that.

[Geoff]

About those bricks...http://gatewaypundit.firstthings.com/2010/03/oh-brother-lib-media-claims-rock-was-thrown-through-reps-office-on-30th-floor/

[psrch]

Todd, perhaps you could give me the make and model number of ANY camera that has a viewfinder that looks like that? I've been doing photography for years, with any number of cameras, and have yet to see one with a viewfinder like that.

[Young Monte]

The implication of the ad was the Hayworth was a target in a Justice Department investigation, which we now all know he wasn't. So the idea that it was a camera does not fit with the theme of the ad.

And even if it was a camera lens, how is the viewer supposed to know? Most people would assume a circle with a crosshair in it is something far more sinister than a camera.

[Jim Torgeson]

Puhlease. You know Harry wouldn't whine about those crosshairs. It would make him a hypocrite and you know he is always exactly what he portrays himself to be. [/sarcasm]

[todd]

Senator, still waiting to hear your explanation for the Channel 10 report which included that quote and description. Libel doesn't apply when someone makes statements they reasonably believe to be true. I just heard Mitchell has been getting death threats - that seems a little more like targeting.

[turned down]

Now, now Todd, you know here in backwoods AZ we just tar and feather bums like Harry, then invite the kids to kick their backside all the way to the city limits.

We prefer to have those kind of guys around for the perpetual ridicule. So entertaining!

[todd]

psrch and Young Monte
This type of image is common in TV and Movies when someone is under surveillance which fits more into being the target of a criminal investigation, as reported by the Washington Times, than a rifle scope. I have also never seen the view from a real rifle scope that looks like that, but that 'realness' of the image is beside the point.

[todd]

Senator, the topic of this main post is about 'targeting' of Democratic representatives, including Mitchell. In this context and understanding you claim you are the one really being targeted. I hardly see how the Mitchell reference is a non-sequitur.

I can see how it benefits you to claim you are being unfairly maligned and misquoted by 'liberals' instead of the local Fox affiliate, but I will still direct you to the Local Fox report here - http://bit.ly/bvZjcB . Here is an excerpt from the text version:

/quote
Republicans at the Capitol have worked out a budget plan with severe cuts to health care and education, still, many people who are losing state money are asking to be spared.

Bonnie Danowski is hoping the state won't cut funding to the Valley Interfaith Project, a group that helps the poor.

"If we pull the rug out from beneath them, they are going to end up in prison or they'll end up dead," she said. "Keep in mind that there are people involved here."

Some lawmakers, like Republican Senator Jack Harper, didn't seem too sympathetic to those facing cuts. "We're beyond the point of whether something is a good program, were cutting everything we can, the time for whining is over. We've got to pass this budget we already agreed to," he said.

Sen. Harper doesn't think Tuesday's testimony will lead to many changes in the budget."
/quote

Is the Fox news report from March 9th, the day of the quote they attribute to you, correct or incorrect? If you feel they have misrepresented you my suggestion is you seek a correction from them.

[marie]

actually, THIS is targeting... http://azstarnet.com/image_69a9c15c-35ef-11df-be6e-001cc4c03286.html

[psrch]

Todd, you've never seen a rifle scope with crosshairs? Actually, the more common image in TV and movies for this image is exactly that - a sniper scope. And yes, high-powered sniper rifle scopes do use that image...

[Jack?]

Senator?

[turned down]

Those aren't targets they are 'center points' as used in Architect drawings and Civil engineering drawings. JD's pic has the small 'elevation correction' hash marks on it.

But really this is all about making the Dems look like the victims/ heroes/ whatever so they can deflect the fact that THEY ARE THE ONLY ONES WHO VOTED FOR THIS THING!!!!
Political strategy 101. If we feel soory for them we may not vote them out in Nov.

"Ballots not Bullets"!!!

[Jack Harper JackWHarper@Hughes.net]

These combative posts under the name "State Senator Jack Harper" were not me. Greg is the only one that can verify this.

I really wouldn't be in a public spat with anyone on a blog using my identity. :-)

To whoever Todd is, I didn't post those comments. To whoever is posting under "State Senator Jack Harper" Thanks for defending me, but it's not necessary.

[todd]

Senator,
I will stop responding to any further comments attributed to you on this blog. This has happened to me before on this blog since some people seem to enjoy doing that.

[todd]

"Todd, you've never seen a rifle scope with crosshairs? "
Yes I have, but modern ones don't typically look like that since crossing at the middle obscures the target. My actual first thought was this looked like a periscope view from on old war movie, however that would make even more less sense when talking about someone being investigated.

[Robert Woodman]

The brother of a Congressman who voted for health care reform had his address mistakenly posted on the internet by Tea Party activist. According to the police report, a gas line at the home was deliberately severed at a time when four children under the age of eight were in the home.

Find just one example of any action this ominous on the part of the left wing. Please don't go back to the Vietnam era. Ancient history does not count. If the left wing owns the Vietnam era violence, the right wing gets to take credit for the lynching of civil rights workers in Mississippi, the church bombing in Birmingham, and the KKK. We won't even mention Timothy McVeigh. Well okay, we will.

Civil rights veteran John Lewis was called the n word over the weekend. Another African American Congressman was called the n word and spat upon. Please find any example of the liberal left doing anything this disgraceful and morally repugnant.

You could check out the fine behavior on display by tea partiers here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ik4f1dRbP8

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MfvnNzgQy7Q

The idiot attacking this man has now been identified and his name and photo posted on the internet. It'll probably be his last tea party for awhile. Just another fine example of the conservative doctrine that all poor people are lazy slovenly bums. Even nuclear engineers suffering from Parkinson's.

The conservative temper tantrum this week has included broken windows, death threats against Congressmen, and threats to assassinate the President of the United States. Assassination threats have become a rather common theme of right wing protesters recently. On top of a right wing nutcake murdering three police officers in Pittsburgh last year, the assassination of an abortion doctor, and another right wing nutcake shooting his way into the Holocaust Museum. And you wonder why the left is disturbed by the gun targets on the map and Sarah Palin's exhortation to "reload." Please find any example of an assassination threat against George W. Bush by antiwar protesters or by any other liberal group. Please find any recent example of anything by the left that resembles the random gun violence from the right.

How many times has Ann Coulter had to cancel speeches because of security concerns? Once. In Canada. This week, following the spasm of anger, hatred, and violence by the right wing in this country. If she's cancelled any others, please post the link to that information here. I can hardly blame the Canadians for not wanting to have to pay for the security of a hate monger from a foreign country.

The Republican response to this orgy of hatred and violence has been rote denunciations coupled with lots of excuses and lame rationalizations. Not a single word of denunciation or apology on this blog. Just another lame excuse and even more lame rationalization. You've made your bed with a crowd of poorly educated, hateful, fear mongering racists who embrace violent solutions when they don't get their way in a democracy. Now you get to lie down in it. Stay there until November, or until 2012, or as long as you like.

[RonJ]

Robert Woodman: We don't have to go back to the Vietnam-era because that would be too embarrassing for you lefty nut jobs. But, how about six years of hate speech against George W. Bush, in particular, and conservatives, in general, including a movie on how to assassinate Pres. Bush? Or doesn't that count? How about all the lefty nut jobs in Hollywood making anti-American movies? How about an Obama-loving professor going on a killing spree? How about a registered Democrat flying his airplane into an IRS building in Texas? How about the union thugs from SEIU beating up people at Town Hall Meetings? Or do you just dismiss those events? Hypocrite.

[Mesa Republican George]

Robert,

I would agree with you that much of the Republican temper tantrum about the health care reform is silly but to argue that such actions are limited to the R's is either ignorant or dishonest. Where were you doing GWB's 8 years in the White House? Kenneth Gladney ring a bell? Partisons (on both sides) are so predictable and ridiculous.

[Young Monte]

Robert Woodman,

You forgot the murder of JFK and RFK. Oh, right. JFK was murdered by a left-wing fanatic and RFK was murdered by a Palestinian fanatic disturbed by RFK's support of Israel.

The fact is that violence defines left wing movements worldwide, from Stalin to Mao to Hilter to Pol Pot to Castro to...you get the idea. If you want to start a running body count on both sides it would be a trifle one-sided. Let's see, Mao 50-80 million dead, Stalin 23 million, Hitler 12 million, Pol Pot 3 million, and on it goes.

Get a grip, Robert, and come out from under your bed.

It must be tough having the world's biggest mass murderers on your side of the political spectrum.

[todd]

Young Monte ,
Hitler was not a leftist.

Violence defines most political movements of all persuasions, it is an exception when it does not.

[who knows?]

todd, Hitler was the leader of the National *Socialist* Party. Sounds kind of lefty to me.

[todd]

who knows? ,
Yeah, and Mussolini was head of the 'Republican Fascist Party' so clearly he was a Republican.

I thorough reading of Hilter's rise and the policies of the Third Reich would put this idea to rest. What bothers me with this claim is that the left were the people in Germany who were writing about, fighting and screaming to the rest of the world about Hitler and the Nazi's and were the first to get jailed and killed.

[who knows?]

todd,
according to wikipedia, Mussolini was the leader of the National Fascist Party. Not the Republican Fascist Party. But maybe wiki got it wrong.

[Young Monte]

Todd,

Hitler saw himself as a revolutionary. He hated the church. He hated capitalism. He hated communism because it was not rooted in nationalism, even though in every other aspect they had much in common. One was socialism based on class (communism), the other was socialism based on race (Nazism).

In a speech on May 1, 1937, Hitler proclaimed: "We are socialists, we are enemies of today's capitalistic economic system for the exploitation of the economically weak, with its unfair salaries, with its unseemly evaluation of a human being according to wealth and property instead of responsibility and performance, and we are determined to destroy this system under all conditions."

Hitler again: "German socialism [Nazism] is directed by Germans; international socialism [communism] is directed by Jews."

And need I even mention the Hitler-Stalin pact?

I could go on and on in a similar vein.

The Left's pathetic attempts to portray Hitler as right-winger fly in the face of Hitler's own thoughts and beliefs and history.

In short, he's all yours Todd!

[Jim Torgeson]

Sadly, I think the "death threats" are fabricated to make the opposition look crazy.

[Falcon9]

Ann Coulter has documented quite a number of these exhibitions of hate, attributed to conservatives, were actually perpetuated by the victims, not conservatives.

[todd]

Young Monte,
Fascism is a far right-wing ideology. It was in Germany, Italy, Spain and everywhere else it took root. Your first quote is actually from 1927, Hitler was devious and said many things to attract followers, especially early on. Two years after in 1929 he said 'socialism' was “an unfortunate word altogether” and that “if people have something to eat, and their pleasures, then they have their socialism.” While there may be some rhetoric taken to compete with the left, the policies they implemented - killing and jailing leftists, support for corporate capitalism, destruction of unions, support among conservatives of Hindenburg, etc are hallmarks of right-wing fascism.

Instead of stringing some out of context quotes together, please read some actually history besides Joshua Goldberg. Shirer's "The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich" or Richard Evans 3 part series.

[who knows?]

todd,
Thanks for the insight. The next time I read about political leader calling himself a socialist, I'll check with you before I believe him. He may just be kidding.

[todd]

who knows?,
from 1943-45 he was head of the Republican Fascist Party. Look the name up on wikipedia.

[todd]

who knows? believe whatever you want I am just suggesting you bother to find out more because you clearly have a very limited picture.

Oh, and here is a thought. There are modern day Nazi's - are they socialists. Here I am thinking especially of JT Ready, Nazi and former GOP PC in LD 18. Thankfully some in the GOP strongly called for his ouster and he was booted out.