Tipsheet

Oh Dear: Tucson Victim Blames Palin, Angle, Beck...

...and Boehner for last Saturday's shooting spree:

A wounded survivor of the Tucson shooting that critically injured Rep. Gabrielle Giffords is blaming Sarah Palin, House Speaker John Boehner, Fox TV host Glenn Beck, and former Nevada GOP Senate candidate Sharron Angle for the tragedy.

“It looks like Palin, Beck, Sharron Angle and the rest got their first target,” Eric Fuller said in an interview with Democracy NOW.

“Their wish for Second Amendment activism has been fulfilled — senseless hatred leading to murder, lunatic fringe anarchism, subscribed to by John Boehner, mainstream rebels with vengeance for all, even 9-year-old girls,” he added, referring to the death of Christina Taylor Green.

Unmentioned until the penultimate paragraph of Politico's write up of this story: Actual shooter Jared Loughner.  The deadly incident was an unspeakable atrocity, and we're all extremely thankful that Mr. Fuller survived his wounds.  But despite his position of 'Ultimate Moral Authority' as a victim, his statements are not above reproach.  One has to be fanatically wedded to a political ideology to lay blame for one's own shooting at the feet of people who had absolutely nothing to do with it. 

In all fairness to Mr. Fuller, perhaps his prolonged hospitalization caused him to miss reports that (a) the shooter was mentally deranged and largely apolitical, (b) Rep. Giffords is an ardent supporter of the Second Amendment, to which he ascribes partial responsibility for the massacre, (c) the shooter detested President Bush, believed current US military efforts constitute war crimes, and was both a militant atheist and 9/11 truther.  Fuller will be hard-pressed to apply any of those positions to Palin, Boehner, Beck, et al.

It's also entirely possible that Mr. Fuller is aware of some, or all, of these facts, but chose to launch his slanderous invective anyway.  Either way, the contrast between his unfortunate response to the shootings, and the classy -- even heroic -- reaction of young Christina Green's family, could not be starker.