...We hear a call for “civility” — though not from those who use the shrillest violent rhetoric against their political foils. Maybe now we can finally see the importance of acting with respect and understanding, despite our differing political agendas.
Giffords was shot — and six others tragically murdered — in part because our violent political expression inspired a mentally unstable person, who had preposterously easy access to previously banned weapons. The pundits can repeatedly claim that Jared Lee Loughner was a “madman.” But we all know that he was neither the first nor the last.
To fail to address these three factors — violent speech, mental illness and easy access to guns — is to waste this powerful, tragic moment in U.S. political history.
This is hogwash. As Democrats' Obamacare push entered its frenzied final
stages, Hastings famously told the House Rules Committee that passage rules were impertinent: "We make 'em up as we go along," he said. Hastings is now applying the same perverse standard to the details of the Tucson shooting. When it comes to the motives and causes of a massacre that killed six people, he's happy to just make them up as he goes along to suit his political agenda.
The man is beneath contempt. If you have a few extra minutes, revisit the link above and read Byron York's 2006 recapitulation of the facts in Hastings' impeachment case. Basically, he solicited a $150,000 bribe to alter the outcome of a case over which he was presiding, accepted the bribe, rendered his tainted judgment, and lied about it under oath (while crying racism, naturally).
Worse yet, three years after his ignominious fall from grace, the people of Florida's 23rd Congressional District saw fit to elect him to the US House of Representatives, and have returned him to Congress for ten terms. I'm speechless.
Join the conversation as a VIP Member