Arizona Politicians Take Closer Look at Security: MyFoxPHOENIX.com

So an Arizona GOP leader, a former campaign worker for John McCain, steps down after his wife asks him if his precinct leaders will shoot at their house. It seems Anthony Miller just isn't conservative enough to please the local GOP's Tea Party fringe. Several of his allies also resigned.

Gee, I wonder if this is for the obvious reason?

Several GOP officials from the same area in Arizona have resigned following last week's shooting rampage in Tucson, including a district chairman who said threats from local tea party members caused him to be worried for the safety of himself and his family.

Anthony Miller, 43, stepped down earlier this week as chair of Republican District 20 after his wife expressed concerns about "constant verbal attacks" against him since helping Sen. John McCain win reelection in November, The Arizona Republic reported.

McCain was opposed by some parts of the conservative tea party movement in Arizona. Since the election victory, Miller said he has been the subject of intimidating and threatening rhetoric in person and on Internet message boards.

Still, Miller said, he had no plans to leave his post until the attempted assassination of Democratic Rep. Gabrielle Giffords during a massacre that left six dead and 14 wounded.

"I wasn't going to resign but decided to quit after what happened Saturday," Miller told The Huffington Post Wednesday. "I love the Republican Party but I don't want to take a bullet for anyone."

Miller, who is black, said a number of the attacks were racially based. At an event in Lake Havasu City, Ariz., Miller told The Huffington Post that someone called out, "There's Anthony, get a rope."

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What Digby said:

For my money it was the best speech he's given as president ---simple, human and uplifting in a difficult moment. As the father of two little girls himself his evocation of Christina Green was particularly poignant. He's not known for sentimentality, but he showed heart and it was good.

I unfortunately have a sinking feeling about it, regardless: Republicans have proven themselves remorseless and relentless in their hatred of all things Obama. Personally, I'm waiting for them to "Wellstone" this memorial -- and even though it was billed as a "celebration of life," the cheers that were heard will probably be used to attack Obama.

I've included the first serious outbreak of cheers at the gathering -- when Obama announced that Gabrielle Giffords had "opened her eyes" that evening for the first time since Saturday, a huge milestone in her recovery. It was a moving and heartfelt moment, and who wouldn't have cheered?

I guess we'll find out tomorrow.

Meantime, the transcript is below. I thought the speech was particularly outstanding here:

If this tragedy prompts reflection and debate, as it should, let’s make sure it’s worthy of those we have lost. Let’s make sure it’s not on the usual plane of politics and point scoring and pettiness that drifts away with the next news cycle.

The loss of these wonderful people should make every one of us strive to be better in our private lives – to be better friends and neighbors, co-workers and parents. And if, as has been discussed in recent days, their deaths help usher in more civility in our public discourse, let’s remember that it is not because a simple lack of civility caused this tragedy, but rather because only a more civil and honest public discourse can help us face up to our challenges as a nation, in a way that would make them proud. It should be because we want to live up to the example of public servants like John Roll and Gabby Giffords, who knew first and foremost that we are all Americans, and that we can question each other’s ideas without questioning each other’s love of country, and that our task, working together, is to constantly widen the circle of our concern so that we bequeath the American dream to future generations.

Great words. I hope everyone listens.

UPDATE: Sure enough, like clockwork, Malkin chimes in and calls it a "bizarre pep rally".

UPDATE 2: Atrios and DougJarvus Green-Ellis at Balloon Juice have the same bad feeling.

Full transcript below:

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Shorter Sarah Palin.

Open Thread below.

Via Bloomberg:

One-day sales of handguns in Arizona jumped 60 percent to 263 on Jan. 10 compared with 164 the corresponding Monday a year ago, the second-biggest increase of any state in the country, according to Federal Bureau of Investigation data.

Handgun sales rose 65 percent to 395 in Ohio; 16 percent to 672 in California; 38 percent to 348 in Illinois; and 33 percent to 206 in New York, the FBI data show. Sales increased nationally about 5 percent, to 7,906 guns.

Now, I could almost understand gun sales rising, but Glocks? Why Glocks? Here's why:

A national debate over weaknesses in state and federal gun laws stirred by the shooting has stoked fears among gun buyers that stiffer restrictions may be coming from Congress, gun dealers say. The result is that a deadly demonstration of the weapon’s effectiveness has also fired up sales of handguns in Arizona and other states, according to federal law enforcement data.

“When something like this happens people get worried that the government is going to ban stuff,” Wolff said.

Arizona gun dealers say that among the biggest sellers over the past two days is the Glock 19 made by privately held Glock GmbH, based in Deutsch-Wagram, Austria, the model used in the shooting.

I'm not opposed to gun ownership, even though I won't own one. I am, however, opposed to people owning 30-round clips that can take out 19 people in seconds. That's not self-defense. It's mayhem.

Watch it live here. We'll have excerpt and posts later.

The debate rages on, and thanks to media spin and constant false equivalencies, at least one poll has 57% of its respondents rejecting any possibility of inflammatory speech having any influence over Jared Lee Loughner's actions on Saturday morning. Welcome to the confluence of media echoes and denial.

It was predictable, this la-la-la response. Kneejerk, even. No one wants to believe that words can influence, because that would require individuals to own their own words. God forbid.

This is true in every context but politics, it seems. I believe there are some things one doesn't say to their spouse unless they really mean it. Words like "I want a divorce", "I hate you", "I want to be with someone else" are not things one says unless they're prepared to follow through with the appropriate actions. This is because once that barrier is broken, it cannot be rebuilt. The foundations of that marriage are forever weakened and possibly broken. Matt Taibbi takes that one step further.

Which makes sense. If we're being honest with ourselves, we in the media understand that our job descriptions do not entirely overlap with the requirements of good citizenship. If you're in a marriage, or are a parent or living with parents, or have brothers or sisters or close friends, when you argue over a difficult issue, you don't just take out all the weaponry in your arsenal and blast away. In the interests of preserving the relationship, and because you respect and love the other person as a human being, you argue as politely and respectfully as possible. And your goal in arguing is always to fix the actual problem -- there's no other, ulterior motive.

That's just not the case in either journalism (and I should know-- more on that momentarily) or politics. In politics, you don't need to treat everyone with decency and humanity, just 51% of the crowd. Actually, given that half or less than half of all people don't vote, the percentage of people who require basic decency and indulgence is probably even lower than that, maybe 20-25% of the population. There's plenty of power and money to be won by skillfully stimulating public anger against some or all of the rest, and there are few rewards for restraint.

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Bill O'Reilly stepped up last night to make his contribution to the Right's jihad against Clarence Dupnik for speaking the truth about the environment in Arizona in which Jared Loughner's shooting rampage occurred, devoting three whole segments to running down Dupnik, including his opening "Talking Points Memo" segment in which he attacked Dupnik for mixing politics and law enforcement. This, from the guy who has a man-crush on Sheriff Joe Arpaio.

At least the first featured a defense of Dupnik from Alicia Menendez, the first yet allowed on Fox -- though it was, unsurprisingly, an incredibly weak-kneed one. This exchange was pretty revealing, though:

MENENDEZ: So you think that that rhetoric has nothing to do with this? Nothing at all? No connection?

O'REILLY: There's no connection at all. No I think that the man, -- and here's what I think, the man is a zealot. He's a zealot. He is using and abusing his position as a Sheriff, all right? To spout the political point of view. All right?

And two downsides. Number one, he ignites this whole thing because he did. And number two, he obscures the investigation. He obscures it. And I think it's wrong on both counts.

MENENDEZ: So why -- here -- so then, Bill, why are we sitting here talking about him instead of talking about what we do --

O'REILLY: Because we want to -- we want to neutralize people like him. That's why!

MENENDEZ: So he makes you nervous?

O'REILLY: He doesn't make me nervous. He makes me angry.

MENENDEZ: If -- if -- there's nothing legit about what he's saying, then why is he making you nervous?

O'REILLY: No, no, our -- our job here at the Factor, Alicia, as you know is to spotlight people who are harming the country and I think Dupnik is harming the country.

Then he brought on Elisabeth Hasselbeck and somehow managed to not ask her to clarify her previous thoughts on Sarah Palin's "crosshairs" in relation to this story. Instead, they bashed Dupnik some more:

HASSELBECK: The irony, Bill, is that we're looking at a law enforcement individual in a position of power, and in a profession where evidence is near-mandatory, right? To prosecute anybody. And yet there's no evidence to back up anything he's saying.

O'REILLY: Nothing.

This is what Fox talkers were saying all day long (Laura Ingraham made the same charge that morning on Fox & Friends, claiming that Dupnik had "no evidence."

First, let's stipulate: Dupnik had all the evidence he needed to make the kinds of remarks he made about the political and social environment in Arizona -- one that has gotten so virulently ugly that Democrats and liberals in Arizona increasingly are fearful for their physical well-being and are reluctant to self-identify as liberals. (Will Bunch had a terrific piece at Media Matters recently on this very subject; as someone with family and friends in Arizona, I can personally attest to this reality.)

Unlike Bill O'Reilly or Megyn Kelly or Monica Crowley, Dupnik actually lives in Arizona, and does know whereof he speaks. Moreover, there is abundant evidence about the vicious eliminationist hatred, some of it officially sanctioned by the GOP and Tea Parties, that was directed at Giffords personally.

But let's get serious: When has evidence ever mattered to the talkers at Fox News -- Bill O'Reilly especially?

When there have been ugly incidents of right-wing extremist violence directed at "liberal" or government targets in the past, everyone at Fox -- O'Reilly and his pal Glenn Beck in particular -- have just as adamantly denied that the kind of ugly right-wing rhetoric regularly broadcast on their programs had anything to do with it ... even when the evidence has been overwhelming that, in fact, it did.

For instance, when right-wing extremist -- and enthusiastic Fox News consumer -- Jim David Adkisson walked into a Knoxville church in 2008 and gunned down two people, he was explicit in his manifesto about his sources of inspiration:

"This was a symbolic killing. Who I wanted to kill was every Democrat in the Senate & House, the 100 people in Bernard Goldberg's book. I'd like to kill everyone in the mainstream media. But I know those people were inaccessible to me. I couldn't get to the generals & high ranking officers of the Marxist movement so I went after the foot soldiers, the chickenshit liberals that vote in these traitorous people. Someone had to get the ball rolling. I volunteered. I hope others do the same. It's the only way we can rid America of this cancerous pestilence."

Not only did much of the manifesto read like a juiced-up version of a typical O'Reilly "Talking Points Memo," but O'Reilly's books held a prominent spot on Adkisson's bookshelves. This is what you would call pretty substantial evidence of a connection. So when a Newsday op-ed writer had the audacity to point out the obvious ties between O'Reilly's (and the rest of the Right's) overheated rhetoric and this monstrous act, how did O'Reilly respond?

Why, he was outraged, outraged we tell you -- and sent his Flying Monkey Ambush Squad, led by Jesse Watters, to attack the woman with cameras outside her home as she was unloading groceries:

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That was just the first time.

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Sarah Palin is under intense criticism for using the term 'blood libel' to defend herself after she was severely criticized after the Giffords shooting. I expected nothing more from her than to make the tragedy all about her, but I didn't expect it to be so callous. David Brooks did his best to write a column that is completely pointless after the tragedy and Andrew Sullivan took him to the woodshed over it. A major problem for Palin is that she took a serious amount of heat by many people including Gabby Giffords when she released the Target Map back in March. it's not like the left decided to dredge it up when it had been previously ignored. Even the View's own conservative Elizabeth Hasslebeck was fuming about.

Elisabeth Hasselbeck calls Sarah Palin's "Target Map" Despicable

It would have been negligent of everybody to dismiss Palin's target map ad after the Arizona shooting and what defines people at critical times is how they respond.

David Frum pounced on her after the brief statement she sent out directly after the Arizona shooting: What Palin Needed to Say After Giffords’ Shooting

And of course, Palin and her supporters had some justice on their side. Obviously, Palin never intended to summon people to harm Representative Giffords. There was no evidence that the shooter was a Palin follower, and in short order it became evident that he was actuated by a serious mental illness. Whatever you think about Palin’s “don’t retreat, reload” rhetoric, it could not be blamed for this crime.

So – argument won? No. Argument lost.

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Of course, Palin has yet to give the answer called for by events. Instead, her rapid response operation has focused on pounding home the message that Palin is innocent, that she has been unfairly maligned by hostile critics. Which in this case happened to be a perfectly credible message. And also perfectly inadequate. Palin’s post-shooting message was about Palin, not about Giffords. It was defensive, not inspiring. And it was petty at a moment when Palin had been handed perhaps her last clear chance to show herself presidentially magnanimous.

Then Palin took it a step further today and now here are a few responses to her latest gaffe.

Clyburn: Palin intellectually unable 'to understand what's going on here'

Jonah Goldberg admits that it wasn't very smart.

I should have said this a few days ago, when my friend Glenn Reynolds introduced the term to this debate. But I think that the use of this particular term in this context isn’t ideal. Historically, the term is almost invariably used to describe anti-Semitic myths about how Jews use blood — usually from children — in their rituals. I agree entirely with Glenn’s, and now Palin’s, larger point. But I’m not sure either of them intended to redefine the phrase, or that they should have.

Jewish Groups: ‘We Are Deeply Disturbed’ By Palin’s Use Of Anti-Semitic Term ‘Blood Libel,’ She Should Apologize

You can always count on a few left wing Villager type writers to do their best and act like idiots. Jonathan Chait wins the award today.

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