Decide for yourself: Does it seem like Florida Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz “blames [the] Tea Party for [the] Giffords shooting” like the Republican National Committee and its chairman, Reince Priebus, repeatedly tweeted last night?
Wasserman Schultz fired back, also via tweet:
The transcript, below the cut.
AUDIENCE MEMBER: The American people are losing faith in Congress. [inaudible] because of the lack of civility. What do you think can be done to bring that faith back and then we can start thinking that they’re doing their job instead of just fighting with each other?
WASSERMAN SCHULTZ: Well, as someone who spent 19 years as a member of a legislative body, I really agree with you, that we need to make sure that we tone things down, particularly in light of the Tucson tragedy from a year ago where my very good friend, Gabby Giffords, who is doing really well by the way, and I know everybody is so thrilled, as I am, to hear that, making tremendous progress.
But the discourse in America, the discourse in Congress in particular, to answer your question, very specifically, has really changed.
And I’ll tell you, I hesitate to place blame, but I have noticed it take a very precipitous turn towards edginess and a lack of civility with the growth of the Tea Party movement.
After the 2010 elections, when you had the Tea Party elect a whole lot of their supporters to the United States House of Representatives and you had town hall meetings that they tried to take over and you saw some of their conduct at those town hall meetings, you know, in the time that I’ve been in my state legislature and in Congress, I’ve never seen a time that was more divisive or where discourse was less civil.
This article appears in Jan 12-18, 2012.
I have to agree with Congressman Shultz. The Tea Party did cause the Arizona shooting. Everyone knows that and also I believe they were also responsible for the Haulocaust as well as the West Nile virus. Damn old married couples are always up to no good.
Our Sheriff Dupenik said on the day of the shootings a year ago that it was the Tea Partys fault and there is no reason not to believe him. What is this yellow paste on my aluminum hat anyway? Oh yeah, potato salad. “Far-Log, they just keep on getting brighter”
There blame on both sides. iIt is the rhetoric and the hater mentality in general that is to credit influencing the shooter.
Congress woman Wasserman has no room to talkand to bring it up in that fashion shows little if any class and the restraint she is preaching. You have to remember where she is talking from. She is resposneible for seeing her specific party to control again. You know the word repent means to change cousre. We all need to repent. In particular folks like her who say things to achieve a low road result. Political ends have become a low road goal.
I’ve read the transcript twice and listened to the video, which is more expansive than the transcript. I hear and read Wasserman-Schultz make a connection between the Tea Party movement and the decline of civility in political discourse, in the Congress and in events such as elected officials’ meetings with their constituents. I hear and read not a word which could reasonably be interpreted as blaming ‘the Tea Party’ for the actions of Jared Lee Loughner. I urge The Range’s subscribers to read and listen and not simply project their preconceptions onto Ms. Wasserman-Schultz. I would urge the same respect and restraint on Mr. Priebus and the Republican National Committee.
I’d say she is just describing what she has seen. If the shoe fits, wear it, Teabaggers. If there wasn’t some truth in what she says, people wouldn’t be getting their panties in a bunch over it. IMHO, there’s enough blame to go around, everyone has had their fair share in this downfall. Politics and our government has become rotten from the inside out, and it will continue to rot until we decide to change things.
I very much doubt she was blaming the Tea Party directly for what happened, but I– I, not Debbie — will say this much:
There was a Youtube video making the rounds that in effect accused Obama of using words to control minds. This video has been — I say “has been” because attribution alone is not proof–attributed to some local Tea Party nutbar organization.
If you read Loughner’s incoherent statements about controlling “communication,” it isn’t hard to posit some sort of influence there.
Of course, it’s also possible a shooter might be influenced to act by, say, a “Road Closed” sign. Or a lollipop. Mental illness doesn’t always follows a predictable trajectory.
But the bullshit thinly-veiled intimidation of the 2010 election surely had some ugly consequences. I don’t think the broken windows and other threats came from nowhere.
And perhaps, in the mind of an unstable individual, the unthinkable became mandatory.