Nutjob

I've run into three people today who are immediately jumping to the Sarah Palin/Tea Party culpability discussion with respect to the nutjob shooting in Arizona. No doubt this was inspired by the Paul Krugman comments about Palin creating a "climate of hate," which is on every good liberal's Sunday morning reading list.

His classmates and teachers thought the guy was a nutjob and had the potential to bring guns to school.

We can't draw any political conclusions from nutjobs and crazy people. I remember taking offense when Conservatives made a point of blaming Marin Counties mushly America-hating liberal politics for John Walker Lindh fighting with the Taliban. Being a Marinite, I knew such attitudes were totally delusional and worse, dishonest. We shouldn't make the same mistake here.

But being in LA, I'll have to listen to this horrific tragedy being spun into a right-wing blame-fest. I'll try my best to not talk about it anymore, especially in these political/cultural terms because it feels like real dirty pool. Utilizing real life tragedy to score rhetorical points. Makes me thankful for not being part of the media, whose job it is do such things.