Townhall Arizona Shootings Punditry Roundup

Note to conservative pundits: we understand that you are required, by law, to write an indignant column about the Arizona shootings. We know that you are compelled to write about how, contrary to Sheriff Dupnik, everyone in the MSM, those mean former colleague who wouldn't "friend" you, and President Obama, the truth is that Sarah Palin and Rush Limbaugh were NOT involved in the shootings, as proven by the fact that they both have alibis covering the time in question. We are also aware (after having read it 579 times) that the shooter, Jared Loughner, is mentally ill, and so could not have been influenced by rifle scope symbols on maps or talk about reloading, as the insane are pretty savvy about differentiating between fearful fantasies and reality. Plus, since he had posted that he liked "Mein Kampf" and "The Communist Manifesto," he was obviously a Nazi/Commie, and therefore a liberal, and any anti-government rants he may have expressed had nothing in common with the Tea Party's anti-government rants, in that there is no evidence that he voted for Bristol Palin on "Dancing With the Stars."

However, dear Wingnut Pundit friends, please understand that there are roughly 21,259 of you, and reading your output on the shootings is getting rather tiresome. So, take this as notice that unless you come up with some interesting new slant on the tragedy, we will not be reading you anymore.

However, to be fair, we did read the 257 Townhall columns that came out today on the shootings. But, because they were really similar, we are allowing each columnist only one paragraph to make his or her case. (Unless, you know, they showed some creativity or were full of extra wingnutty goodness.) We will try to limit our responses to a similar length in return. (Offer not valid in cases of extra wingnutty goodness.)

So, America, here's your Townhall Arizona Shootings Punditry Roundup for 1/12/2011.

Ann Coulter: Liberals Seek Ban on Metaphors in Wake of Arizona Shooting

Needless to say, no conservative has called for violence against anyone. Nor has any conservative engaged in any "rhetoric" that was likely to lead to violence.

Needless to say, all those examples of Ann calling for violence against liberals were just figments of your imagination.

Michael Reagan: A Fool With a Badge is Still a Fool

When a would-be assassin shot my Dad, President Ronald Reagan, nobody questioned the fact that the shooter was certifiably nuts.

Oh, right, Michael is an expert on this subject because his father was President Ronald Reagan! So, he gets some extra space to make his case.

Now we have another attempted killing of a public official, Arizona's widely admired Rep. Gabby Giffords, and just about everybody recognizes the fact that the shooter, one Jared Loughner, is crazy as a loon.

Moreover, the fact that Loughner is probably nutty as a fruitcake, and perhaps dangerously so, could not have escaped the attention of local law enforcement authorities such as Pima County Sheriff Clarence Dupnik, who already had Loughner in his sights yet failed to do anything to prevent Loughner's obviously foreseeable killing spree.

Yes, obviously law enforcement should have known that a guy who was crazy as a loon and nutty as a fruitcake would obviously shoot a public figure, as that's what certifiably nuts people do. So, this crime is the Sheriff's fault, for failing to jail Loughner on the grounds that he's loony tunes.

In Dubnik's twisted logic, Loughner may be a murderer but somehow or other it's all Rush's fault for his unforgivable habit of calling a spade a spade nd referring to liberals as being mentally disjointed as the majority of them are.

So, the Sheriff is also at fault for failing to jail all liberals, as they are mentally off-kilter, as diagnosed by noted psychiatric authority (and expert on drug addiction), Rush Limbaugh.

Janice Shaw Crouse: The Witch Hunt vs. Evil Doers

Equally important, Erick Erickson [in a recent RedState memo] pointed out that the media, by using words to describe the right that they believe incite violence, are creating a situation that endangers those holding conservative views.

Um, the media is putting the lives of conservatives in danger by reporting on the inciting words that the Right is using, and that could attract the attention of evil witches, who use such words to cast malignant spells. (Note: I didn't read Erick's memo, but Janice's column never says how the media's use of words is creating this dangerous situation, so I had to speculate.)

Neal Boortz: Sarah Palin's Map
Were the symbols on Palin’s map really the crosshairs through a gun sight, as claimed, prior to the shooting, by Congresswoman Giffords herself? Palin’s office says they were not. They claim they were surveyor’s marks. So who’s right?

Clearly Sarah's office, since we all recall Sarah's call to survey the heck out
of congressional districts she felt were weak on illegal immigration.

Marybeth Hicks: Loughner Proves America’s Youth at Risk
High school friends say Mr. Loughner seemed relatively normal until his teen years, when one friend says he started to obsessively play video games, listen to music on his headphones and generally isolate himself. Others also recount that his headphones were fixtures in his ears.

While mental health experts may say that schizophrenia doesn't usually manifest until the teen years, which is why Logger would have seemed normal until then, there may be some merit in HIcks' claim that headphones are the real culprit here.

Maggie Gallagher: Did Sarah Palin Make Him Do It?
If you are a progressive, can you think less about Sarah Palin and more about how we can keep mentally ill left-wing potheads away from guns?

Sure thing! Since we've already heard from experts like Rush Limbaugh that all left-wingers are mentally ill potheads, and since the Left composes about half the country, the only solution is to ban the possession of guns by the general public. We need to do this to placate Maggie, Oh, and since Sarah Palin goes on TV shooting animals and such with her guns, I'm afraid we will have to ban her too, especially since we all want us to think less about her. This is a deal we can all live with.

Michelle Malkin: The Worst Sheriff in America

Despite zero evidence that Rush Limbaugh, cable news, the tea party movement or immigration enforcement activists had anything to do with Loughner's warped attack, shameless Sheriff Dupnik shows no signs of shutting up.

Oh, Michelle, if only zero evidence caused people to shut up . . .

The worst sheriff in America is walking in the footsteps of another infamous law enforcement official who put fame, ambition and ideology above public safety: disgraced Montgomery County (Md.) Police Chief Charles Moose, the publicity-hungry Keystone Cop who grossly bungled the Beltway sniper attacks in 2002. Like Dupnik, Moose let politically correct assumptions drive his investigation and incessant press conferences.

I recall the events of 2002 quite clearly. If only Moose had listened to Michelle when she kept telling him (and the world) that the sniper attacks were the work of Muslim terrorists who were trying to destroy America due to their Muslim ideology, then the crimes would have been solved immediately.

Wait, weren't the snipers actually trying to kill an ex-wife, using random victims to throw off law enforcement -- and Islam had nothing at all to do with it? I'm sorry, but this means that Michelle is totally discredited as an expert on everthing (except bungling, faulty assumptions, and publicity-hunger), and we can never mention her again.

Brent Bozell: Liberal Sickos Exploit a Rampage

This flood of slanderous sludge is designed for nakedly political benefit: to paint a permanent black mark on conservatives as accessories to murder, and criminalize any expression of conservatism as a dangerous anti-government conspiracy.

Nobody should now be imagining a naked Brent Bozell being painted black with sludge, because that would mean you were indeed a sicko.

Jonah Goldberg: The Exploitive Rhetoric of Tragedy
In the wake of the horrendous shooting rampage in Tucson, why isn't anyone talking about banning "Mein Kampf"? Or "The Communist Manifesto"? Or for that matter, "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland" and "The Phantom Tollbooth"?

After all, unlike Sarah Palin's absurdly infamous Facebook map with crosshairs on congressional districts that some pundits have blamed for the violence, we have some evidence -- suspect Jared Lee Loughner's own words -- that these books were a direct influence on him.

Sorry, Jonah, those weren't crosshairs, they were SURVEYOR'S MARKS! Get with the program, comrade!

Dick Morris and Eileen McGann: There Are No Politics In Murder

Since the shootings, I have gotten emails from the BBC and Sky TV in the United Kingdom and Der Spiegel in Germany requesting interviews.

Wow, these must be the first request for interviews that Dick has received this century!

How much they would like to link conservative opinions with the attempted assassination of a congresswoman! Suddenly, they are all ears

But their attempts at linking this insane killer to any political movement are ridiculous and preparatory to an abridgement of free speech.

For years the BBC and Der Spiegel have been waiting for a pretext that would allow them to abridge the First Amendment rights of obscure and forgotten American wingnuts.

Terry Jeffrey: What Did Influence Jared Loughner?

Would it be fair to at least entertain the hypothesis that Loughner's disdain for religion and admiration for the writings of Marx and Hitler had some connection with his manifest disregard for morality and the sanctity of human life?

Sure. Just as it would be fair to at least entertain the hypothesis that Loughner's belief that we should be using gold instead of currency has some connection with his manifest lunacy, and by extension, that Glenn Beck and Pat Boone are shills for the insanity industry.

Ben Shapiro: Why the Left Bears Responsibility for the Arizona Shootings

Dupnik's office knew that Loughner was expelled from the junior college for frightening behavior -- his classmates said he exhibited "kind of hysterical laughing, kind of creepy ... his hands and his parts of his body were shaking and trembling like he was under the influence of drugs or something like that." Some feared for their lives.

[...]

Law enforcement falls under Sheriff Dupnik's domain. Dupnik still has not answered why his office ignored the threats, why they failed to investigate properly, and why Loughner was allowed to roam free and buy a firearm.

Even at the most basic level, Dupnik has not explained why Tucson is so crime-ridden altogether.

Yes, since the Sheriff's office knew that Loughner was expelled for laughing, shaking, and trembling, and yet he was still allowed to roam free, then the Sheriff is at fault for the shootings. (I don't think that Ben wants to take on the NRA in a fight to keep crazy-seeming Americans from exercising their constitutional right to bear arms.)

And why hasn't Dupnik explained why there is crime in Tucson at all? Obviously the implication is that Dupnik is committing the crimes himself as a way to ensure job security. Somebody should do something about this!

Anyway, there are a couple more columns, but I think that's enough for today. And forever. So, NO MORE COLUMNS ABOUT THE SHOOTINGS, wingnuts, unless you can think of something we haven't covered today. And in return, we promise to believe that they were really surveyor's symbols on Sarah Palin's map.