-- by Dave
Boy, it really doesn't get much more lame than Sarah Palin's latest Hannity Job last night on Fox. Via Lynn Sweet:
HANNITY: A lot of these initial stories, Governor, had to do with this map that your PAC had put up during the last campaign, and the fact that Congresswoman Giffords was one of the people on, quote, "the target list," in the crosshairs that were there. What could you tell us about this map? And I'll get into more Questions after that.
PALIN: Well, that map wasn't an original graphic. In fact, for many, many years, maps in political races have been used to target certain districts that people would feel that they can get into those districts and find someone whom they believe would represent the constituents' will better than incumbent. And that is what this map represented that we used on my PAC. And the graphic that we used was crosshairs targeting the different districts. And, again, that's not original. In fact, Democrats have been using it for years. In fact, Bob Beckel, I believe that he had bragged on your show, Sean, that he is the one who invented these crosshairs or these targets. So, you know, that came up right away, that, oh, it must be a cause of this horrendous evil act of this shooter, that perhaps he saw that map and that incited him towards violence, which, of course, is ridiculous. Again, it's not an original use of an icon or a graphic.
Of course, what had gotten a lot of people's attention well before the Tucson tragedy was that Palin's 2010 campaign was soaked in violent, gun-related rhetoric like this, including exhortations to "Take Them Out" accompanying the gunsight graphic, as well as her oft-repeated exhortation to followers to "Lock and Load" and "Don't Retreat, Reload!" It just happened that Gabrielle Giffords was thus not just targeted by the graphic, but by Palin's rhetoric.
But doesn't she just sound like she's squirming like a seven-year-old, trying to explain to her teacher that honest, her dog really did eat her homework last night?
It continued on in this vein, only getting much worse when they tackled the subject of her wildly inappropriate appropriation of the term "blood libel" to describe her own supposed martyrdom:
HANNITY: And we are back with more of our exclusive sit-down interview with former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin. Governor, when you finally released your video, not surprising, more controversy involving you. I want to give you a chance to respond to this. One was the timing of the release of the video, which was I believe the day before the memorial. And the second one was the term -- "but especially within hours of the tragedy unfolding, journalists and pundits should not manufacture a blood libel that serves only to incite the very hatred and violence they purport to condemn. That is reprehensible." And, you know, some of your critics saying, you didn't know the historical significance. Other people criticized you for that phrase. But I want you to address the timing and that phrase.
PALIN: I don't know how the heck they would know if whether I did or didn't know the term "blood libel," nobody has ever asked me. And "blood libel" obviously means being falsely accused of having blood on your hands. And in this case that's exactly what was going on. And yes, the historical knowledge that people have of the term blood libel, it goes back to the Jews who were falsely accused back in medieval European times of using the blood of children. And you know, the criticism of even the timing of this statement is being used as another diversion, because I believe that there are many on the left, many critics, who don't want, for instance, Congress, to buckle down, get back to work.
There's this trifecta thing going on in our country right now that's going to bring America to her knees if Congress doesn't start addressing the issues at hand. That being our growing debt, a looming energy crisis if we don't start domestically developing our resources, and some of the national security policies that have been adopted and enacted, like the signing and the ratification of the START treaty that Russia's Duma won't even ratify because there are misinterpretations of what the preamble means.
So, we have these things going on right now that have got to be addressed, and Congress has got to get back to work. And it's just much easier, I believe, for critics of common-sense conservative agenda to try to divert and distract from the issues at hand, those tasks that must be addressed today.
HANNITY: What did you think of the criticism of those, though, in the Jewish community about the use of that term? I know others came to your defense, but what did you think about the critics?
PALIN: I think the critics, again, were using anything that they could gather out of that statement. And I'm, you know, you can -- you can spin up anything out of anybody's statements that are released and use them against the person who is making the statement. But, no, I appreciated those who understood what it is that I meant, that a group of people being falsely accused of having blood on their hands, that is what blood libel means. And just two days before I released my statement, an op-ed in the "Wall Street Journal" had that term in its title and that term has been used for eons, Sean.
Seriously? Her best excuse was that noted right-wing moron Glenn Reynolds used the term a few days before? Why doesn't she just admit that's where she got it from in the first place?
Guess it was more important to suggest that the attention paid to her idiocy was actually part of an insidious media plot to divert attention from the really pressing issues in Congress. Yyyyyyeah. OK.
As they useta say at Almost Live: "Lame! Lame! Lame! Lame!" "Indescribably lame." "L-L-A-A-M-M-E-E!"
[Cross-posted at Crooks and Liars.
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