The hysteria surrounding the Giffords tragedy continues . . .

. . . and does no credit whatsoever to those getting hysterical about it. In fact, I'm beginning to wonder whether the relentless avalanche of morbid stupidity unleashed by the Left about what is certainly a tragedy, but is nothing like what they're trying to make it out to be, won't backfire on them - rather heavily.

First, Andrew Klavan points out that all this hysteria is making it very clear where emotion, pants-wetting hysteria and duplicity truly reside in American politics.

The Left — which has been unable to discover any common feature uniting acts of Islamist violence worldwide — nonetheless instantly noticed a bridge between the Tucson shooting and its own political opponents. The Chicago Sun-Times ran a slavering editorial blaming “the right.” MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann and the Washington Post’s Eugene Robinson suggested that the killings were inspired by right-wing rhetoric. Politico’s Roger Simon did the same.

But the New York Times was perhaps the worst offender.

. . .

To be sure, there is a lot of heated rhetoric in American politics, as ever ... Indeed, the Left’s hysterical response to all who disagree with it — that they are racist or sexist or “phobic” or somehow reminiscent of Hitler — has become so predictable that satirists, from the libertarian Greg Gutfeld to the liberal Jon Stewart, have made fun of it in routines.

But never mind that, because the Left’s sudden talk about incendiary political rhetoric in the wake of the Arizona shooting isn’t really about political rhetoric at all. It’s about the real-world failure of leftist policies everywhere — the bankrupting of nations and states by greedy unions and unfundable social programs, the destruction of inner cities by identity politics, and the appeasement of Muslim extremists in the face of worldwide jihad, not to mention the frequently fatal effects of delirious environmentalism. Europe is in debt and on fire. American citizens are in political revolt. Even the most left-wing president ever is making desperate overtures to his right.

But all that might be tolerable to leftists if they weren’t starting to lose control of the one weapon in which they have the most faith: the narrative. The narrative is what leftists believe in instead of the truth. If they can blame George W. Bush for the economic crisis, if they can make Sarah Palin out to be an idiot, if they can call the Tea Party racist until you think it must be true, they might yet retain power in spite of the international disgrace of their ideas.

. . .

As for leftists’ reaction to the Arizona shooting, call it Narrative Hysteria: a frantic attempt to capitalize on calamity by casting their opponents, not merely as racist or sexist or Islamophobic this time, but as somehow responsible for an act of madness and evil. Shame on them.

There's more at the link.

Next, Glenn Reynolds points out the double standard behind the rhetoric.

American journalists know how to be exquisitely sensitive when they want to be. As the Washington Examiner's Byron York pointed out on Sunday, after Major Nidal Hasan shot up Fort Hood while shouting "Allahu Akhbar!" the press was full of cautions about not drawing premature conclusions about a connection to Islamist terrorism. "Where," asked Mr. York, "was that caution after the shootings in Arizona?"

Set aside as inconvenient, apparently. There was no waiting for the facts on Saturday. Likewise, last May New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg and CBS anchor Katie Couric speculated, without any evidence, that the Times Square bomber might be a tea partier upset with the ObamaCare bill.

So as the usual talking heads begin their "have you no decency?" routine aimed at talk radio and Republican politicians, perhaps we should turn the question around. Where is the decency in blood libel?

To paraphrase Justice Cardozo ("proof of negligence in the air, so to speak, will not do"), there is no such thing as responsibility in the air. Those who try to connect Sarah Palin and other political figures with whom they disagree to the shootings in Arizona use attacks on "rhetoric" and a "climate of hate" to obscure their own dishonesty in trying to imply responsibility where none exists. But the dishonesty remains.

To be clear, if you're using this event to criticize the "rhetoric" of Mrs. Palin or others with whom you disagree, then you're either: (a) asserting a connection between the "rhetoric" and the shooting, which based on evidence to date would be what we call a vicious lie; or (b) you're not, in which case you're just seizing on a tragedy to try to score unrelated political points, which is contemptible. Which is it?

Again, there's more at the link.

It appears that the Arizona sheriff who - almost immediately after the shooting - blamed the incendiary political rhetoric of the past few years for the tragedy, may have been doing so in order to cover up something rather more damning to him personally, and to his office. Fellow blogger Barking Moonbat Early Warning System reports:

When this event first happened, the local sheriff got on TV an identified the shooter as Jared Loughner. He pronounced the guy’s name properly as “Lockner”, even though at first glance most Americans would read it and say “Loffner”. Sheriff Dupnik then shot off his mouth and blamed Sarah Palin and the Tea Party for this wretched act of mayhem.

But how did Dupnik know? Hmm ... it turns out that the good sheriff actually knows little crazy Jared, and has been dealing with him for ages. Writes a Tuscon native ...

The sheriff has been editorializing and politicizing the event since he took the podium to report on the incident. His blaming of radio personalities and bloggers is a pre-emptive strike because Mr. Dupnik knows this tragedy lays at his feet and his office. Six people died on his watch and he could have prevented it. He needs to step up and start apologizing to the families of the victims instead of spinning this event to serve his own political agenda.

Jared Loughner, pronounced by the Sheriff as Lock-ner, saying it was the Polish pronunciation. Of course he meant Scott or Irish but that isn’t the point. The point is he and his office have had previous contact with the alleged assailant in the past and that is how he knows how to pronounce the name.

Jared Loughner has been making death threats by phone to many people in Pima County including staff of Pima Community College, radio personalities and local bloggers. When Pima County Sheriff’s Office was informed, his deputies assured the victims that he was being well managed by the mental health system. It was also suggested that further pressing of charges would be unnecessary and probably cause more problems than it solved as Jared Loughner has a family member that works for Pima County.

Again, more at the link. If true, those allegations should trigger a very high-level investigation of the Pima County Sheriffs Department - and of the sheriff. What am I bet that instead, the matter will be covered up for the sake of political correctness?

Remember I said earlier that all this hysterical rhetoric might backfire on the Left? It appears that overseas, at least, that's already beginning to happen. The Daily Mail comments:

Rahm Emanuel, Mr Obama’s former chief of staff and a ­figure compared to Labour’s Alastair Campbell, once said: ‘You never want a serious crisis to go to waste.’

And those on his side of the political divide have clearly seen the Tucson tragedy as an opportunity to score points and settle scores.

None more so than with Sarah Palin, a politician who is almost as divisive as the President. The former Republican vice-presidential contender has become a spiritual figurehead for many Tea Party supporters, but is loathed by many on the Left.

So it was that within minutes of the Tucson shooting, anti-Palin internet bloggers and Twitter users were highlighting a so-called ‘target map’ Mrs Palin had posted on her Facebook page last March.

Controversially, it used gunstyle crosshair targets to flag up Democrat politicians whom Palin felt could be vulnerable at the polls: Miss Giffords was one.

Despite the lack of any evidence that the Tucson gunman had supported Mrs Palin, let alone seen the graphic, critics — including senior Democrats in Congress — have decreed she is somehow culpable.

. . .

Liberals have made much of the words of the Tucson sheriff, Clarence Dupnik, who yesterday launched into a diatribe about the ‘vitriol that comes out of certain mouths about tearing down the government’.

Even the actress and activist Jane Fonda waded into the row with a succession of internet tweets blaming Mrs Palin, the Tea Party and Glenn Beck, a rabble-rousing broadcaster on Fox News, for the shooting.

The Tea Party leaders have been rushing to condemn the shooting and distance themselves from the gunman.

Whether they should really have to do so is another matter. The reality is that there is as yet no evidence that the political Right, and the Tea Party in particular, has — as its opponents say — ‘blood on its hands’ over the Tucson murders.

While some liberals have slyly implied that Loughner was a Tea Party supporter, former classmates remember him as being ‘Left-wing’ and ‘liberal’.

Another said he was ‘on his own planet’, which seems nearer the mark. No existing political organisation - including the Tea Party - comes close to championing Loughner’s deranged world view.

. . .

... lessons from history won’t stop some Democrats exploiting the shooting of a nine-year-old girl and five others at the weekend with precisely the sort of foam-flecked over-reaction for which they love to condemn their opponents on the Right.

Once again, there's more at the link.

This might yet turn into a major electoral liability for the Left over the coming year or two. If there is such a thing as 'poetic justice', it should. To exploit for political gain the deaths of six innocent people, and the injuring of many more, at the hands of a madman, is about as low as it gets. It's not 'gutter politics'; it's the politics of the sewer. May the stench long cling to those who indulge in it.

Peter