Blame and Incitement

Why isn't anyone looking at the leaders of the republican right wing propaganda machine; if you repeatedly tell your listeners to "eliminate" someone, and that they are killing people and stealing their money, why isn't this incitement to violence? If you know that mentally unstable people listen to your show, don't you have some level of responsibility not to tell the public to kill people?

Jared Lee Loughner was crazy. He's probably going to get off by reason of insanity. But what about those who encouraged him? They'll get off because they are famous and rich, and are politically powerful due to exactly the rhetoric that caused this tragedy.

Update: CNN had a segment where they presented "both sides," one side was saying that Palin's map with crosshairs was a bad idea, and the other was saying that Obama used the phrase "if they bring a knife, we'll bring a gun," so unless you want to say Obama was inciting violence, you need to say that palin was speaking rhetorically. The argument was bait-and switch logic, equating two very different types of statements.

First, Obama:

Barack Obama is warning supporters that the general election fight between him and John McCain may get ugly, but the Illinois senator is vowing not to back down.

"If they bring a knife to the fight, we bring a gun," Obama said at a fundraiser in Philadelphia Friday, according to pool reports.

"We don't have a choice but to win," Obama said, joking that he has heard "folks in Philly like a good brawl. I've seen Eagles games."

He was quoting The Untouchables, about Chicago politics and Al Capone. The word Joking was later used in the description. It wasn't said to a mass audience, it was said to a group of well-off supporters, which would seem to imply none of them are mentally unstable and none would interpret this as a suggestion to initiate physical violence.

This isn't the same as Palin saying "Don't retreat, reload. If ballots don't work, bullets will," to a public audience. After being criticized for the map, Palin didn't say that it might not have been the best way to express what she was saying - even after reports of large number of threats against these politicians in the wake of the health care bill. I don't know how to interpret the suggestion that if republicans don't get their way electorally, they should resort to violence, other than that they should resort to violence. If my close reading skills need work, I'd love to hear how else to interpret what she said. Saying that, along with a map with crosshairs over the political opponents she wants to defeat electorally, seems like a pretty clear incitement to violence - and if only the mentally imbalanced would act on it, you might think she should avoid saying it where mentally unbalanced people will hear it.