Opinion

The lunatic’s veto

The best news out of Arizona yester day was that Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, one of 20 people shot — six fatally — at a Tucson shopping center, was showing early signs of recovery, leading doctors to be “cautiously optimistic” about her chances.

Yet even as the families of the victims — including the area’s chief federal judge and a young girl born on 9/11 — mourned their losses, the demagogues were hard at work politicizing the tragedy.

This, despite the fact that by most accounts, the accused gunman, Jared Loughner, is a raving lunatic with no discernable political views save for obsessions with English grammar, illiteracy, mind control and gold.

Federal authorities brought multiple murder and assault charges against him yesterday; doubtless, others will follow,

Loughner had posted Internet videos showing the burning of an American flag and his preferred reading list included “The Communist Manifesto” — hardly the stuff of Tea Party orthodoxy.

But even before he’d been identified, many on the left were flatly declaring the crime a political assassination.

“Violent acts are what happen when you create a climate of hate. And it’s time for the GOP’s leaders to take a stand against the hatemongers,” wrote New York Times columnist Paul Krugman.

And the local Democratic sheriff complained that “Arizona, I think, has become sort of the capital, we have become the Mecca for prejudice and bigotry.”

At first glance, the charges resonate.

Certainly, the folks running Sarah

Palin’s Web site need to examine their collective conscience.

It had included a map of Democratic political targets, including Giffords, that featured cross hairs targets. And Giffords had complained, saying that “when people do that, they’ve got to realize there are consequences to that action.”

But it is absurd to suggest that Palin was advocating actual violence.

And it’s no coincidence that most of those who say so have been harsh critics of her views since she burst into national prominence in 2008.

They simply want her to shut up and go away — and, by the way, to take conservatives of all stripes with her.

To be sure, contemporary political rhetoric is often ugly; Internet anonymity encourages bad behavior — and that, in turn, debases discourse generally.

But it is almost childlike to suggest that issues as vexing — and worldviews as varied — as those informing the national debate can be reconciled without rancor.

Some believe sincerely that they can be; with them, we simply disagree,

Others seek advantage in tragedies like the Tucson shooting; such cynicism is almost as threatening to a free society as the violence itself. And it needs to stop.

If Saturday’s horror tempers the national debate, so much the better.

But if the actions of a lunatic are permitted unreasonably to circumscribe it, then the tragedy is compounded.

Now’s the time for good faith, common sense and a continuing commitment to civil discourse.

Alternatively, insanity wins.