At this early time, the shooter appears pretty clearly to be a deranged individual, so I suppose it is possible that if he had not happened to open fire at a Democrat, he might have instead found a Republican (or Libertarian/Green/whatever) to fill with lead instead. I don't suppose we can ever know, unless the shooter himself says so, how much of an influence the overheated, falsely apocalyptic partisan rhetoric of the past few years may have affected his action. Nevertheless, most of that rhetoric has come from self-professed Media darlings of the right, and a common feature of persons with disordered thinking of the shooter's type seems to be an obsessive search for facts and patterns that support their odd interpretations of the world around them and how they percieve America through this rhetoric. While it's still too early to know for sure whether, say, for example: Angle's comment about 'second amendment solutions' may have directly influenced the shooter, but it is safe to say it surely doesn't help, especialy if some one this disturbed is listening and would be swayed as such. It's still gasoline being tossed in the direction of lit crazies.
I don't believe any politician is seriously inciting people to shoot other people, not even Sharron Angle. I think they're just playing with fire in the form of violent revolutionary rhetoric which serves to intimidate liberals into expressing public fear, knowing that liberal expressions of fear are to conservatives like the scent of blood in the water to sharks. But as far as sane people go, I'm not going to blood-libel even the craziest Liberal or conservative by saying that they would go around assassinating their political enemies.
Let us assume that much of the rhetoric that comes off as violence inspiring is not intended to actually incite violence, but is just used because using rhetoric like that gets attention, gets listeners and viewers, and sells books. They don't really want some one to rid them of these meddlesome politicians anymore then Henry II really wanted Beckett murdered.
The issue still remains that such extreme rhetoric and graphics, even if meant only as rhetorical devices, are being sold to crowd that you know contains an overrepresentation of those who are as unstable as this young man is and more.
A variety of commentators have been expressing concern for months that the sort of rhetoric being used by some elements of the Right (not all of the Right, but some), the portrayal of those who are not as Right as they are as "the enemy" that is in our sights, would inspire some crazy to do something like just like this. The response to those concerns has been to continue with the same inflammatory rhetoric.
If my initial impressions are correct, and this young man is a victim of schizophrenia, then his political opinions or associations don't matter. If you've ever known an actual full-blown schizophrenic, you know what I'm talking about, their thinking is a strangely warped imitation of rational thought. Its like they take the bird house kit, put it together according to the instructons, which they can read and understand, but cannot fathom why it won't fly.
If such is the case, then blaming anyone for influencing him is nonsense, his dog could have told him who to shoot just as easily as Rush or the Queen Sarah. I do blame the extreme right and the media talking heads on either side for poisoning our political dialogue, but that already was, is, and probably will continue to be.
As an Independent who leans slightly right on some issues and I would like to see a rise of some form of a legitimate Republican party. What I do hope to hear going forward is frequent, unequivocal denunciation of these violent tactics from the mainstream of the Republican party.
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