WASHINGTON - The nation's caustic political climate has become asuspect of sorts in the rampage that left six dead and a lawmakercritically injured in Arizona. Already, appeals are being heard totone down the rhetoric.
The captured suspect's motives remain unknown despite his onlinediatribes betraying resentment of the government and a scatteredstate of mind. Still, the attack on Democratic Rep. GabrielleGiffords and those who were with her has intensified the scrutiny onhow much is too much, and how hot is too hot, in political debate.
Sen. Dick Durbin, the second-ranking Democratic leader in theSenate, on Sunday cited imagery of crosshairs on political opponentsand Sarah Palin's combative rallying cry, "Don't retreat; reload."
"These sorts of things, I think, invite the kind of toxicrhetoric that can lead unstable people to believe this is anacceptable response," Durbin said Sunday on CNN's "State of theUnion."
The attack might be the work of "a single nut," Democratic Rep.Raul Grijalva, whose Arizona district shares Tucson with Giffords'district, said Saturday, the day Giffords was shot. But he said thenation must assess the fallout of "an atmosphere where the politicaldiscourse is about hate, anger and bitterness."
Still others cautioned against blaming political rhetoric - orthe language and imagery of a particular political group - for thetragedy in Tucson. Republicans were especially sensitive tosuggestions that the conservative tea party movement, with its anti-government stances, was contributing to a more poisonous politicalenvironment,
Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., noted Sunday that the suspect inthe Tucson rampage was connected to Internet postings that includedMarxist and Nazi literature.
"That's not the profile of a typical tea party member, if that'sthe inference that's being made," he said on CNN.
Rep. Raul Labrador, R-Idaho, who ran as a tea party favorite,said on "Meet the Press" on NBC: "I just hope we can have somecivility and move forward. You have extremes on both sides; you havecrazy people on both sides. Your job as a leader is to talk topeople in a rational way ... to bring down the rhetoric."
The House's newly installed Republican leaders postponedWednesday's scheduled vote to repeal the new health care law. Thatdivisive issue was at the center of the harshest criticisms ofGiffords and many other Democrats for the past two years.
The chief law enforcement official in the House, Sergeant-at-Arms Bill Livingood, said the Tucson attack did not appear to bepart of a larger threat against Congress. Still, as a precaution, headvised each House member's office in an e-mail Saturday evening toget in touch with local law enforcement.
Washington and the nation have experienced a year or more of rawpolitics, with anger spilling over on both sides and gun-relatedmetaphors coming loosely from the lips of some candidates andactivists. Giffords, who had been a figurative target of the right,warned months ago that the verbal assaults were beyond the pale andcould have dire results.
In Pima County, Ariz., Sheriff Clarence Dupnik suggested "allthis vitriol" in recent discourse might be connected to Saturday'sshootings. "This may be free speech," he told reporters, "but it'snot without consequences."
Jonathan Cowan, president of the centrist Democratic group ThirdWay, said: "We do know that politics has become too personal, toonasty and perhaps too dangerous. Perhaps out of this senseless actsome sense can return to our public discourse."
Many lawmakers, especially Democrats, felt the 2009-2010 debateover health care sometimes got out of hand. It began with emotionaltown hall meetings in the summer of 2009, when some critics warnedof government "death panels."
Giffords, 40, was among lawmakers who reported 42 threats or actsof vandalism in the first three months of 2010, a big increase overthe previous year, law enforcement officers said. Nearly all thethreats dealt with the massive health care bill that Giffords andother Democrats enacted over fierce Republican opposition.
In March, someone kicked in or shot out a glass door and sidewindow at Giffords' office in Tucson, a few hours after the Housepassed the health care measure with her help.
Giffords also was among about 20 Democrats opposed in last fall'selections by Sarah Palin, the 2008 GOP vice presidential nominee.Palin's Facebook page in March posted a U.S. map with the cross-hairs of a gun scope imposed over each of the 20 Democrats'districts. Gun imagery appeared in various ways in the campaign,often not connected at all with gun rights.
"We're on Sarah Palin's targeted list," Giffords said at thetime.
"The way that she has it depicted has the crosshairs of a gunsight over our district. When people do that, they've got to realizethere are consequences to that action."
Palin's Facebook page after the shooting extended condolences toGiffords' family and the other victims.
The suspected gunman, Jared Loughner, complained about thegovernment online and spoke of matters involving currency, terrorismand "mind control." But what might have driven him to violence hasnot been established.
"We don't yet know what provoked this unspeakable act," PresidentBarack Obama said Saturday from the White House. "We are going toget to the bottom of this."
Obama said he's dispatched the head of the FBI to Arizona tooversee the investigation.
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