...or should we never be surprised when someone picks up a gun?

Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords was shot and severely wounded in front of a Safeway store in Tucson, AZ on the morning of Saturday, January 8. Raise your hand if you're surprised. Raise your hand if you are amazed that, in a country with as many guns as people, incidents like this aren't more common. Raise your hand if you believe that the constant vile rhetoric of the conservative wing of the American political scene isn't responsible for more Gabrielle Giffords. Raise your hand if you think any of this will change.

Today's Wall Street Journal was aglow with "don't look at us" disclaimers on its editorial page.
On all available evidence, Jared Lee Loughner is a mentally disturbed man who targeted Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords and anyone near her in Tucson on Saturday because she was prominent and they were tragically accessible.
There, now don't you feel better? After roughly 48 hours and almost no detailed statement from law enforcement, Paul Gigot of The Wall Street Journal has boldly taken it on himself to assure America that this was the random act of a psycho. A man totally unaffected by the violent discourse that screams from every information orifice on cable television and talk radio. However, Mr. Gigot does have some harsh words for the media. That would be the media that attempts to paint tenuous dotted lines between the shooting in Tucson and Rush Limbaugh's big mouth or Sarah Palin's gun-sight map. Shame on you Keith Olbermann!

No doubt The Wall Street Journal trotted out the same nonsense after the shooting death of abortion doctor George Teller in a Wichita Church in 2009 or the killing of security guard Stephen Johns at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum that same year. "Just some wingnut folks. Nothing to see here". Except there is something to see. We need to look at how easy it is for unstable people to be influenced by ratings-crazy maniacs and how easy it is to purchase the means to act out. You can say that "both sides are to blame". After all, didn't the President make an unfortunate gun reference in a campaign speech? CRAP!

One side is to blame: neocons. Democrats aren't talking about "reloading". Liberals aren't drawing bulls eyes on maps...Sarah Palin did. BTW The response from Fortress Palin came from aide, Rebecca Mansour who is shocked that anyone would think that those targets on their 2010 campaign maps were intended to be gun sights. She suggested that they were just points on a map...like "a surveyor's symbol". And you wonder why nothing will change. Left-wingers aren't carrying flintlocks to political rallies. Democrats aren't suggesting "Second Amendment remedies"...Sharron Angle did. All the gun talk and all the "us vs them" noise is coming from the right. A nobody from Florida named Joyce Kaufman appeared at a teabagger rally in 2010 and proudly proclaimed "If ballots don't work, bullets will." Anything vague or fuzzy about that?

No one is suggesting that Michael Savage or Glenn Beck be silenced. After all, no one is forced to listen and it seems that as long as Fox News has an audience, Roger Ailes will continue to sow the seeds of violence and discontent. What we might expect however, is just a hint of the realization that actions have consequences. Fox and Limbaugh appeal to conservatives; the same conservatives who own all the guns. When you continually hammer your audience with opinions disguised as news, don't be shocked if they believe it. When you tell people like Jared Lee Loughner that his government is evil and is determined to take his liberty and his guns, do not express dismay when you elicit a response. Don't keep telling the well-armed and mentally challenged that healthcare legislation is a socialist conspiracy to kill your grandmother and then look shocked when one of them takes a Glock 19 to a Safeway. The President issued a "targeted kill" order on Muslim cleric, Anwar al-Awaki, after he was identified as an influence on Fort Hood shooter Major Nidal Malik Hasan. Clearly someone believes that whispering in someone's ear "pick up a gun" might cause them to pick up a gun.

As we watch the news reports of Congresswoman Giffords' recovery (God willing) and the expected prosecution of Jared Lee Loughner, it might be instructive to reflect on who we are and what we are becoming. Check the newspapers for a week or two and see what countries produce headlines about slain public officials: Mexico, Pakistan, sub-Sahara Africa. Not much from Canada, Denmark or Japan. Why do you think that is? Our culture is everywhere so we can't blame Hollywood. Americans are admired and envied throughout the world yet when it comes to shooting each other, most societies take a pass. I don't have an answer except that maybe Smith and Wesson and Rush Limbaugh don't translate easily into Japanese.

...or should Fox News be blocked for young, impressionable viewers?

If one worthless man is a disgrace, two is a law firm and three or more is a congress; how many worthless people make a network?

Anyone with an IQ in double digits knows that Fox News has been agenda driven since the network sprang fully formed from the collective minds of Rupert Murdoch and Roger Ailes in 1996. (In medicine we call this a slow-growth cancer.) Many Americans welcome news that tilts to the right because they have been told that it counterbalances the "main stream/left wing" media, i.e. NBC, CBS, ABC and all major metro newspapers. The way that works is: if you can't impeach the facts, impeach the source. The truth of a story is irrelevant. If it appeared in the New York Times, it's liberally biased. ( Presumably this includes baseball scores and movie listings.)

The godfather of this approach to news is, of course, Rush Limbaugh. Rush has been preaching to his audience of traveling salesmen and retired Korean War vets for years that all news is biased against conservatives because all newspeople are liberals. Say that often enough and the sheep begin to believe. While this approach has never been exactly subtle (conservatives don't do subtle) it has, at least been brushed with a veneer of fairness. Lately however we have gotten a look behind the curtain.

We have learned this week that the Fox News folks have been busy cooking the books on the subject of climate change. Bill Sammon, Washington managing editor for Fox, has ordered his on- air reporters to include a disclaimer with any news item that asserts that the earth is heating up. Fox "journalists" are to IMMEDIATELY advise viewers that some experts disagree with the most recent scientific findings, whatever those findings might be. These instructions weren't sent to Bill O'Reilly, Glenn Beck and Sean Hannity who need no instructions on how to shade the truth. This e-mail was sent to the news anchors and their writers. Mr. Sammon wants to make sure that the position of Fox News is abundantly clear. We don't believe the evidence that the climate is being affected by man and we don't want you to believe it either. Had Fox News been around in the seventeenth century, the story would sound like this: "Findings were released today by one Isaac Newton to the effect that objects in a vacuum fall to earth at a uniform rate. There are, however, several scientists who dispute this speculative and unproved theory."

It appears unlikely that this is Mr. Sammon first foray into massaging the news. The fact that he was outed on the issue of climate change merely proves what the rest of the non-Fox regulars already believe: namely, that you can't trust a damn thing these people tell you. Shocking!

Recently, during Fox's never-ending attempt to sell the "war on Christmas" (Please, America, look around! Does it appear as if Christmas is suffering?) Fox and Friends hostess Gretchen Carlson railed about a school in Florida that won't permit decorations in red and green during the Christmas season. Ms. Carlson was naturally appalled at this disgraceful attack on Kris Kringle or Jesus Christ or whomever. The source for this "news item" was some anonymous woman in a video clip. No one at Fox bothered to check with the school (who of course, published no such rule) or even tried to find out the identity of the source. Fox can do this with impunity. Their audience is already preconditioned to believe this nonsense. If anyone checks the story later on CNN, who cares? CNN is biased, Fox has moved on and besides, the story may have been crap but Foxies know the underlying truth about the war on Christmas.

For years Fox has hidden behind the distinction between news and opinion. Chris Wallace...news. Bill O'Reilly...opinion. Glenn Beck...fantasy. It is absurd on its face to think that Fox watchers are drawing subtle distinctions between editorials and news. When three or four people sit on a set and banter about the events of the day, you might question their opinion but you don't question the underlying facts. Start with a "story" that the LAPD purchased millions of dollars worth of jet packs for their first responders. Debate rages about the waste of money in tough economic times and the stupid idea of cops jetting to crime scenes. Another dumb, clueless Democratic administration. Except that the entire story is rubbish. There are no jet packs; there was no purchase. These people might as well debate whether Superman could defeat Jesus in a thumb wrestle.

Was it a surprise to anyone this week when the University of Maryland published a study that Fox News watchers were "significantly more likely to be misinformed"? According to the study, Fox watchers were more likely to believe that: Barack Obama is not a native-born American; most Republicans opposed TARP; stimulus legislation included no tax cuts. True to the code, Fox executives did what they always do...attack the source. Fox responded to the study by asserting that the University of Maryland was a party school where no one studies. Naturally no source was given for these slanders. Hell, the study could have been done by Nickelodeon and it would still be true.

And so, we are governed by a Congress elected by people who believe anything Fox tells them. "Climate change is a liberal conspiracy. Christians are being denied their right to worship. Muslims are substituting Sharia law for the Constitution. Obama is a socialist." People, this is America. You are not a victim because Glenn Beck tells you you are. Our economic hard times are not the result of "the other guys". We are responsible for our own actions and their consequences. The sooner we stop letting Fox News tell us how wounded we are the faster we will heal.