Palin: "Stop With the Blood Libel"

If you haven't seen it yet, Sarah Palin's video statement on the Arizona mass murder, "America's Enduring Strength," is tucked below the fold. Definitely watch it when you get a chance. I'm going to mention only one part of it right now and maybe come back for the rest of it later because liberals are, once again, having a contrived conniption.

Partway through the statement, Palin condemns the Democratic and media attempt to claim that the shooting is the fault of the Tea Party.

Vigorous and spirited public debates during elections are among our most cherished traditions. And after the election, we shake hands and get back to work, and often both sides find common ground back in D.C. and elsewhere. If you don’t like a person’s vision for the country, you’re free to debate that vision. If you don’t like their ideas, you’re free to propose better ideas. But, especially within hours of a tragedy unfolding, journalists and pundits should not manufacture a blood libel that serves only to incite the very hatred and violence they purport to condemn. That is reprehensible.

This paragraph is fairly unobjectionable for most people. As we saw yesterday, a majority of Americans recognized and rejected the disgusting attempt to link Jared Loughner with Sarah Palin and the Tea Party.

I think many liberal commentators realize that the slime job isn't working. So they have decided to simply deflect and object to something else about Palin. Now they're claiming that there is an "uproar" that she used the term "blood libel".

First, there's no uproar. Yes, the objection appears in a NYTimes blog and all over Daily Kos. But that's it. Because even their own definition of "blood libel" includes the manner in which Palin used the term.

Here's the NYTimes; I have emphasized the key word:

By using the term “blood libel” to describe the criticism about political rhetoric after the shootings, Ms. Palin was inventing a new definition for an emotionally laden phrase. Blood libel is typically used to describe the false accusation that Jews murder Christian children to use their blood in religious rituals, in particular the baking of matzos for passover. The term has been used for centuries as the pretext for anti-Semitism and violent pogroms against Jews.

Typically. Typically, but not exclusively, blood libels have been accusations against Jews. But blood libels have also been made historically against Christians -- including Catholics and the Knights Templar -- witches and pagans, and, more modernly, Satanists.

Liberals need something to mumble about, so goshdarnitow sometime between yesterday and today the term came to apply only to the Jews. They'd like you to believe this is "another" example of Palin's ignorance, even though, as I said, by their own definition her use of the term is appropriate. As with their response to the Arizona shooting, facts-be-damned they've got a story and they're sticking to it.

Anyway, the video is below the fold. You can get a transcript over here. Don't let any libtards you run into today redefine the term "blood libel" for the sole purpose of bashing Palin. They don't own the words and their attempt to redefine the term demonstrates their own ignorance, not hers.

And that should be the response. The next person who tells me that Palin shouldn't have said it because blood libels only are used against the Jews is going to get an incredulous: "Are you stupid? Historically...and etc."

This is willful ignorance so liberal commentators can feel good about themselves. Their slander over the weekend didn't stick, so now it's on to a new one. Notice, they can't claim not to have made the false accusation that the Tea Party caused the Arizona shooting. So instead of defending it, which they can't, they'll just quibble about the words Palin used.

posted by Gabriel Malor at 09:52 AM

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