Loughner Video Released By Community College

This appeared last night and the reaction from folks on Twitter and email was that it's a tough watch.

The guy is genuinely disturbed. We knew that but to hear and see it so clearly is pretty shocking.

I would love to sit with Chris Matthews, Keith Olbermann, Paul Krugman and the like to watch this. Then when it's over, I'd like them to explain to me how they think this broken and damaged man was in any way influenced by the 'tone' of our political discourse. Yes, his ramblings involve phrases like "unconstitutional" and "gold" that often turn up in political discussions but they are clearly unrelated to any political theory known to normal human beings. Loughner could just have easily fixated on "mashed potatoes" and "green rabbits" and it would have made as much sense.

It's contemptible how so many Democrats and liberals have latched onto this guy's mental derangement to further their political goals.

If you don't believe me, read Charles Blow in today's New York Times.

Now we’ve settled into the by-any-means-necessary argument: anything that gets us to focus on the rhetoric and tamp it down is a good thing. But a wrong in the service of righteousness is no less wrong, no less corrosive, no less a menace to the very righteousness it’s meant to support.

You can’t claim the higher ground in a pit of quicksand.

Concocting connections to advance an argument actually weakens it. The argument for tonal moderation has been done a tremendous disservice by those who sought to score political points in the absence of proof.

Blow is no moderate, hell, he's usually not even very interesting but even he sees how dishonest the Democrats have behaved this week. Seems if the left has lost a guy like Blow, they might want to take a step back and consider what they've done.

Or not.

posted by DrewM. at 03:52 PM

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