Sarah Palin: Death Panels And Blood Libel
h/t Instapundit for his links on former Governor Sarah Palin's evidently immediately controversial new video, controversial because she uses the term "blood libel." Glenn Reynolds used it in a recent Wall Street Journal piece. That was the first time I personally recall seeing it applied here - The Arizona Tragedy and the Politics of Blood Libel.
From the text of Palin's video statement:
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.
Last night on Twitter, Matthew Vadum and I both briefly noted a certain awkwardness with the term given its fairly precise entomology. I'm seeing critics like Jennifer Rubin point out that, while accurate, it's inflammatory. That's what started me to thinking about Palin's use of the term death panels in the Obamacare debate. Isn't she now doing very much the same thing - allegedly being inflammatory, but accurate? It is accurate. Even critics are conceding that.
shows her inflam. tendency=critics pt. she's not serious, cert. not pres. - more G.Beck than Reagan ... should note also it is tech. correct since accused of blood on her hands.. but still....
So, it's inflammatory, but accurate - or, ... how about, effective, assuming one is willing to fight the good fight for candor in honestly defining a bad health care policy, or a malicious slander meant to silence political speech?
And how in the Hell did we get to a place where a so called conservative pundit writing for the Washington Post thinks doing that is somehow not Presidential? Are we interested in leadership willing to lead, or merely wishing to please our senses? That's not meant as necessarily backing Palin for President, or anything. I didn't bring it up, Rubin did.
However uncomfortable it may make some feel, what Palin has done here is engage the debate candidly and head-on, just as she did during the health care debate when she invoked the term death panels.
Isn't it possible that we need to be made to feel just a bit uncomfortable with what the Left has been doing in exploiting the Arizona tragedy in a manner which transcends simply being angry? Whatever the reason, I do believe using the term blood libel has a way of doing that, elevating the debate into one of substance, over simply feelings, or anger, as a matter of fact. That, despite its presumed inflammatory nature. Ironic, that.
Seems to me, if we're going to now run away from that debate because it requires potentially inflammatory rhetoric to define it both precisely - and in terms with which we can win it - then how the hell are we ever to win it, hopefully stopping the Left from repeatedly using repugnant tactics just like the one they are using as regards the Arizona massacre?
I swear to God, I'm no Palin fanatic. And I'm as susceptible as the next guy or gal to the notion that she may not be the person to be America's next President. I don't know. But I do know that, once examined, whether through happenstance, or design, some of her tactics are absolutely brilliant, if one is willing to examine them in depth. Who knows, perhaps it's just instinct? Nah, it can't be that. That would almost make her Reaganesque!
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