Joe Biden is working hard to keep his coalition intact. He sent a letter to congressional Democrats on Monday indicating he’s staying in the race, and plans to have meeting this week. During an appearance on “Morning Joe,” he reiterated his intention of staying in the race, and called on other Democrats who think he should drop out to challenge him at the upcoming Democratic National Convention. He also reportedly had a private call with Democrat donors Monday afternoon, and according to New York Times reporter Kenneth Vogel, Biden used some inappropriate, violent rhetoric.
“It’s time to put Trump in the bullseye,” Biden reportedly said.
Excuse me?
The expression may not have been correct, but many on social media were angered over the implied violence of the statement and recalled the way the media attempted to blame Sarah Palin for the 2011 Tucson shooting that claimed the lives of six people and resulted in the severe wounding of former Rep. Gabby Giffords (D-Ariz.). Palin’s political action committee had put out an electoral map with crosshairs highlighting districts being target by the PAC to be flipped.
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"In the stunned aftermath of the Tucson massacre, Sarah Palin has found herself in the crosshairs of the ensuing political debate with opponents suggesting she may have fueled the gunman's rage and her supporters saying it is ‘grotesque' to blame her and to politicize the tragedy,” ABC News reported at the time. "Crosshairs is a political phrase that emerged from Palin's political action committee SarahPac that targeted congressional districts for the Tea Party campaign in the last election, including the district of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords."
Although Palin later denied she meant the graphic over the districts to look like a gun sight, it is part of the hunting lexicon that critics say she prefers.
Comedian Frank Conniff tweeted: "Hey, Sarah Palin, hows that hatey, killy, reloady, crosshairsy thing working out for ya?"
Facebook executive Randi Zuckerberg said many people on the social networking site are asking whether Sarah Palin is to blame.
According to Zuckerberg that is the #1 question on the social network behemoth following the Tucson shooting.
Like so much with Palin, the roots are on Facebook. On her Facebook page last year when she posted the a map of 20 congressional districts targeted by SarahPac, the headline of the map: "It's time to take a stand."
At the time Giffords reacted to the map in an interview on a cable news program.
"When people do that, they've got to realize there are consequences to that action," Giffords said.
Of course, there was no connection between the graphic and the shooting. The shooter was a lunatic who was eventually deemed not competent enough to stand trial. Yet, the narrative put forth by the media was "Blame Sarah Palin." My question is, how many people who claimed outrage over that will be outraged at Joe Biden's rhetoric? Even now that the media is finally doing their jobs by asking questions about Joe Biden's health, I still don't expect anyone to make the connection and call out Joe Biden for inappropriately using violent rhetoric about Donald Trump. Of course, we all know that if the roles were reversed, there would be a Secret Service investigation.
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