# Sarah Palin takes no responsibility for the Tucson shootings? Really? **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [January 10, 2011, 4:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sarah-palin-takes-no-responsibility-for-the-tucson-shootings-really/567104 "2011-01-10T16:09:14Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Cartooniverse](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cartooniverse/32/3084_2.png) [@Cartooniverse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cartooniverse)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2011, 4:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sarah-palin-takes-no-responsibility-for-the-tucson-shootings-really/567104/1 "2011-01-10T16:09:14Z")
If she doesn’t, then why did she [take down the “crosshairs” map of the United States of America that put a shooting victim in the crosshairs](http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rob-warmowski/following-giffords-shooti_b_806248.html)? Just a coincidence huh? Just weird zany timing huh? Nothing to be read into it at all. No chance that her lunatic taunting triggered a murderous rampage. Nope. Just one of those silly little coincidences that mean nothing at all. :dubious: It’s just another coincidence that Sarah Palin aide Rebecca Mansour gave an interview on Saturday during which she said that the map was [misunderstood](http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/01/09/sarah-palin-rebecca-mansour-crosshairs-arizona_n_806375.html). Apparently those crosshairs? Well heck-a-booty, those aren’t crosshairs at all !! ( Despite the rhetoric from Palin using those terms ). Those are **surveyors symbols**. No doubt that Ms. Mansour would have given the same interview regardless of the shooting. Now, in November Palin talked about defeating 18 out of 20 on her “bullseye” list. Still, a coincidence. Nothing more. Really. Cartooniverse ---
**Author:** ![El\_Kabong](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/el_kabong/32/496_2.png) [@El\_Kabong](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/El_Kabong)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2011, 4:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sarah-palin-takes-no-responsibility-for-the-tucson-shootings-really/567104/2 "2011-01-10T16:30:22Z")
What, the alleged site called [TakeBackThe20.com](http://TakeBackThe20.com)? There is no such site, never has been. You are clearly mistaken. ---
**Author:** ![jayjay](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jayjay/32/6765_2.png) [@jayjay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jayjay)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2011, 4:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sarah-palin-takes-no-responsibility-for-the-tucson-shootings-really/567104/3 "2011-01-10T16:31:34Z")
You’ve never seen a centrifuge that could spin as hard as the whole Republican/right-wing noise machine is going to spin in the next week or two. ---
**Author:** ![friedo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/8edcca/32.png) [@friedo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/friedo)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2011, 4:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sarah-palin-takes-no-responsibility-for-the-tucson-shootings-really/567104/4 "2011-01-10T16:35:55Z")
Please explain what responsibility Palin bears for a psychotic nutball shooting up a Congressional photo-op at a grocery store. ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2011, 4:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sarah-palin-takes-no-responsibility-for-the-tucson-shootings-really/567104/5 "2011-01-10T16:39:27Z")
Of course she’s not going to _take_ any responsibility. She’s never taken responsibility for anything. Whether she deserves any blame is unknown, and maybe unknowable, as far as I’m concerned. All that being said, the surveyor thing is a lie and it’s a stupid, obvious lie. If the target thing is just rhetoric, than say so. There’s no point in pretending you didn’t say it when everyone already saw it. ---
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2011, 4:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sarah-palin-takes-no-responsibility-for-the-tucson-shootings-really/567104/6 "2011-01-10T16:41:45Z")
Of course Palin takes no responsibility for the shootings. And of course there are plenty of reasons she might take down her page without taking responsibility for the shootings. It’s in incredibly poor taste to leave a cross-hair target up ona person that was shot, even if your target was political removal and not actual shooting, in much the same way the DNC might [use targets](http://www.dlc.org/ndol_ci.cfm?contentid=253055&kaid=127&subid=171) to demote political aims and not bullet aims. The obvious lie by Palin’s camp about surveyors marks is pretty stupid, I grant, but when inferences of such foolishness as the OP are in play, panic results in stupidity. ---
**Author:** ![Chefguy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chefguy/32/138_2.png) [@Chefguy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chefguy)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2011, 4:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sarah-palin-takes-no-responsibility-for-the-tucson-shootings-really/567104/7 "2011-01-10T16:42:17Z")
> [@friedo](#): > > Please explain what responsibility Palin bears for a psychotic nutball shooting up a Congressional photo-op at a grocery store. To put it in terms that even a bible-thumping moron like her can understand: when you sow the wind, you reap the whirlwind. All of the hysterical talk about “reload” and “exercise your second amendment rights” and “take back the country” and other statements from nutjobs like Palin, Bachman, et al just fan the flames of whackos like this guy. They don’t think for a moment that after they’ve gotten the crowd all frothed up and rabid, that when they leave the stage, some of the those folks remain all frothed and rabid, while the politicos are sipping their white wine backstage and laughing about how clever they were. Problem is, people like this douchebag sometimes take this talk literally, and a few may even act out on it. Is any of this getting through? No, I thought not. ---
**Author:** ![Euphonious\_Polemic](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/euphonious_polemic/32/3002_2.png) [@Euphonious\_Polemic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Euphonious_Polemic)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2011, 4:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sarah-palin-takes-no-responsibility-for-the-tucson-shootings-really/567104/8 "2011-01-10T16:43:02Z")
> [@friedo](#): > > Please explain what responsibility Palin bears for a psychotic nutball shooting up a Congressional photo-op at a grocery store. Palin could have sold him the gun and given him written directions to the photo-op and you would still be spinning like a Maytag washer. Direct responsibility as in “criminal liability?” perhaps not. Responsibility for ratcheting up the rhetoric so that a psychotic nutball is given clear-cut ideas about a potential target, instead of shooting up an empty house full of invisible unicorns? Perhaps. ---
**Author:** ![CandidGamera](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/candidgamera/32/2878_2.png) [@CandidGamera](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CandidGamera)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2011, 4:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sarah-palin-takes-no-responsibility-for-the-tucson-shootings-really/567104/9 "2011-01-10T16:45:04Z")
If I had Jack McCoy’s eyebrows, and attendant legal superpowers, I’d get her, Beck, and Angle all on a Conspiracy to Commit Murder rap. Despite being a Manhattan D.A. ---
**Author:** ![Cartooniverse](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cartooniverse/32/3084_2.png) [@Cartooniverse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cartooniverse)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2011, 4:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sarah-palin-takes-no-responsibility-for-the-tucson-shootings-really/567104/10 "2011-01-10T16:49:38Z")
> [@friedo](#): > > Please explain what responsibility Palin bears for a psychotic nutball shooting up a Congressional photo-op at a grocery store. Look, I’m a fairly liberal Democrat-type. I’ll put that out there, for some that may be explanation enough for this O.P. But if this entire situation were tied to identical inflammatory dialogue created by a Democrat? Lordy I’d be all over it just as fast. There is zero justification for the “targeting” of humans. None. See, **friedo** , a responsible adult takes responsibility for their words as well as their actions. Case in point: Stanley Kubrick and **A Clockwork Orange**. After the release, [the British police urged Kubrick to withdraw the film in the UK while he was alive](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Clockwork_Orange_%28film%29). > [@Wikipedia](#): > > Popular belief was that those copycat attacks led Kubrick to withdraw the film from distribution in the United Kingdom. However, in the film documentary Stanley Kubrick: A Life in Film, made after his death, widow Christiane confirmed rumours that he withdrew A Clockwork Orange on police advice, after threats against him and family (the source of those threats are undiscussed). That Warner Bros. acceded to his withdrawal request indicates the good business relations the director had with the studio, especially the executive Terry Semel. The ban was vigorously pursued in Kubrick’s lifetime. So, some people can take responsibility for the effect their public statements and works have on others. Some cannot. Sarah Palin cannot. One might surmise that she cannot take responsibility because she’s too busy cackling with glee over the shooting, counting the days until the next coincidental shooting. ETA: Before I say anything about violation of the new Anti Terrorist Laws, in deference to the perfection and brilliance that is **Bricker** , I need to first find out exactly what laws exist in Arizona in this regard. Then find an attorney who is a member of the bar in Arizona. Then post about it. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![joebuck20](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/74df32/32.png) [@joebuck20](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/joebuck20)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2011, 4:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sarah-palin-takes-no-responsibility-for-the-tucson-shootings-really/567104/11 "2011-01-10T16:51:15Z")
Unless Loughner comes out and says he was influenced by Palin, it’s impossible to say how much, if any, responsibility she bears for this. Having said that, however, her people’s backtracking and saying “hey, those weren’t crosshairs and were never meant to be seen as such” just reeks of bullshit. BTW, last I heard she still hadn’t taken down the crosshairs graphic. Has anyone been over to confirm, one way or another? ---
**Author:** ![Hampshire](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hampshire/32/4887_2.png) [@Hampshire](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hampshire)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2011, 4:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sarah-palin-takes-no-responsibility-for-the-tucson-shootings-really/567104/12 "2011-01-10T16:54:41Z")
I haven’t seen the actual removed Palin graphic until today from the linked Huffington Post image. Wow, how damning can you get? Actual cross-hair symbols (surveyor’s markings my ass) with the message “We’ve diagnosed the problem… Help us prescribe the solution.” ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2011, 4:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sarah-palin-takes-no-responsibility-for-the-tucson-shootings-really/567104/13 "2011-01-10T16:57:17Z")
We don’t know that she has any responsibility, and it would be in very poor taste and invite more negative publicity to leave the graphic up, but trying to say the gun sights were really “surveyor’s symbols” is a stupid and obvious lie. She would have done better just to admit that the graphic was in poor taste and ill advised in the first place. Trying to deny that the gun sights were gun sights is a classic Palin revision of reality, and the reason she can’t be taken seriously as a political leader. She’s a child. ---
**Author:** ![Walmarticus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/f9ae1b/32.png) [@Walmarticus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Walmarticus)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2011, 4:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sarah-palin-takes-no-responsibility-for-the-tucson-shootings-really/567104/14 "2011-01-10T16:57:29Z")
this is getting so annoying. Now, instead of political parties targeting seats, they will _survey and mark_ them. I dislike Palin as much as the next guy, but you people need to stop this shit. Targets exist. They are common symbols one might use to geographically mark a location of interest. Only exceedingly rarely does a target imply murder. You people are paranoid, conspiracy theorists. I normally wouldn’t give a shit about criticism directed at rhetoricians. But for Christ’s sake, this is some sad shit. Let’s react with class, dignity and integrity. At the very least, wait a little while before you start trying to score points against the other side. Who knows, you might even have something more incrementing than _omg look at da gunsights HUUUUUUURRRR!!!_ ---
**Author:** ![WhyNot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/c77e96/32.png) [@WhyNot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WhyNot)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2011, 4:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sarah-palin-takes-no-responsibility-for-the-tucson-shootings-really/567104/15 "2011-01-10T16:57:49Z")
> [@Cartooniverse](#): > > So, some people can take responsibility for the effect their public statements and works have on others. Some cannot. Sarah Palin cannot. One might surmise that she cannot take responsibility because she’s too busy cackling with glee over the shooting, counting the days until the next coincidental shooting. Oooh, harsh. You had me until the end. Despite it all, I can’t fathom Sarah Palin as actually evil. Stupid, selfish and self-promoting covers it just fine. I would hope (I don’t know her personally, so that’s the best I can do) that she feels regret here, not glee, even if it’s only in private. I honestly can believe that she didn’t think her rhetoric would really matter in a literal, physical violence sense. A lot of people don’t understand just how concrete the thinking of a psychotic person is. Assuming your audience is only made up of rational thinking adults might be easy, but it’s not accurate. I don’t think any of the talking heads should be held legally responsible for these shooting, but I’m glad the issue has finally come to a head (although appalled at how it had to get here) and we can, as a nation, finally suggest that maybe people should be \*morally \*responsible for what they say. ---
**Author:** ![Zebra](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/c0e974/32.png) [@Zebra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zebra)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2011, 4:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sarah-palin-takes-no-responsibility-for-the-tucson-shootings-really/567104/16 "2011-01-10T16:58:55Z")
She wouldn’t take the responsibility of being Governor of Alaska, something she actually asked to be given. Sarah will not retreat from this point. She will reload. I mean, stand firm. yeah, Stand firm! ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2011, 4:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sarah-palin-takes-no-responsibility-for-the-tucson-shootings-really/567104/17 "2011-01-10T16:59:02Z")
> [@CandidGamera](#): > > If I had Jack McCoy’s eyebrows, and attendant legal superpowers, I’d get her, Beck, and Angle all on a Conspiracy to Commit Murder rap. Despite being a Manhattan D.A. The judge’d throw it out. Then somebody’d get shot on the courthouse steps. ---
**Author:** ![C3](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/c3/32/3108_2.png) [@C3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/C3)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2011, 4:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sarah-palin-takes-no-responsibility-for-the-tucson-shootings-really/567104/18 "2011-01-10T16:59:23Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > … in much the same way the \*\*DNC \*\*might [use targets](http://www.dlc.org/ndol_ci.cfm?contentid=253055&kaid=127&subid=171) to demote political aims and not bullet aims. Bolding mine. I assume that was a typo. ---
**Author:** ![Blalron](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/35a633/32.png) [@Blalron](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blalron)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2011, 5:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sarah-palin-takes-no-responsibility-for-the-tucson-shootings-really/567104/19 "2011-01-10T17:00:56Z")
> [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](#): > > Trying to deny that the gun sights were gun sights is a classic Palin revision of reality, and the reason she can’t be taken seriously as a political leader. She’s a child. Yeah, surveyors symbols aren’t exactly consistant with the “reload” message. I think Palin should review the passage in the Bible about bearing false witness. ---
**Author:** ![asterion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/4da419/32.png) [@asterion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/asterion)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2011, 5:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sarah-palin-takes-no-responsibility-for-the-tucson-shootings-really/567104/20 "2011-01-10T17:02:05Z")
> [@jayjay](#): > > You’ve never seen a centrifuge that could spin as hard as the whole Republican/right-wing noise machine is going to spin in the next week or two. I’ve seen centrifuges that can spin at something like 90,000 rpm generating more than 500,000 g, and they make faster ones that that. So that would be some massive spin indeed. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sarah-palin-takes-no-responsibility-for-the-tucson-shootings-really/567104.md?page=2)