Glenn Reynolds: Democrats Call Republicans "Accomplices to Murder"

The extremist rhetoric being disseminated by the Democrats following the Arizona murders is almost unprecedented.  However, Glenn Reynolds in the Wall Street Journal deflates the Left's hot air balloon in his article today:  The Arizona Tragedy and the Politics of Blood Libel.  He writes:

Shortly after November's electoral defeat for the Democrats, pollster Mark Penn appeared on Chris Matthews's TV show and remarked that what President Obama needed to reconnect with the American people was another Oklahoma City bombing. To judge from the reaction to Saturday's tragic shootings in Arizona, many on the left (and in the press) agree, and for a while hoped that Jared Lee Loughner's killing spree might fill the bill.

With only the barest outline of events available, pundits and reporters seemed to agree that the massacre had to be the fault of the tea party movement in general, and of Sarah Palin in particular. Why? Because they had created, in New York Times columnist Paul Krugman's words, a "climate of hate."

However, who has created the climate of hate, and who are its targets, is clearly open to debate. Reynolds concludes:

There's a climate of hate out there, all right, but it doesn't derive from the innocuous use of political clichés. And former Gov. Palin and the tea party movement are more the targets than the source.

If you read nothing else today, do read this article here.