Sunday, January 9, 2011

Chris Carney's Ridiculous Assertions Against Sarah Palin

In today's Times-Tribune Andrew Staub pens an article covering FORMER U.S. Congressman Chris Carney's comments over the shooting in Arizona of Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, members of her staff and the killing of at least six people including a U.S. District Judge and a 9 year old girl.

Though Mr. Carney, a former U.S. representative from Dimock Twp., and other Northeast Pennsylvania political figures stopped short of assigning blame to Mrs. Palin, a rumored Republican candidate for president in 2012, Mr. Carney said "a lot of folks were concerned that something would happen sooner rather than later" after she released the map.

"You would think it shouldn't have to take something like this to be a lesson, but I think it's an indication of how far we've sunk," Mr. Carney said Saturday, lamenting that the "discourse in this country has deteriorated tremendously."

Though police have not yet released a motive that led 22-year-old Jared Loughner, the suspect in the shooting, to the Tucson grocery store, many posters at news and social networking websites immediately connected the shooting and Mrs. Palin's map. Mr. Carney called it "a reach to think that this was sort of a random event."

"I'm not sure if 'blame' is the right word for Ms. Palin, but I think it wasn't helpful, obviously," Mr. Carney said of her map. "It would be very useful if she came out and, if not apologize, say that she was wrong in putting that sort of logo on peoples' districts."


Here is the map that Carney refers to in his ridiculous comments.


Forget whether you believe they are crosshairs for sighting or calibration.

Look at this map from the Democratic Leadership Council contained in this article by Will Marshall in December, 2004.


Those bullseye markings resemble targets more than crosshairs outside a circle.

What a self-serving public relations effort by Carney. He should be ashamed of himself for using this shooting to talk about his political career. The Times-Tribune should stick to writing the news rather than appearing to influence election outcomes.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Kind of odd that no one faults the guy who pulled the trigger, isn't it?

Dennis said...

Kind of odd that the democrats predicted this would lead to an assassination attempt and it did.


I'm suspicious.