Was Palin Involved?

Not directly, no. She didn't pull the trigger in Tucson. But indirectly? Let's look at the facts and decide for ourselves.

First, a recap of saturday: Rep. Gabrielle "Gabby" Giffords was holding an event called "Congress on your Corner" around noon. During the processions, a man pulled out a gun and shot Giffords in the head, as well as going on a massacre with the current stats at 6 dead, 14 wounded. Eventually, while reloading, the shooter, identified as 22-year-old Jared Lee Loughner, was tackled. Those shot were rushed to nearby hospitals. As of now, Rep. Giffords is in critical condition, though her surgeon said he was optimistic.

Now, as soon as the news broke, most news outlets were keeping people updated on the news. For the most part, I flipped between CNN, which I have found to be the most moderate news channel, and Fox. One thing I did notice was that, while CNN was simply giving the breaking news and doing interviews, Fox was solely interested in blaming the left. *shrug* That was foreseeable, right?

Many outlets, which I do apologize for their hasty response, were much like a mirror image of Fox: trying to pin things to the right, specifically Sarah Palin. The immediate connection was to her "hit list" map from a while back, which included Giffords in its list of targets. I have been doing a lot of research since these accusations came out, and this is the information I have gleaned:

• Many on the right bring up a map from during the Dubya years that is much like the Palin map. They attempt to use this as reason to call the left hypocrites, but there are a few differences. For one thing, the map does not target individuals, but rather states. Second, the text at the bottom (which does have a lot of militaristic termology) says that those are where democrats should be trying to win enough votes to stop Dubya from being re-elected. Let me give you a challenge: just TRY rewriting the text without using a single militaristic term. Here is the image. Difficult, no?
• Many on the right attempt to say that the shooter is a far-left "nut", their strongest reasoning being that The Communist Manifesto is on his list of favorite books. They ignore the fact, however, that his favorite books also include Mein Kampf, a highly conservative book. Also on this list are The Wizard Of Oz and Peter Pan, so can we assume he was a pedophile? No. His books offer no insight into his political motives.
• Very, VERY few on the right bring up the man's YouTube page, though many at the left jump at the chance. Why? Because he was an avid conspiracy theorist and anti-government advocate. His YouTube page, without a doubt, shows that he has strong conservative morals.

Of course, this is about whether Palin had anything to do with this, not the conservative right. None of the evidence gathered thus far gives any reason to conclude that Loughner was impacted enough by Sarah Palin individually to go on a shooting rampage. The evidence does, however, point to Loughner being an extreme rightist lunatic, much like Rush Limbaugh or Glenn Beck; if he has been impacted by anybody, I'd bet it was from one of these two. So please, quit blaming Sarah Palin. She may be a complete idiot and an even more complete bitch, but that's no reason to blame her for something she had little-to-no part in.