(no subject)

[coldblossom.livejournal.com]

So its gotten out that a Lefty threatened the leader of the Tucson Tea Party, stating very bluntly while pointing at his picture, "you're dead." This done in full view of TV cameras and dozens of witnesses. Here we have a real example of political feelings crossing the line and yet, because it didn't fit the media's meme, they hid the facts of this incident in their reporting, declining to name the subject of the threat and/or the substance of it.

I was going to make a post about how I think the media actually deserves some blame for this because it was the media who, absent any evidence, drew the connection between Loughner and the Tea Party/Sarah Palin and who continue to push that meme, more than a week later, even though all evidence is to the contrary.

But while looking up Mr. Fuller, I found this. Seems like Mr. Fuller was a bit of a loose cannon on his own, without help from the media. Maybe they fanned the pre-existing flames, though why he would choose CNN as the forum to air his allegedly PTSD-influenced grievances we'll never know.

Mr. Fuller was also involved in a confrontation on Jan. 8, shortly before the attack on Ms. Giffords, which occurred at an event she held for her constituents outside a Safeway supermarket. He said in a long interview last week with The New York Times that he had argued there with a man he described as a former Marine after a heated discussion over politics. Gabriel Zimmerman, an aide to Ms. Giffords, separated the two.

Mr. Zimmerman was killed in the attack later that morning.

Mr. Fuller spoke dismissively of Republicans during the interview. “They appeal to simple-minded rednecks,” he said.

He said that he had had trouble sleeping after he was wounded and that he calmed himself the first night by writing down the Declaration of Independence, which he had memorized three decades earlier.

In the first days after the attack, his anger seemed especially strong. In the interview, he repeatedly denounced the “Tea Party crime syndicate,” and said he placed some of the blame for the shooting on Sarah Palin and other Republican leaders, saying he believed they had contributed to a toxic atmosphere.

He said he had expected to see protesters at Ms. Giffords’s event, and had planned “to shout them down because I can make a lot of noise."