Video: Charles Krauthammer On the “Blood Libel” Debate – “Have we completely lost our minds?”

As I’ve watched the left try to seize the moment of this unfortunate tragedy to score political points over the past four days, I’ve been asking the same thing:

video via The Daily Caller

“[T]he fact is that even the ADL, the Anti-Defamation League in expressing a mild rebuke to Palin for using this admitted itself in its statement that the term ‘blood libel’ has become part of English parlance to refer to someone falsely accused,” Krauthammer said. “Let’s step back for a second. Here we have a brilliant, intelligent, articulate, beautiful, wife, mother and congresswoman fighting for her life, in a hospital in Tucson, and we’re having a national debate over whether the term ‘blood libel’ can be used appropriately in a non-Jewish context? Have we completely lost our minds?”

“I found her speech unobjectionable, unremarkable but unnecessary,” he said.  “Of course, anybody who is attacked as she was has the right to defend herself in public. However, it wasn’t as if others hadn’t counteracted the calumny about her and others being responsible in some way for the massacre in Tucson. By the time she had the video on her website, the debate was over. The left, which had launched the accusation, had been completely defeated, ‘refudiated’ if you like, and disgraced over this. There wasn’t a shred of evidence and the battle was over. I mean, it was a rout to make the Pickett’s Charge look like a draw.”

Maybe  because the left-wing narrative  has been so thoroughly discredited, the President chose to take the high road for his Tucson memorial speech, tonight. It’s too bad the event had such a “pep rally” feel to it. Cheering should have been discouraged.

Partial text via Hot Air:

The loss of these wonderful people should make every one of us strive to be better in our private lives – to be better friends and neighbors, co-workers and parents. And if, as has been discussed in recent days, their deaths help usher in more civility in our public discourse, let’s remember that it is not because a simple lack of civility caused this tragedy [– it did not –] but rather because only a more civil and honest public discourse can help us face up to our challenges as a nation, in a way that would make them proud. It should be because we want to live up to the example of public servants like John Roll and Gabby Giffords, who knew first and foremost that we are all Americans, and that we can question each other’s ideas without questioning each other’s love of country, and that our task, working together, is to constantly widen the circle of our concern so that we bequeath the American dream to future generations.

Who’s Obama’s new speechwriter?

Ace asks:

Why did he stage this yet again at a college? I know that’s where he prefers to campaign, but, um, this wasn’t supposed to be a campaign event.

Why was the audience filled with people entirely unconnected to the victims? Was it an accident these people were college students? I.e., Obama fans?

All the audience cheering? What?

Well, it would have been extremely awkward if he had had to endure booing…but, like I said,  above…crowd participation should have been discouraged.

And who provided the “Together We Thrive” tee shirts? The White House? Why the need to brand a memorial? I find it very inappropriate.

MORE:

Seriously…what is it about Democrats that they have to turn memorials into pep rallies? That off putting pep rally atmosphere last night could easily have been avoided, (don’t out pass tee-shirts, for one thing).

Michelle Malkin offers a compare/contrast in the VA Tech memorial: Video flashback: Yes, some college students do know how to act at a massacre memorial

Watch Bush’s speech. His somber demeanor was like that of a grieving man, not a “preacher man”. He didn’t pause for applause, and  the audience was respectfully silent.

Still, Obama said the right words, and that’s a mercy.

The question is, will his words cause the left to call off the dogs?

Is The Left Mature Enough To Admit Their Wrongs And Apologize?

Can we expect a mea culpa from Krugman, Kos, Matthews, NYTs, et al  or will they deflect criticism by continuing to attack, attack, attack?

Heh: Fox Nation: Obama Distances Himself From Loons on the Left

Not impressed with the speech in any way shape or form, is Tom McGuire:

So Krugman et al are wrong to blame the Tea Party and Sarah Palin but right that we all need to be more civil.  I don’t think for a moment that the man who described his Republican counterparts as “hostage takers” includes himself among those who have lowered the tone, so I am reading this as a call to the right to pipe down.

The NY Times editors apparently heard it the same way:

It was important that Mr. Obama transcend the debate about whose partisanship has been excessive and whose words have sown the most division and dread. This page and many others have identified those voices and called on them to stop demonizing their political opponents. The president’s role in Tucson was to comfort and honor, and instill hope.

Yeah, they know who the bad guys are, so the President didn’t need to sully his hands.  Please.

Also not impressed is Tammy Bruce, who is even blunter, and sounding more than a tad bitter: Summing Up The Tucson Obama Rally:

I can hear it now! “Oh Tammy, why so political!? How awful of you!! Think of the victims!” of course, with a death threat thrown in and some crass misogynistic swear words from the Gestapo of Love and Unity for Everyone Except Some. For people shocked, just shocked at how I’m not being more ‘compassionate’ and genteel about this “event,” well, let me explain–Upon hearing the awful news Saturday morning, within an hour–even before we knew the number of dead–Barack Obama’s gestapos moved in for the kill–the Kill of Palin and the Kill of Conservatives in this country. For 5 days Tea Party, conservatives and Sarah Palin were blamed for murder. I spent the weekend, as did so many others, not being allowed to grieve but having to listen to crass political smears and libel, while defending those falsely accused of horrific complicity.

Democrat and Republican leadership sat silent, including Barack Obama, as this nation was stomped on by grotesque beasts using the dead and maimed in an attempt to add a 21st victim–Sarah Palin–to the body count. Obama may have been silent and he could be–his gestapos were doing all the work. His machine knew what to do and they moved quickly. The Massacre Cult chose their targets and went hunting, accusing innocents of the horror of being an accessory to murder to score political points.

Damn, she’s got me pissed off all over again.

Tammy ends by informing her readers:

Oh and by the way Death Threats Against Sarah Palin at ‘Unprecedented Level,’ Aides Say

DrewM at AoSHQ: Today’s Media Narrative: Barack Obama Totally Kicked Sarah Palin’s Ass

Yesterday the media and the left (bit I repeat myself) spent the day complaining that Sarah Palin “inserted herself” into the Arizona story. They failed to mention they were the ones who dragged her by blaming her for the shooting before the bodies were even cold.

Today’s fresh new narrative is, Palin’s speech was awful by itself but it was positively wretched compared to the wonderful and masterful job done by Obama.