John Stewart has the best take on the AZ shootings

Yeah, the saddest part about stuff like this is that most political assassination types really are just fucking unhinged. Just like the guy that killed JFK or the guy that tried to kill Reagan. Just straight nuts, nothing else.

There was nothing society at large could have done, there may not even have been anything individuals close to him could have done.

It's depressing to know that some things really are beyond any control or alleviation. Tragedy happens, and we just have to do our best to deal with it.

i agree, he hung wit the crowd but it was his decision to comitte that terrible act.

LOL

damn I didn't know you were a Doctor of phychology

ayipis iz da smartist eva.

I think you may be on to something. Smoking drugs can lead to paranoia.

If being a loss for words at 6 people being killed in a highly volatile, politically charged society that is resorting to assassination, puts you to sleep, then maybe you need to move to a place that is more anesthetized to violence. I'm sure Belarus or Myanmar is looking for immigrants. His delivery was tasteful and elegant and he accomplished what all the other media outlets failed to do, bring heart and reason to a horrible event.

I want to go back to a time where there were just good and bad people. Not this constant the shooter is a victim, and its someone elses fault that he took a pistol and killed a 9 year old.

There's always an excuse. No accountability anymore. It's depressing. There are bad people & they do bad things.

Whoa. I didn't say the shooter is a victim. I believe in extending accountability beyond the shooter. They are partners-in-crime.

No. Everyone has a choice.

This kid had a choice to buy a glock, and shoot this woman in the head. Liberals would have you think that every time someone does something it must be someone elses fault. This kid deserves the death penalty, and his time in death row maybe he will be able to reflect on the people he has hurt. There is not a better time to reflect then when you know you are going to die.

Hate-dependency, hate addiction, vitriholics is a theme of Jon Michael Bell's "Addicted to Hate". I haven't sorted through the controversy behind the book about the Westboro group. I think the video on this page begins to address it:

http://onegoodmove.org/1gm/1gmarchive/2007/04/child_abuse_1.html

It's one reason I'm proud of people like the Patriot Guard Riders.
It's one thing to desecrate someone's funeral. It's another to do it in front of a patriotic biker gang, who doesn't tolerate that shit.

No kidding!

"We liberals" are in danger of sounding and becoming as irrational as those "we" regularly denounce. Sarah Palin's website doesn't kill people, people kill people.

And yes, Stewart did exactly what he should have done. What would you have had him do, make jokes about the shootings?

Conservatives are bullying progressives into apologizing for pointing out that we don't like being targeted in crosshairs and intimidated by guns flaunted at political forums as tea baggers did all last year!
This reminds me of December 2000 when the GOP organized bus loads of angry Bush supporters to threaten and push around chad counters in Florida.
I'm sorry but I think we Democrats don't have balls anymore.

Slate's Jack Shafer writes, "Any call to cool 'inflammatory' speech is a call to police all speech, and I can't think of anybody in government, politics, business or the press that I would trust with that power."

how do you answer that?

Do we all agree that it should be illegal to yell "Fire!" in a crowded theater when there is no fire?
Well it's just as wrong to see a fire and not speak up.

but whats worse is to yell fire when its a flashlight and take attention away from the actual fires that need putting out

I agree with you but the answer is not to fight fire with fire but to call for those using it to tone it down. Alot of the rigntwing vitriol is coming from media pundits. We need to put pressure on rightwing officials to denounce this vitriol or at the least to distance themselves from it. I for one find the rhetoric of these people pretty scary such as when they call liberals traitors to the country or that they have a mental disorder but I don't want to up the scariness by leftwingers doing the same thing.

We should stop using the word Vitriol as well.

I could argue that Palin and her tea partiers have a mental disorder and probably win.
My point is that the right does this to the left all the time -- takes advantage of our bleeding hearts to make us feel somehow guilty for responding harshly to their heartless tactics.
Do you see anyone on the right apologizing for fostering a climate of fear and hate?
Sarah called us all a bunch of blood suckers today!
Democrats need to grow some balls!!!

To me, these things are two separate issues: the shooting and the climate of fear and hate fostered by the right-wing. It just feels like somebody (probably Olbermann) noticed the connection between Palin's website crosshairs thing and the Arizona shooting because Giffords was one of "the 20" on the map.

I think Palin is an asshole and I hate her like poison, but no, the nutjob in Arizona did not kill anybody because of anything Sarah Palin did, said or posted. The reason he killed people was due to his psychosis, nothing more. If he was somehow influenced by a map with crosshairs, well, only psychotic people kill others due to maps with crosshairs.

And again, I dislike Palin like a bad rash and disagree with everything she stands for and would prefer she went away (not died or got shot, just went away), but this tragedy has nothing to do with her, her politics, her website or her PAC. It's the psychosis, not the politics.

Objectively speaking, the left DID start this with the accusations blaming the right for supposedly being the catalyst that started this guy on his way to killing and wounding people. No one on the left is apologizing either, especially as more information comes out showing that the things the right was accused of are probably not true. The right will continue to be what they are and so will the left.

As far as the Dems growing balls or lost their balls or whatever, that sounds a little like a clarion call to match fear and hate with more fear and hate and that seems counter-productive. It's a shame that when this story dies down, everyone will probably go back to what they've always done and this will become a blip like all the others. If something like 9/11 didn't bring us together for very long, this certainly won't. Sucks.

^'d!

It's the social "climate" (what Carl Jung called the collective unconscious) which sets psychopaths off.
Frankly I'm surprised we haven't seen a lot more violence in the past year with all the gun packin' birthers storming political events urged on by Palin to reload.

democrats are republicans with no balls. you hadn't noticed till now??? they're one in the same.

Care should be exercised. Metal music is not to blame, but does depend on the content of the hardcore metal music. Likewise, it does depend on the content of the political environment. If you're saying we need to get specific I think you have a point.

at nearly double becks rally it wasn't that bad.

You can type all the "lols" and "hahaha-s" you want, no one is feeling stung by your lame attempts to degrade John Stewart or anything else. Your just a pathetic waste of pixels.

AMEN!

if a 200,000+ rally is considered a flop then Beck's less than 90,000 rally must be considered a colossal failure - and no I don't believe that idiot's claim of 500,000 were at his rally

I was there. It was not a flop. The city's transportation system was somewhat taxed and that is saying something in DC. The footage of the Beck rally show gaping holes where Stewart's rally was packed.

Maybe if you guys would stop acknowledging this asshole, he/she/it would go away! LOL!!!(dumbass.)

No ayipis No!!!! Bad Dog!!! What have I told you about shitting all over the forum?
Scratch at the door if you need to be let out!

But i really would miss his -15 votes in red!
I sometimes think ayipis might really be Al Gore fucking with us.....

It's difficult for a classy comedian to make fun of a tragic shooting such as this. I would expect nothing other than blandness in this episode; however, he approached the matter well, and in good nature (I thought). He also brought up a few valid points--that while people want to quickly point out the witch in the crowd (a simple reason), the complexity for motive is probably far greater. And as he said, "you cannot outsmart crazy."

Good points. But I turn to the Daily Show to give me a funny or sarcastic look at current events, not to hear Jon's soliloquy on the events in Arizona. My problem is consisitency, just look at last week where they brought out a McCain puppet who cursed and made many prejudice remarks. This is Comedy Central and a comedy show, but both of these segments were not funny at all.

Irony: It's the comedians who seem the most sane.

You attended his rally? How was it? I ask because I don't have television and I live on the west coast so I didn't really get much from people who were actually there.

It was interesting to be in the rally and then come home and see the coverage. All the media was on the defensive and that was quite clear from their coverage. What I experienced and what I saw on TV were almost different events.

Oh the highlight of the trip for me was a pickup truck covered with anti-Obama slogans that was parked next to a huge pile of horseshit from the cop's horses. The driver was standing next to his truck and yelling at the attendees. No one picked up any and threw it but it was clear many wanted to.

+^d

There's no indication that he listened to those people.

+^d spot on.

Let's just remember this isn't just Jon Stewart. He has a whole team of writers behind him.

and politicians have teams of aides

Unfortunately that would pretty much eliminate his chances to influence people. Jon is much more powerful where he is.

-Yeah....not a good idea. The guy is awesome at what he does. He brings much needed sanity to the world of 24/7 news. He makes a lot of great points.
But he would be ineffective in a legislative position. Besides, who would fill-in for him?

good point i think he does do a better job at influencing citizens politics by giving them a sane viewpoint, i just wish more politicians could be like him