I think the difference is that Obama was referencing a movie line that overdramatizes the "Chicago way" of doing things. Maybe not a good choice, but at least there's that reference that keeps it sort of off the ratcheting-up meter.

The troubling thing about the Palin and others references is that I keep waiting for the tongue in cheek, the "but seriously" moment, and never hear it. These phrases just kind of hang out there and I'm sure with reason.

I think a better question is: What happened to people disenfranchised with the government shrugging their shoulders and saying "there's nothing I can do." I miss those days.

What changed? I think I know.

Given the nature of our political discourse and the state of our so-called press, these kinds of statements by Glen Beck, Sarah Palin and their ilk are akin to shouting "fire" in a crowded theater.

There are some many things about the event here in the southwest yesterday that have my mind floating between infuriation and deep sadness. Will this event  be thrown into the political arena so both side can pick up there weapons and engage once again in the battle to convince there couch riding contingence to continue believing in the dualistic fantasy that there are borders between right and left and that fault lies with the other side. 

Or perhaps there can be a convenient agreement amongst the talking heads that this was the action of a "lone wolf". One who quite obviously is unstable and most likely seriously mentally ill. They can look at his ramblings in the you tube videos.  His tirades about currency, brainwashing, grammar and conscience dreaming are textbook symptoms of someone suffering from delusionary thinking and paranoia. So what? No big deal. Bring on some so called experts, have them dance around his unaddressed mental illness issues and label him a disgruntled failure at life. This way no one will have to consider making any changes to the things that are said or done by those in power or by the media that may have a effect on those with vulnerabilities, much less giving any consideration into deeply looking at what are the real motivations behind their actions.

Soon some celebrity will get caught cheating on their spouse or a beautiful starlet will show her "baby bump" on the red carpet of some overexposed  yet completely insignificant event.  A politician will make a foolish statement, a new reality show will come on the T.V. and a video of someone doing something totally asinine will go viral on the internet. We can engage in the distraction and quickly forget about what happen yesterday only to watch it happen again at some unknown date in the future.

It matters to some whack jobs that are out there and take things to a extreme. If you have a mental illness it doesn't take much.

1)  baci,
Please to not make sweeping generalizations about everyone.  I am not fascinated with the dangerous margins.  

2) Though I by no means like Sarah Palin, she cannot be held responsible for the actions of another.  The only way would be if she brainwashed him, which she didn't.  Thus, it is his fault for his insane actions.

3)  Yes, the media and political discourse could be in better condition these days: more civil, more sensible.  And yes, the shootings the other day suck.  Yet, I urge people to look at the state of political discourse and political news coverage in the 19th century.  Papers would literally misprint speeches by politicians they didn't like, just to convince their readers to think likewise.  Thus those readers would spread the falsehoods around, hurting their reputation and electability.  A good example of this being Lincoln's initial run for 1860.  

4) True, our congress as of recent has been pathetic, to understate.  Again, let us look to the 19th century though.  On 22 May, 1856 Congressman Preston Brooks beat Senator Charles Sumner with his walking cane on the Senate floor.  This is just one of many examples of wackery in the 19th century federal government: executive, legislative, and judicial all included.

5)  Modern times aren't nothing compared to the division and hate that caused a civil war.

Bill Cosby's rhetoric is meant to be funny and light-hearted, and does not confuse people about the tough realities of family life.

Sarah Palin's rhetoric is supposed to fill people with anger and disgust, and is intended to confuse people about the realities of life.

Bill Cosby's rhetoric is unlikely to inspire the murder of one's own children.  Sarah Palin's and the tea party's rhetoric has inspired a lot of angry yelling, shoving, and downright irrational thinking.

Claire.....and you wonder why no one takes you and your comment seriously.

I find Claire to be one of the more thoughtful participants here.

Dido what TimK and Lojasmo said.

Giffords' 2010 Congressional opponent Jesse Kelly held a June 12 gun event that was billed as follows on the Pima County Republican website:

Get on Target for Victory in November Help remove Gabrielle Giffords from office Shot a fully automatic M15 with Jesse Kelly

Kelly's website has apparently scrubbed the event , but here is the account from the Arizona Daily Star:

Jesse Kelly, meanwhile, doesn't seem to be bothered in the least by the Sarah Palin controversy earlier this year, when she released a list of targeted races in crosshairs, urging followers to "reload" and "aim" for Democrats. Critics said she was inciting violence.

He seems to be embracing his fellow tea partier's idea. Kelly's campaign event website has a stern-looking photo of the former Marine in military garb holding his weapon. It includes the headline: "Get on Target for Victory in November. Help remove Gabrielle Giffords from office. Shoot a fully automatic M16 with Jesse Kelly."

The event costs $50.

All it takes is for one unbalanced idiot to see a poster like that and decide it's their duty to make it happen.

This is a job for ... Alan Ginsberg.

America

America I've given you all and now I'm nothing.
America two dollars and twentyseven cents January
17, 1956.
I can't stand my own mind.
America when will we end the human war?
Go fuck yourself with your atom bomb.
I don't feel good don't bother me.
I won't write my poem till I'm in my right mind.
America when will you be angelic?
When will you take off your clothes?
When will you look at yourself through the grave?
When will you be worthy of your million Trotskyites?
America why are your libraries full of tears?
America when will you send your eggs to India?
I'm sick of your insane demands.
When can I go into the supermarket and buy what I
need with my good looks?
America after all it is you and I who are perfect not
the next world.
Your machinery is too much for me.
You made me want to be a saint.
There must be some other way to settle this argument.
Burroughs is in Tangiers I don't think he'll come back
it's sinister.
Are you being sinister or is this some form of practical
joke?
I'm trying to come to the point.
I refuse to give up my obsession.
America stop pushing I know what I'm doing.
America the plum blossoms are falling.
I haven't read the newspapers for months, everyday
somebody goes on trial for murder.
America I feel sentimental about the Wobblies.
America I used to be a communist when I was a kid
I'm not sorry.
I smoke marijuana every chance I get.
I sit in my house for days on end and stare at the roses
in the closet.
When I go to Chinatown I get drunk and never get laid.
My mind is made up there's going to be trouble.
You should have seen me reading Marx.
My psychoanalyst thinks I'm perfectly right.
I won't say the Lord's Prayer.
I have mystical visions and cosmic vibrations.
America I still haven't told you what you did to Uncle
Max after he came over from Russia.
I'm addressing you.
Are you going to let your emotional life be run by
Time Magazine?
I'm obsessed by Time Magazine.
I read it every week.
Its cover stares at me every time I slink past the corner
candystore.
I read it in the basement of the Berkeley Public Library.
It's always telling me about responsibility. Business-
men are serious. Movie producers are serious.
Everybody's serious but me.
It occurs to me that I am America.
I am talking to myself again.
Asia is rising against me.
I haven't got a chinaman's chance.
I'd better consider my national resources.
My national resources consist of two joints of
marijuana millions of genitals an unpublishable
private literature that goes 1400 miles an hour
and twenty-five-thousand mental institutions.
I say nothing about my prisons nor the millions of
underprivileged who live in my flowerpots
under the light of five hundred suns.
I have abolished the whorehouses of France, Tangiers
is the next to go.
My ambition is to be President despite the fact that
I'm a Catholic.
America how can I write a holy litany in your silly
mood?
I will continue like Henry Ford my strophes are as
individual as his automobiles more so they're
all different sexes.
America I will sell you strophes $2500 apiece $500
down on your old strophe
America free Tom Mooney
America save the Spanish Loyalists
America Sacco & Vanzetti must not die
America I am the Scottsboro boys.
America when I was seven momma took me to Com-
munist Cell meetings they sold us garbanzos a
handful per ticket a ticket costs a nickel and the
speeches were free everybody was angelic and
sentimental about the workers it was all so sin-
cere you have no idea what a good thing the
party was in 1835 Scott Nearing was a grand
old man a real mensch Mother Bloor made me
cry I once saw Israel Amter plain. Everybody
must have been a spy.
America you don't really want to go to war.
America it's them bad Russians.
Them Russians them Russians and them Chinamen.
And them Russians.
The Russia wants to eat us alive. The Russia's power
mad. She wants to take our cars from out our
garages.
Her wants to grab Chicago. Her needs a Red Readers'
Digest. Her wants our auto plants in Siberia.
Him big bureaucracy running our fillingsta-
tions.
That no good. Ugh. Him make Indians learn read.
Him need big black niggers. Hah. Her make us
all work sixteen hours a day. Help.
America this is quite serious.
America this is the impression I get from looking in
the television set.
America is this correct?
I'd better get right down to the job.
It's true I don't want to join the Army or turn lathes
in precision parts factories, I'm nearsighted and
psychopathic anyway.
America I'm putting my queer shoulder to the wheel.
- Berkeley, January 17, 1956

Thanks SlingFade for the intelligent perspective. I too want to vomit when I see all the people posting here with the intent to politicize this tragedy to further their own political agenda. 
Godspeed to all the victims and families affected.

Here is a good article on this.

Today Online: "A turning point in U.S. discourse"

"What is different about this moment is the emergence of a political culture - on blogs and Twitter and cable television - that so loudly and readily reinforces the dark visions of political extremists, often for profit or political gain. 

It was not clear Saturday whether the alleged shooter in Tucson was motivated by any real political philosophy or by voices in his head, or perhaps by both. But it is hard not to think he was at least partly influenced by a debate that often seems to conflate philosophical disagreement with some kind of political Armageddon."

This is rather repetitive of the excellent point that Bad Cat! just made, but I thought I'd post it anyways...

Michael Moore tweets: "If a Detroit Muslim put a map on the web w/crosshairs on 20 pols, then 1 of them got shot, where would he b sitting right now? Just asking."

I stopped believing in "turning points" after we were told that, post-9/11, the fascination with junk in our culture and/or irony were goners. Seems it has come on even stronger.

Where were you when.................

http://michellemalkin.com/2011/01/10/the-progressive-climate-of-hate-an-illustrated-primer-2000-2010/

There are kooks on both side of every issue.