Palin: The price of pugnacity

After a madman’s shooting spree in Tucson, Palin was once again at the center of controversy as she defended herself against charges that she was to blame for the violence.

If Sarah Palin ever had any chance of becoming president, said Doyle McManus in the Los Angeles Times, it’s now over. After a madman’s recent shooting spree in Tucson, Palin found herself, once again, at the center of controversy—and “rather than rise to the occasion,” she succumbed to bitter partisanship and rancor. Liberal pundits had strongly criticized Palin for putting a gun’s crosshairs on Rep. Gabrielle Giffords’ district this fall, suggesting that she had created a climate that led to the shooting. In response, a defensive Palin said it was the Left that was fomenting violence, and accused her critics of “a blood libel”—a term usually reserved for the monstrous charge that Jews drank Christian babies’ blood. Her loyal fans undoubtedly loved Palin’s “pugnacity,” but moderate Republicans and independents want confident leaders with stature who can show grace under pressure. Palin should have kept her mouth shut during this very sensitive time, said Debra J. Saunders in the San Francisco Chronicle. But she’s “addicted to attention.”

It’s not Palin’s fault that she was “dragged into the controversy,” said Kathryn Jean Lopez in National Review Online. “Given the promiscuous use of her name in four days of news coverage,” she had to defend herself from the scurrilous attempt to blame her for Giffords’ shooting. When she answered unfair criticism with confrontation, said Patrik Jonsson in The Christian Science Monitor, Palin was simply being consistent. Her campaign motto last fall—“Don’t retreat, reload”—was not a call to violence, but her way of urging fellow conservatives to stand up to the criticism and scorn of the media and blue-state elites. Her critics may find that kind of strength and courage divisive, but “to backers, it sets her apart.”

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