Crosshairs, surveyors symbols… or cover-up?

Posted on Sunday, January 9, 2011, 10:00 am by GottaLaff
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Via our pals at Windy City Watch (please read the whole thing):

… Palin’s spokesperson now claims in an interview with Tammy Bruce that “We never ever, ever intended it to be gun sights” when talking about the target list that Palin distributed along with the slogan “Don’t retreat, reload.”

Bruce not passing up an opportunity to help Palin then responds “It’s surveyor’s symbols.“

Really? So why didn’t they make that clear until after a massacre occurred? And why did they scrub the website? Is “reload” some obscure surveyor terminology that none of us are aware of?  And finally, intentions don’t count, perceptions do.

Meantime, some on the right are accusing the left of having used the same crosshairs symbols, or something similar. I’ve had tweets directed at me saying as much.

Here’s what my pal _JGR dug up from the DLC, back in 2004:

There’s just no way around it: Democrats have to be competitive in every region of the country to be a true national party, and they have to win more states to have any hope of consolidating a durable governing majority in the future.

The heartland strategy begins by choosing likely targets for Democratic gains. Let’s go to the map:

“Likely targets for Democratic gains.” Wow, that is incendiary! White hot! They “target” states, not people. I don’t see a thing about “removal” or “guns” or “reloading”, do you?

Let’s put this in perspective. People were killed, shot, devastated both phyically psychologically.

Rep. Gabby Giffords is in a medically induced coma, per CNN. They are “cautiously optimistic” that she will recover, but can’t tell how long it will take. She  is “able to communicate” and the gunshot wound did not cross from one hemisphere of brain to other, doctors say. That is the work of a disturbed young man with a gun.

Whether this horrific shooting was politically motivated or not, the point here is the same one that Keith Olbermann made in his Special Comment. The threats and the incitement must stop, because it may cause those who are susceptible, the more unstable among us, to take that final step over the edge.

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  • WordSmith

    How the fuck did you know I was a princess!? I rarely let that one out.

    Those pesky facts seem to have gotten in your way. You seem to have forgotten the two ill-begotten wars that criminal administration got us into. Bush & Cheney got off easy in my book and hopefully they will have their personal hell following their fucking deaths – whenever that may come. They’re liars, war criminals – along with that other fucker, Henry Kissinger.

    The ‘pot head mentally deranged shooter’ huh….I’m willing to bet his views are more in synch with those on the right, probably along the lines of those other extremist who fancy themselves patriots and refer to their tiny movement as a tea party disgusting little girls everywhere. He’d line up pretty well with the John Birchers as haters of government go. However his schizophrenia probably tends to get in the way, a lot.

    You’re a liar if you state you advocate for neither. You’re doing a damn good job of trolling.

    Why do these assholes think being called a liberal is an insult?

  • UnpoliticallyCorrect2011

    Wordsmith-please get off the rag! Tit-for-Tat or what’s good for the goose is NOT good for the gander? Ring any bells, Hilary Clinton? When the Repbus were in charge Hilary stood up and yelled at the top of her lungs that it was AMERICAN to disagree, protest and call out the government.

    There were ZERO outcries from those on the left and their media about the hanging of Bush replica dolls; the burning of Bush and Cheney replica dolls; the dressing up Bush and Chenney replica dolls or posters to look like Hitler. What about the posters of bullet holes in the heads of Bush and Chenney? The KILL Bush posters….I mean for Christ’s sake the list goes on and on and on.

    Iadvocate for neither, but please get off the rag and remove your all might self from Olberman’s soap box and stop being the KETTLE, or are you the POT today?

    As for the pot head mentally deranged shooter— he was in no way shape or form assocaited with the “right”. In fact, proven information states he hated the government all together and was full of conspiracy theories. If one were to deduce from hsi theories, then technically he would be associated with the Michael Moore’s of the LEFT!

    But hey, don’t let the pesky facts get in your way princess!

  • Joeberl11445

    Our democratic process shouldn’t be held hostage by terrorists (which such people are). It is up to the individual politician to behave professionally, that is true, but if some regulation came out of this, that, to me, would mean the muzzling of what makes democracy work… unfettered speech.

  • Anonymous

    I’m implying nothing of the sort. You are leaping to conclusions. I was stating that holding an obviously mentally ill person to the same standards of personal responsibility as the sane is not reasonable. That’s why I bet his lawyer will play the insanity card in court.

    I think the only one guilty of having fore-gone conclusions is you for your assumptions of my motives.

  • whistler101

    Nothing is “clear” in the case with Loughner… you are strongly implying that Palin’s crosshair map somehow influenced Loughner…. It’s a convenient coincidence in that you have NO evidence that Loughner ever saw Palin’s map, or anyone for that matter has ever taken her map as a call to commit a crime. If investigators found Palin’s map pinned up on his wall, or as a browser favorite, you might have a case…. What you are doing is reckless and a waste of time. Where is your outrage against similar stunts pulled by the left? (e.g., Death of a President, Obama calling the right “Enemies”, etc.)…

  • Anonymous

    That’s true for most people, but it’s clearly not the case for Loughner and it only takes one nut with a gun to cause chaos.

  • Mcchief

    Isn’t it time to begin recognizing the role of individual responsibility? This line of discourse seems to imply that people are essentially defective and incapable of making choices for which they can be held responsible.

  • Anonymous

    The “survey symbol” around the net to defend this is just taken from the Palin map itself.

    Obviously, you can do a google image search of “crosshairs” and find hundreds like this: http://s2.macupdate.com/util/iconlg/11396.png
    Any honest person associates this symbol with crosshairs — from a gun, not some other telescopic device.

    Now they are pointing to that Democrat map with dart-style bullseye as equivalent. To understand why a bullseye (which the Democrats used) is obviously not as violent as gun crosshairs (which she used): Her first attempt to spin it as harmless attempted to claim that she “only” used the allegedly offensive Democrat bullseye symbol. When Sarah initially wanted to spin this she said they were “Bullseye Icons”
    http://twitter.com/SarahPalinUSA/statuses/29677744457

    And obviously, they cannot be BOTH bullseyes and “surveyor symbols”

  • Anonymous

    The love of many will wax cold. I remember those days that Kieth spoke of in his special comment. They were terrible. I have been saying here for a while now that it feels a lot like it did then. When people started being murdered, people began to understand. It could have been anybody. It is sad that such a barbaric massacre happened. But the atmosphere in this country was ripe for it. Now the culprits are now backtracking and denying their culpability in the matter and pointing their fingers at everyone except themselves. There is no excuse for this ever!

  • WordSmith

    For a short period of time (9 months or so), I worked for a group of civil engineers that included drafters & surveyors. When viewing Palin’s map the first time, it did then & still does, strike me as crosshairs of a gun sight. As Sean pointed out, the marks appear similar but surveyors do NOT use crosshairs to document or highlight ‘points of interest.’ what total bullshit.

    THIS is the line drawn in the sand. The right can point to one, a few or – perhaps – even several examples on the left. That does not excuse nor justify the right’s damned near exclusive use of incendiary language, day-in, day-out. Their sole intent is to drag this nation down all the while claiming to be it’s most patriotic of citizens. You know what patriotism is? That woman who grabbed the gun clip from the shooter’s hand in Tucson to protect her community & those in the immediate vicinity.

    And fer crissakes! Someone – PLEASE – tell MSNBC (Alex!) to stop referring to Gabrielle Giffords as ‘Congressman.’ She is not male. She is a congresswoman. If ya can’t do that – use Representative. The male pronoun is NOT indicative of femaleness – PERIOD. (no pun intended there either, goddamnit!)

  • Sean

    I Land Survey for a living and though I see the similarity, when we map, we do not use crosshairs to symbolize “Points of interest”…good try Palin, but please, stfu!