“The kind of rhetoric that flows from people like Rush Limbaugh, in my judgment he is irresponsible, uses partial information, sometimes wrong information. [Limbaugh] attacks people, angers them against government, angers them against elected officials and that kind of behavior in my opinion is not without consequences.”
“The vitriol affects the [unstable] personality that we are talking about. You can say, ‘Oh no, it doesn’t,’ but my opinion is that it does.”
— Pima County Sheriff Clarence Dupnik
To my knowledge, Dupnik is the first major Democratic politician (a sheriff of an Arizona County is a politician too) to call out the right in clear, unmistakeable terms -and then not back down.
The craven, cowardly Democrats in Congress and the White House who have never dared to say such things have much to learn from the sheriff. IMO, they are just as responsible for the current climate as Limbaugh. “The hottest circles in Hell are reserved for those who in time of great crisis, maintain their neutrality.”
A primary reason the right has gotten away with being so hostile is that no major Democrat has punched back. Until now.