This in an interview with Russell Simmons, no less. Emphasis added.
Russell Simmons: One thing I am sick of…I really want to see the people govern this country. And I want to see the people on the Right’s voice be respected, and the people on the Left’s voice be respected.
Roger Ailes: That’s what should happen. You know, they’re using this thing…apparently there was a map from one of Palin’s things that had her (Congresswoman Giffords) targeted district. So, we looked at the internet and the first thing we found in 2007, the Democrat Party had a targeted map with targets on it for the Palin district. These maps have been used for for years that I know of. I have two pictures of myself with a bull’s-eye on my head. This is just bullshit. This goes on… both sides are wrong, but they both do it.
I told all of our guys, shut up, tone it down, make your argument intellectually. You don’t have to do it with bombast. I hope the other side does that.
Listen, I have a picture of Sarah Palin hanging from the end of a rope. They made a doll up like her and hung her.
Russell Simmons: Angry Left, angry Right…none of it’s good. We need to create a dialogue, which I’d like to be part of, that brings people together to have intellectual discussion on how to govern this country.
Both sides do it. Honestly? Bob, do you think thats really accurate? I dont. I dont see the same stuff from leaders on the electoral left. Most of the crazy stuff from the left seems to me to come from crackpots on the internet posting anonymously. The Right wing stuff is coming from the top.
The Both sides argument is a talking point and a hollow talking point.
Exactly, the crazy left stuff doesn’t get as much publicity. I agree that’s it’s certainly not as extreme from the left, which is mostly comatose lately and not in the ascendant. But it’s there.
I think what Ailes (and Russell Simmons) said is praiseworthy, and I bet Fox does start toning it down. This is a good thing. It should be encouraged, not attacked or sneered at.
Let me think… When was the last time a conservative congress person got shot at in this country? Can you recall a name? Just one? Anyone? Take a tally. Those that have been shot at, or assassinated throughout our history have fit what we currently call progressive and/or liberal. (They may have not had the title at the time, but I doubt any person would call Lincon a conservative today.)
I recall bricks being thrown through Democratic senators windows after the 2008 elections (Giffords included). I recall the VP candidate from one party talking about “reloading” instead of retreating. And I recall loud negative epitaphs being broadcast to my TV via the mic worn by McCain, which he apparently didn’t hear it” and didn’t speak out against even once they were brought to his attention.
This isn’t a “everyone needs to calm down” issue. There’s clear rhetoric coming from the leadership of the right wing movement in this country. The talking heads on Fox and other places are literally calling for an armed resurgence to “take back our country”, and encouraging every whacko out there to do violent things. Do you think a politically imbalanced person watching Rachel Maddow would be inspired by here to go shoot Bohner? I doubt it. The rhetoric she, and most of the left, uses tends to be non-violent by nature.
I’m not saying it’s a bad idea to tone down the rhetoric. I’m saying that one side has their amplifier turned all the way up, but they seem to be the side asking for everyone else to turn it down.
George Wallace was shot and crippled, that’s the only one I can think of on the right.
However, in the 60’s there were definitely loonies on the left, like SLA .The Black Panthers openly carried guns, a police officer was killed by a bomb from an attempted bank robbery by I think SLA, the Weather Underground blew up stuff and themselves once in that Greenwich townhouse, and lots of folks carried Off The Pigs signs. But the left is mostly power snoozing now and the right is in ascendant. Marginal people in the 60’s were drawn to the left, now they’re drawn to the right.
Both parties have used gun imagery. And absolutely, the right has been using it much more and also been hyper aggressive. One reason for that is Congressional Dems and Obama never call them on it. They apparently never use their amplifier at all.
And it’s fine with me if everyone tones it down now. Would you rather we go spinning into the abyss?
George Lincoln Rockwell, though he was a fringe movement leader and of course Presidents Reagan and Ford (twice in a month).