Another Ohio Democrat, Steve Driehaus, clashed repeatedly with Boehner before losing his seat in the midterm elections. After Boehner suggested that by voting for Obamacare, Driehaus "may be a dead man" and "can't go home to the west side of Cincinnati" because "the Catholics will run him out of town," Driehaus began receiving death threats, and a right-wing website published directions to his house. Driehaus says he approached Boehner on the floor and confronted him. "I didn't think it was funny at all," Driehaus says. "I've got three little kids and a wife. I said to him, 'John, this is bullshit, and way out of bounds. For you to say something like that is wildly irresponsible.'" Driehaus is quick to point out that he doesn't think Boehner meant to urge anyone to violence. "But it's not about what he intended — it's about how the least rational person in my district takes it. We run into some crazy people in this line of work." (emphasis mine) Driehaus says Boehner was "taken aback" when confronted on the floor, but never actually said he was sorry: "He said something along the lines of, 'You know that's not what I meant.' But he didn't apologize."

That bears repeating: "It's not about what he intended -- it's about how the least rational person in my district takes it." And confronted with the obviousness of that appeal, the John Boehners of the world don't apologize. They just keep the steamroller of hate running right along through Crazytown until somebody inevitably gets hurt.

There's been a lot of jostling between the right and left, each trying to paint the murderous gunman as a member of the Other Side. The truth is that the murderer is a paranoid libertarian whackadoo, closer to the Right than to the Left, but not fitting neatly into either mold. He's much more Alex Jones than Glenn Beck or any Lefty equivalent. John Cole perhaps said it best:

The point we have been trying to make for the last couple of years is that Republicans need to stop whipping up crazy people with violent political rhetoric. This is really not a hard concept to follow. There are crazy people out there. Stop egging them on.

Exactly. This is not about what the shooter is or is not, from a purely political point of view. He's a nutcase. What matters is that when irresponsible charlatans like Sarah Palin plant surveying targets bullseyes on members of Congress, that has an effect on the least rational people in those districts. Particularly on those least rational individuals given to potentially violent paranoia. This is the Becking of America: the promotion of hate speech to provoke the irrational into violent conduct, while giving the promoter plausible deniability. After all, that's not what they meant, right?

The conversation between Driehaus and Boehner, quoted presciently by Taibbi last week, needs to be retold again and again in the wake of the Giffords shooting. Especially in the context of the paranoid lies and deceit that lay like a dark shroud over the healthcare debate at the time, it is exemplary of everything that is wrong with the modern Right.

If the John Boehners of the world are not deliberately shamed into changing their rhetoric and their behavior, this sort of tragedy will happen again and again, with devastating consequences.