The foolishness of the 'blood libel' charge

By Adam Serwer

Greg already touched on many of the more egregious aspects of Sarah Palin's video response to critics, but I wanted to focus more directly on her use of the term "blood libel."

First off, it would be a serious stretch to assign any blame to Palin for Jared Loughner's actions. But while this is a situation in which Palin has been genuinely wronged by critics, she has already squandered any moral high ground she might have fairly laid claim to. Part of Palin's appeal to her base comes from her willingness to push the envelope in her political statements -- and the aftermath of the Tucson shooting was not the time to do that.

Palin's best move would have been to remain silent, as Dave Weigel wrote yesterday, especially since Giffords had expressed concern about Palin's map at the time it had been released.

Instead, egged on by her conservative supporters in the blogosphere, Palin has released a video accusing liberal critics who made a connection between her actions and the Tucson shooting with "blood libel":

Vigorous and spirited public debates during elections are among our most cherished traditions. And after the election, we shake hands and get back to work, and often both sides find common ground back in D.C. and elsewhere. If you don't like a person's vision for the country, you're free to debate that vision. If you don't like their ideas, you're free to propose better ideas. But, especially within hours of a tragedy unfolding, journalists and pundits should not manufacture a blood libel that serves only to incite the very hatred and violence they purport to condemn. That is reprehensible.

Most of Palin's message is banal and unobjectionable, although it's odd to hear Palin call for "common ground" having previously suggested that criticism of her threatens her First Amendment rights. Conservative blogger Glenn Reynolds employed the term earlier this week. Its use couldn't be less appropriate, particularly since she goes on to reverse the accusation and imply her critics might bear responsibility for inciting violence.

Blood libel is a term that usually refers to an ancient falsehood that Jews use the blood of Christian children in religious rituals. For hundreds of years, particularly during the Middle Ages, it was used to justify the slaughter of Jews in the street and their expulsion from entire countries. "Blood libel" is not wrongfully assigning guilt to an individual for murder, but rather assigning guilt collectively to an entire group of people and then using it to justify violence against them.

This is a new low for Palin, but outsize comparisons of partisan political conflict to instances of terrible historical oppression is a fairly frequent rhetorical device among conservative media figures. Early in the Obama administration, Rush Limbaugh said D.C. was like "the Old South" for Republicans, who were an "oppressed minority." Following the news that the Department of Justice was reviewing the outcome of the case of a white cop who had shot an unarmed black man in San Francisco, Glenn Beck told his audience that, "We have turned this into the 1950s overnight, except the races are reversed."

Given that people like Beck and Limbaugh have spent the last two years trying to convince their audiences that being white and conservative in America today is comparable to being black under Jim Crow, Palin's use of "blood libel" isn't entirely surprising.

The difference is, though, that Beck and Limbaugh don't really fancy themselves as political leaders in the sense Palin does. As David Frum wrote earlier this week, Palin's previous response to the incident was "petty at a moment when Palin had been handed perhaps her last clear chance to show herself presidentially magnanimous.﻿" That was before she was drawing parallels between harsh, even unfair verbal criticism and genocide.

Now, mere days after the incident, with six people dead and Giffords still recovering, Palin is making herself the center of attention. It might please the audience for conservative talk radio or Fox News, but most people will be disgusted. As well they should be.