Four days after Jared Loughner put a gun to the head of Gabby Giffords, Barack Obama spoke:
Obama Urges ‘Civility’ in Public Discourse
TUCSON — President Obama called Wednesday for an end to the political finger-pointing that has erupted in the aftermath of the gunman’s rampage here five days ago, urging Americans not to use the tragedy that took six lives to turn on one another.
In a widely anticipated address, a somber Mr. Obama told more than 14,000 people in a gymnasium at the University of Arizona — and millions watching on their television sets — that it was time to “pause for a moment, and to make sure that we are talking to each other in a way that heals, not a way that wounds.”
Here are some past examples of that good old liberal civility:
What follows is the liberal democrat practice of civility in discourse since Obama spoke of it:
“It’s as if someone is holding a gun to your head and saying give me your money….,” he said. “You can hurt innocent people by not getting your own way.”
liberal blogger at DU:
The biggest asset the Republicans have is an uninformed electorate, so they actually got away with holding a gun to the president’s head.
“Elections have consequences,” Biden told Senate Democrats, according to a senator in the room. The vice president characterized the fight as a hostage situation, saying Republicans have a “gun to their heads,” the source said.
“Any faction in America that would put a gun to the head of 310 million people and say ‘If you don’t do it our way, we will blow your dreams away, we will blow a hole in the American economy’, that is un-American. That is not how we do business, and we refuse to bow down to those tactics.”
The hobbits have had a gun to Boehner’s head from the start
“republicans put a gun to the head of the country and demand all its money! they are the criminals to blame and no one else.”
And of course, Obama himself:
President Barack Obama says the debt ceiling should not “be used as a gun against the heads” of Americans to retain breaks for corporate jet owners or oil and gas companies.
I don’t think I’ve ever seen this metaphor used so often as since the Giffords shooting. democrats appear to love imagining guns against heads.
DrJohn has been a health care professional for more than 30 years. In addition to clinical practice he has done extensive research and has published widely with over 70 original articles and abstracts in the peer-reviewed literature. DrJohn is well known in his field and has lectured on every continent except for Antarctica. He has been married to the same wonderful lady for over 30 years and has three kids- two sons, both of whom are attorneys and one daughter on her way into the field of education.
DrJohn was brought up with the concept that one can do well if one is prepared to work hard but nothing in life is guaranteed.
Except for liberals being foolish.
Nice job as usual.
DrJohn, very good job of showing Democrat “civility.” Please keep up the good work.
This country has gotten so bad since Obama got into office so they have to blame everyone else but him……These are supposed to be educated people what a joke………..
DemocRats and Lib are the biggest perpetuators of Racism in this country. Hypocrite bastards…
Obama needs to lead from the front with this. He’s had multiple opportunities to tell his staff to grow up and stop insulting people. He could have done this while running for president. He’s surrounded by vile, ugly, pompous people. These people know that they will never be called on the carpet for incivility. My guess is that Obama is no different from his staff.
Vapid national meetings about bullying are a waste of time when Mr. Obama is the biggest bully of all.
I hope the voters wash his mouth out with soap at the next election.
Oh, it is only going to get worse. Now the Democrats are trying to lay the credit downgrade at the feet of the TEA Party because there are enough stupid Americans (the ones that voted for Obama) to believe them.
Add to that a movie that is going to be released on October 12, 2012 about the killing of bin Laden. Maybe that explains Matt Damon’s new buzz hair cut. (Damon is a foaming at the mouth liberal). It seems that the movie producers have been given total access to even Cabinet members.
@Helene, #5:
At least no high ranking members of the Obama administration will be facing charges resulting from the illegal imprisonment and enhanced interrogation of an American citizen who was working as an FBI informant.
Some might consider that a more serious matter than a perceived laxity concerning uncivil comments.
GREG, read the post again and what you perceive is real threats to the previous
PRESIDENT, they are talking about gun on the head of who they don’t like ,
they accuse by telling their thoughts, and that is dangerous, remember what threats to kill game out of that kind of talk and came from the DEMOCRATS did you count how many time the word GUN was mentioned?
it’s not perceive, it’s real
the AMERICANS do not deserve that kind of people
you can elect better educated and worthy people to
serve in the WHITE HOUSE,
@Greg:
Hmmm.
We’ll be waiting for Obama to answer for Gunwalker.
This is pervasive among those on the Left.
I just ran across this on the Althouseblogspot.
A man shouts “sic semper tyrannus,” at Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker at the Wisconsin State Fair.
John Wilkes Boothe yelled those words as he shot President Lincoln.
The state of Virginia has that phrase as their state motto.
It translates as either ”thus go the tyrants” or, more commonly, “DEATH to the TYRANTS”
New civility?
I just don’t see it.
@drjohn:
Yeah, Fast and Furious is a large, and metastasizing, issue for this administration.
I’d say that just what we know already about Holder’s obstruction and false testimony before Congress is just as serious, if not more so, than accusations against Rumsfeld by some John Doe who has yet to appear under oath.
By the way Greg, nice attempt at a straw man. When ya can’t handle the heat of the topic at hand then distraction is all that’s left. Right?
@Greg:
Perceived? Sarah Palin gets lambasted by the MSM following the Giffords shooting by having used an image showing Ms. Giffords in the crosshairs for a campaign ad. Something that is commonplace for members of both parties fighting during campaign season. These people that Dr. J listed above, and the post topic down below this one, are their very words. And you claim it is “perceived”? You have a serious lack of intellectual honesty in your views and comments.
@johngalt:
Just for curiosity I am going to sift through Greg’s comments from back in January when Giffords and the others were shot to see what he had to say back then.
@DrJohn
Any argument about supposed “liberal civility” as you put it is hypocritical without at least acknowledgement of “conservative civility” as well.
Using the search term “kill Obama” returns just as many web pages and images with crosshairs as does “kill Bush”.
@Independent2323:
I note that some of offensive comments DrJohn listed were by the likes of ….
Chuck Schumer ( sitting Senator from New York, Democrat)
Joe Biden (sitting Vice President of the United States, Democrat)
Van Jones (Ex-Czar to Obama on Environmental Affairs, Democrat)
and
Barack Obama (sitting President of the United States of America, Democrat)
Can you really find the equivalents in high-ranking officialdom in the Republican Party?
Independant2323,
definitively , the class is higher in the CONSERVATIVE SIDE,
no matter how you see it.
@Independent2323: Which came first and thus who set the tone? Who made this part of life?
@Independent2323:
From a simple search using Bing:
Kill Obama returned 241,000 results.
Kill Bush returned 78,500,000 results.
Liar.
I’ll work from the bottom up:
@DaNang67
Using Google provides the following (please note the use of quotation marks, this will ensure the search will use the full phrase rather than return results where only individual words appear):
“kill bush” = 232,000 pages returned
“kill obama” = 624,000 pages returned
For a search intended to compare sheer quantity of pages returned, Bing is not reliable. All search engines regardless of the algorithm they are based on must first develop an index of web pages to search against. Google by virtue of having been around much longer than Microsoft’s Bing has a much larger index (ownership of an estimated 3 million servers supports this) to search against and would provide a search result more representative of what is on the internet. I have not given any consideration to Yahoo since as of August 2010 their search engine is actually Bing behind the scenes.
@DrJohn
Asking who made this hostile tone is no different than asking which came first, the chicken or the egg. Republicans trash talk Obama, Democrats trash talk G. W. Bush, Republicans trash talk Clinton, Democrats trash talk G. H. W. Bush…….
Go back in time far enough and you have instances such as Preston Brooks vs. Charles Sumner from 1856 which involved a cane fight on the floor of the Senate chamber.
@Nan G
While the quotes listed above reek of hyperbole, the repeated phrase “holding a gun to head” is a common enough descriptive phrase regardless of the truth of the situation. I also believe that describing the democrat quotes in this article as offensive is an accusatino of the same nature as the accusations against Sara Palin for using the styled “gunsight” graphic on her map. While I disagree with her on a great many things, a graphic as used by her is also of common use for highlighting purposes. Saying that either the democrats above or Sara Palin actually intended either directly or subtly that someone should be shot or will be shot is at best a stretch of the imagination.
@all Flopping Aces authors and commenters
And on the topic of civility, I would like to offer some constructive criticism as a first time poster and an outsider from this community.
I have read through many of the postings on this site, and while I disagree with many of the stances taken, I do recognize and appreciate the research and effort that went into many of them. On the whole the Flopping Aces community is a passionate, intelligent group.
However I have seen on numerous occasions that when someone with a liberal view provides their own opinion on a matter, the response from the community is not one of civil disagreement and counter argument. Quite often the response the liberal poster gets is needlessly harsh replies that are not meant to provide a counter argument so much as to outright insult.
As all conservatives are not fascists, all liberals are not communists. Vigorous, informed debates can be had that do not involve insults or name calling.
Just saw a few misspelling in my post and apologize. Staring at a computer monitor all day for a living apparently affects my spelling abilities after several hours :-p
@Independent2323:
Just a minor nit pick here on what you originally said and what you said in your most recent post.
Using those search terms with quotation marks will, indeed, produce a large number of results.
However, if you begin to sift through the pages of results you will quickly find that “kill Bush” or “kill Obama” are quite often examples of harmless phraseology such as “kill Bush tax cuts” or “kill Obama’s bid for re-election” and so on.
Digging in a little further to get past the innocuous stuff you quickly discover that the sheer unhinged hatred of President Bush and the outright threats to truly “kill” him go far above and beyond anything that has been said of Obama.
Finally, you make a point of stating that there are just as many pictures of Obama with crosshairs as there are of Bush.
That’s simply not true.
Put your search terms in Google and click over to the images and you’ll see what I mean.
Independant2323,
don’t you feel alone in the misspelling,
I sure am happy that I’m not alone in misspelling anymore
you know when other from the opposite come here at FLOPPING ACES,
they have an intent to accuse or attack or swear or try to outsmart our CONSERVATIVES,
they even for some challenge the plain truth that some put in their face, SO,
THEY GET SHOWN THE DOOR VERY FIRMLY AND MOST POLITELY.
DON’T BE SURPRISE IF YOU ENCOUNTER THIS HAPPENING,
THEY LEAVE WHILE THEY ARE STILL ALIVE,
just joking on the last line
bye
drjohn, yes, the one at the top leadership and the party represent the the leader, have a moral obligation to set the tone to all walk of THIS GREAT NATION,
they must remind themselves that the eyes of the people specialy the young are watching and picking up the negative as well, ,
their judgment are not set solid at their young age and they could be wrongly influence by those having top position who let their hate words come out for all to hear in their media who cover for them and
let it go unnoticed,
bye