Look In The Mirror? Yeah, Right.

Image via WikipediaWe don't know if Gabrielle Giffords, the Democratic U.S. representative from Arizona just starting her third term, is going to survive the assassination attempt made on her and others Saturday outside a Tucson Safeway supermarket.  We do know that it was only a matter of time before all of the toxic political rhetoric of the past few years have finally come home to roost.

Whether the issue is health care, immigration, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, or anything to do with Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama, anger has become a constant theme in the ongoing yin and yang of left vs. right.  Oh sure, there's been shouting matches at town hall meetings and outright racism at Tea Party rallies.  But not to the point where the debate is settled by a bullet.  Until now.

It's the easiest thing in the world to say that the left and the right--that includes politicians, journalists, cable news, talk radio and bloggers (such as myself)--need to step back and take a hard look at how much they're contributing to the problem.  America was built on passionate political debate, but it doesn't take much for somebody to go too far.

You know what's going to happen, don't you?  After a brief period of pious soul searching following a tragic event in which everyone vows to turn down the volume on political rhetoric, we're going to go right back to sniping and finger-pointing with no chance of compromise.  That is, until the next public figure faces the wrong end of a gun.  Rinse.  Lather.  Repeat.