Extremely Grave, Extremely Gross

Today's column psychoanalyzing the Tuscon killer and the mainstream media -- moral equivalence, anyone? -- is a classic of the Brooksian form. Dave sets the theme by writing, "Accusations "that political actors contributed to the murder of 6 people, including a 9-year-old girl ... are extremely grave."

Leaving aside the dubious assertion that any serious observer has made a direct causal link between Sarah Palin's violent and reckless public vituperations -- and the weird term "political actors" -- why are misrepresentations and lies such as the "death panels" calumny of the late health care debate not "extremely grave"?

Little ironies

For that matter, why was it not "extremely grave" for people to bring loaded weapons to health care town hall meetings, a delicious little irony?

Why is it not "extremely grave" for a mentally unstable person to be allowed to buy a semiautomatic handgun, whose only purpose could be to kill people?

Why is it not "extremely grave" for prominent political figures to use blatantly violent and intimidating language and images in political discourse -- Palin's cross-hairs graphic and her "reload" remark; Sharron Angle's "Second Amendment remedies"; Bachman's "armed and dangerous" exhortation -- why were those not "extremely grave" public eruptions?

Palin's Death Wish

And what is it about Sarah Palin's obsession with death? Death panels, shooting a caribou with a telescopic rifle, stamping cross-hairs on political opponents, exhorting gun enthusiasts seriously aggrieved at government to "reload" -- David, if you want to psychoanalyze a public person, take a shot at Palin.

And finally, you gotta love Brooks's castigation of the "mainstream media." Hey, David? You work for the New York Times, NPR and PBS. It don't get more mainstream than that, so please acknowledge that you're no media iconoclast.

Obscure Reference Ticker: Leonard Pinth Garnell

In today's column, Dave cites that extremely well-known writer Dr. E. Fuller Torrey, "a research psychiatrist [who] writes in his book 'The Insanity Offense,' about 1 percent of the seriously mentally ill (or about 40,000 individuals) are violent." That 1 percent? That's about 99 percent greater than the number of people who have ever heard of Dr. E. Fuller Torrey, who sounds like a relation of E. Buzz Miller or Leonard Pinth Garnell.