Saw this one coming, too:
As soon as I saw the phrase uttered in the WSJ by the Instapundit and then immediately tweeted by Republican operative Jon Henke, I knew this was the new “beclowned” or “liberal fascism.” Remember, words mean what ever wingnuts want them to mean- that is how it works when you are creating your own reality.
Ash
Why do these people always use super creepy religious terms that relate to Jews? It freaks me out.
mistermix
Both sides accuse the other of using the blood of children in religious rituals, so it’s not a big deal.
Comrade Javamanphil
Predictably ignorant and comfortable with it too.
RSR
yup; it fact it’s leveraging the liberal fascism charge. Because if Palin et al are being persecuted like Jews, that makes their persecutors just like…
nevsky42
It’s important to remember that the real victims in all this are Palin and Limbaugh..
cathyx
Like Rush Limbaugh saying that Loughner has full support of the democratic party. The guy shoots a democrat and Rush proclaims that democrats support him. They make no sense.
Violet
I don’t think this one will work out as well for them as “death panels” did. This phrase carries the weight of history and not in a good way.
Ticktockman
And, most importantly, “libel” is just a couple letters off from “liberal.” Perfect!
-TTm
jinxtigr
I’d watch to see if there’s a lot of reference to ‘we don’t fight duels any more, but” :P
I seriously do not think this is primarily a reference to Jew libels. I think the term ‘blood’ more closely relates to hillbilly (snowbilly) feuds, where the feuders will try to kill your entire family for generations, implacably.
Palin wants her people to be at violent war with the ‘liberals’, permanently, over the insult done her. All the references to dueling stuff are dogwhistles. Remember these people WANT to go back to earlier times.
Ija
I wonder if ADL would say something. Probably not, since it’s the Republicans.
Betty Cracker
@Violet: True, but probably fewer than 1 in 100 Palinites would be aware of that history.
ChrisS
@cathyx:
DOesn’t matter.
Limbaugh points out that since democrats claim Sarah doesn’t know anything and can’t string two sentences together, how can she incite anyone to violence. QED.
gnomedad
The reality ownership society.
Phoenix Woman
Yup. The previous example was how they decided to pretend that “American exceptionalism” was a GOOD thing.
E.D. Kain
Nice prediction. I must say, Palin never ceases to amaze me. But this…blood libel? For real?
mistersnrub
Krauthammer also uses “libel” in his column today. They are like the Borg.
Phoenix Woman
Okay, who wants to do the post called “Sarah Palin and the Ministry of Truth”? Or do you think she’s going to start misappropriating Orwell next?
Phoenix Woman
@mistersnrub: Done to give her cover, no doubt: “See, I’m Jewish and I approve of her shameless abuse of this term! Godwin’s Law only applies to liberals!”
ChrisS
@Violet:
Doesn’t matter. It uses the word blood.
They’re coming for us. We’re not doing anything wrong, but trying to stop them from turning this country into a communist socialist paradise. You can tell we’re making it difficult because they’re accusing us of being violent. We didn’t shoot anyone. In fact, if more people carried guns, like the congresswoman, she could have defended herself. This guy wasn’t even a conservative. He was nuts. In fact, he was probably a liberal marxist. Kos said “Giffords” and “dead” in the same blog post. They’re making it clear that we’re the enemy and they’re smearing us with blood. This is blood libel and we will defend ourselves. WOLVERINES!
G. Nelson Buttnergle (formerly Mumphrey (formerly Renfrew Squeevil (formerly Mumphrey Oddison Yamm (formerly Mumphrey O. Yamm (formerly Mumphrey)))))
Never let us forget that it is the Republicans who are the true victims of this unspeakable tragedy–and no, I’m not talking about the shooting itself, which, while slightly regrettable, is not the true atrocity: the true atrocity is the vicious, vile, venemous assault on the tender feelings of truly patriotic conservatives everywhere. They’re feeling put upon and aggrieved and unfairly maligned. That is the true tragedy here.
someguy
What do you expect? People who are parties to murder usually do object to being called out on it. It’s just that Republicans are better at getting the Mighty Wurlitzer fired up than most accomplices are.
ChrisS
Sonofa …
@Violet:
Doesn’t matter. It uses the word blood.
They’re coming for us. We’re not doing anything wrong, but trying to stop them from turning this country into a third world dictatorship run by him. You can tell we’re making it difficult because they’re accusing us of being violent. We didn’t shoot anyone. In fact, if more people carried guns, like the congresswoman, she could have defended herself. This guy wasn’t even a conservative. He was nuts. In fact, he was probably a liberal marxist. Kos said “Giffords” and “dead” in the same blog post. They’re making it clear that we’re the enemy and they’re smearing us with blood. This is blood libel and we will defend ourselves. WOLVERINES!
El Cid
This reminds us of 1920s Germany, when some unscrupulous, weak-willed surrendercrat types were running around making cruel, exaggerated, and dangerous charges against ultra-nationalist and paramilitary groups, who were just trying to do their job of assassinating any leader they targeted (government officials, Jews).
What kind of country would Germany have been if their people had let that sort of nasty insult pass?
Thoughtful Black Co-Citizen
Just a suggestion Cole – Stick a definition of Blood Libel up there, some folks aren’t sure what it means and I’d hate for anyone to miss out on the gut churning nausea.
And when someone explains to the fReichtards, in terms their tiny minds can comprehend, exactly what they’re saying and why it is so very fucked up, they’ll cry “Yes, exactly! We’re just as oppressed as Jewish people! No wait, Giffords is Jewish? We’re MORE oppressed than Jewish people!”
El Cid
Are they sure it’s not blood slander? Does it violate a blood trademark or copyright?
lllphd
again, too ironic, as it’s an anti-jewish epithet, and the real victim is jewish.
um, not sarah.
should someone tell her?
Rick Taylor
That is completely weird.
chopper
lol, sarah ‘death panels’ palin is complaining about ‘blood libel’ against herself, and after a jewish woman is shot in the head.
what a week.
RoonieRoo
I realize this is just another instance of them trying to co-op/redefine a word for their followers but I don’t get why “blood libel”. I am not surprised one bit that they are using a phrase so out of context because it has worked for them in the past.
They have very successfully redefined the word fascism for 30% of our population and possibly for up to 40%. You have to admit that everyone here has probably been drop jawed to hear someone they considered intelligent and educated incorrectly use the word Fascism in the last 5 or 6 years.
This is just the next word or phrase they are redefining.
Violet
@lllphd:
Ha. As if Sarah Palin could absorb the fact that she isn’t a victim. Sarah Palin is always the victim. Always. No exceptions.
stuckinred
@El Cid: What’s the difference, some of these goofballs are going to continue to deny it whether it’s posted or not.
danimal
So, if I understand the events of the past few days correctly, a Jewish Congresswoman is clinging to life in a hospital at the hands of an assassin’s bullet, and Sarah Palin is claiming that the press is guilty of a blood libel against her. That’s just nasty and vile, and beneath contempt.
Meanwhile, the assassin’s target is a Democrat, which means the Democratic Party is going to protect the assassin, according to Limbaugh.
2011-welcome to bizarro world.
chopper
@Thoughtful Black Co-Citizen:
there’s a definition in the other thread. here’s an example of a real, honest-to-god modern ‘blood libel’ – making up a rumor that democrats are going to put old people in front of ‘death panels’ to decide if they should be put down like dogs. that’s a fucking blood libel.
Xenos
Jim Clyburn, within 20 minutes, administers an authoritative put-down:
What a lovely, lovely human being he is. Makes me very proud to be an American.
Xenos
Jim Clyburn, within 20 minutes, administers an authoritative put-down:
What a lovely, lovely human being he is. Makes me very proud to be an American.
Xenos
Jim Clyburn, within 20 minutes, administers an authoritative put-down:
What a lovely, lovely human being he is. Makes me very proud to be an American.
Moonbatting Average
Even if the righties were instructed in the real meaning of blood libel, it wouldn’t matter. They would say the appellation is still accurate because, as everyone knows, liberals are the real anti-Semites.
jwb
@mistersnrub: If it wasn’t so disturbing it would be funny. I mean, really, someone clearly decided that “blood libel” was to be the talking point of the day. In what world is that a good idea? It’s like The Producers only very real and it won’t end as a farce.
hueyplong
If they successfully appropriate the term “blood libel” for this particular purpose, I’m going to get a little demoralized about the state of play in the US. Surely the Beltway media types can’t pinch their noses and swallow this one.
That the rubes have no idea of the term in context isn’t really relevant to this particular point. The media and commentators surely do know.
Tom
The thing that gets me most about Palin’s speech is that she goes on and on that criminal acts are the sole responsibility of those who make them. No one else can be blamed for them: “Acts of monstrous criminality stand on their own. They begin and end with the criminals who commit them.”
Then she says: “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.”
So, within a few paragraphs, she complete contradicts herself. Truly someone blessed with a dizzying intellect.
stuckinred
@Moonbatting Average: Righties, what about people here?
Alex S.
So, do they all read each others’ columns to find new slogans or is there a messenger in the background?
Thoughtful Black Co-Citizen
@chopper: Oh, I know what it means, there was just some confusion in the other thread.
Never mind, I’m sure that by the end of the day people who care to find out will realize it does NOT mean, someone asking a TalEvangical TeaBagging hag and her pals to pipe down a bit because a Jewish woman got shot in the head.
jwb
@danimal: Somebody last Saturday here predicted the arc on this story would reach upside down world by Tuesday. So we’re pretty much on schedule.
Alex S.
@Xenos:
Jim Clyburn is totally underrated.
JGabriel
@Thoughtful Black Co-Citizen:
Seconded. I suspect a lot of people aren’t aware that Blood Libel has a specific anti-semitic meaning and historical context. It’s not just accusing someone of having blood on their hands.
.
stuckinred
@Alex S.: It’s called an rss feed!
Rock
I’m impressed by the Republican ability to perform an act they decry by accusing their political opponents of performing that same act. For example: accuse your political opponents of politicizing a assassination and using a tragedy to score political points. It’s exactly like when W went negative in his campaign for governor by accusing his opponent of going negative. Twisted genius.
Phoenix Woman
@hueyplong:
The ADL’s Foxman lets Republicans get away with far worse all the time because of their alliances with Foxman’s far-right allies both here and overseas. See also: Doug Feith, Tommy Franks’ favorite human (not).
It’s David Wynn Miller without the colon abuse. They don’t bother to change the spelling, they just go the Full Orwell and change the meaning.
El Cid
Speaking of Germans, they’re a bit concerned about not only our right wing political pro-violence radicalism, they’re not exactly happy about the half-Governor’s use of the term ‘blood libel’.
Not to mention another prominent German America-hater.
According to the article, Loughner is to be defended by the lawyer for Ted Kaczinski.
Crashman
Sounds like some kind of mystical ritual that would be performed by witches in a bad fantasy novel.
Phoenix Woman
@Rock: They wouldn’t get away with it if the media didn’t actively assist them in doing so.
El Cid
@chopper:
You need to stop with your hateful rhetoric. You want to push all Republicans into the sea.
jwb
@Alex S.: There is certainly a mechanism in the background. There’s a good reason the wingnuts got all bent out of shape over Journolist. You could tell by the way they reacted and projected on it that they had to have something very much like it of their own. In any case, I’ve wondered for years how it works and who belongs to the cabal that assembles the talking points. I’ve also wondered how they are so efficient at feeding the points down the chain, especially to the evangelical pastors, without that information becoming common knowledge.
dmsilev
I’ll repeat the definition of the term from Wikipedia so that we have a copy in this thread:
That’s what Sarah Palin claims she’s being accused of.
dms
jwb
@Rock: That’s Rove’s speciality.
superking
Charles Krauthammer apparently can’t bring himself to call it a “blood libel,” but he’s there in spirit.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/01/11/AR2011011106068.html?hpid=opinionsbox1
danimal
@JGabriel: For those who don’t know why this is so offensive.
Xenos
@El Cid:
Libel is Literary, Slander is Spoken.
Which is why legal genius Ann Coulter title a book, which claimed certain writings were defamatory, “Slander”.
The term probably comes from the archaic use of ‘libel’ meaning a formal complaint or public denunciation, such as in a pleading to a court. So the modern definition that a libel is an insincere accusation may not have applied when the term originated, as the term ‘blood libel’ seems to go back centuries. I don’t know if the term originates from the accusers or the accused.
JCT
@El Cid:
Hmmm. Sort of like Pharaoh’s soldiers. I like the imagery.
Redshirt
Wondrous! In this age of insanity, it’s expected there will be absurdities upon absurdities, drenched in ironies. There’s so many to choose from it’s overwhelming. Here’s one:
The purported “Conservative” party is the greatest practitioner of post modernism this world has ever seen. How much more radical can you get then the literal creation of new realities on a whim? And then you could contradict those realities the next day, freely and without consequence – in fact, with great chance of success.
Remarkable.
Karen
Okay, I’m ignorant but what does blood libel have to do with Jewish people? What is blood libel anyway?
ETA: I just read the wikipedia link and I want to vomit now. I never heard of that sentence but it’s worse than someone saying all Jews have horns.
I was born and raised in Downstate NY and went to college in Brockport. My roommate had never seen a Jewish person before and she kept staring at me. When I asked her why, she said she wanted to see my horns. That was in 1983 but I can easily see someone saying that today.
Zach
Closer, but still not “blood libel” –
Xenos
@jwb:
Apparently Mark Levin runs a listserv that distributes propaganda points to the legion of second-tier radio screamers. I don’t know if anyone feeds him material, though. I always assumed that was what was going on with Rove’s illegally deleted blackberry emails, but who knows? My dreams of someone on the inside spilling the goods have not panned out.
RandyH
I just posted the following comment in the previous thread then discovered this one specifically about “Blood Libel.”
I just looked up “Blood Libel” in Conservapedia to see what the truly deranged believe it means in their alternate universe. They give another example of it being used in “propaganda to advocate persecution of Christians” among Pagans, where they accuse Christians of drinking actual blood instead of wine in their ceremonies. They also accuse present-day Muslims of Blood Libel, of course.
Maybe she did look it up after all. I wonder if they will update the definition soon to include “Any and all criticism of Sarah Palin.”
Annelid Gustator
@E.D. Kain: This is OT, but I totally enjoy that you’ve been more able to spend time in comments. Makes disagreeing with you less disagreeable.
jinxtigr
@RoonieRoo: The reason it’s ‘blood libel’ is it’s dogwhistles to violent wingnuts to go on the attack for reals. The Jewish thing is an accident/smokescreen and would not be known to the intended recipients of the message.
They don’t actually care about invoking the history of anti-Jew prejudice, and don’t get caught up in that sideshow.
“Blood” relates to culture of honor, and it means ‘the insult that was specific is now general, and must be avenged not specifically but generally’.
“Libel” means ‘this is an insult, and it will not stand’.
“Blood libel” means ‘this is an insult, and a feud is declared: the insult is so severe that the insulters have brought upon themselves the violence that will destroy them. It is totally their fault and they asked for it, and anybody insulted this mortally would have to take revenge’.
This is very bad news and has fuck-all to do with Jewish slanders.
JCT
@superking: Yes, embarrassingly enough, Krauthammer was raised in a Jewish home, guess using “blood libel” to defend fucking Sarah Palin is a bridge too far even for that schmuck.
kerFuFFler
Serenity now, serenity now!!!!
Zach
@Karen: “What’s blood libel?”
An anti-Semitic myth that Jews use the blood of Christians in secret rituals that’s arisen in several periods of history and been responsible for anti-Semitic violence. Basically, you should be afraid of these other guys because (1) they’re different from you and (2) that means they will kill you. Fairly similar to several of Palin’s salvos at the Obama administration (he’s a terrorist, he’s making death panels, he’s going to steal all your money and give it to poor people) but much, much more severe.
General Stuck
Blood Libel is just Sarah wingnut code for, “death to soshulists”
chopper
@jinxtigr:
trust me. the term has a specific meaning. it’s a very old term, and yes, it refers to the jewish thing.
Zach
Here’s K-Lo on “blood libel” at the Corner: “Ironically, it may lead to a more honest discussion of the phrase than we’ve typically seen in the mainstream media. It may.”
Does she mean that Christians don’t get their fair shake because not all blood libel is anti-Semitic and they’ve been persecuted as well?
Phoenix Woman
@Xenos:
She — and now Sarah Palin — are living proof of Atrios’ dictum that there is nothing a conservative can possibly do (short of becoming a liberal) that will get he or she permanently banned from public life.
Just look at Pat Buchanan. His fellow Cons were all fine with him until he sided with the left and opposed invading Iraq. Only then did we suddenly start seeing his longtime buddies remembering out loud that, hey, this guy’s a bigot.
E.D. Kain
@Annelid Gustator: Glad to hear it, Annelid. I agree.
Violet
@Karen:
There are several definitions in this thread or the previous thread or try Wikipedia.
chopper
well, ‘blood’ means blood, and ‘libel’ means libel, so ‘blood libel’ means someone is literally stating libelous stuff about palin’s blood. which is funny, cause i’m sure none of these talking heads even knows what blood type she is! i assume her blood is red, cause she makes fun of ‘blue blood’ republicans all the time, but that’s about all i can figure.
or maybe the term means what it’s meant for hundreds of years and doesn’t need grammatical parsing, i dunno.
Karen
@Zach:
Is it my paranoia but by saying that, it’s almost like Sarah Palin is saying, Jews are evil, kill them before they kill you.
Please tell me it’s my paranoia because I’ve never been scared being Jewish until now. If it’s not my paranoia then she just began the dog whistle for a holy war.
jnfr
A friend of mine said this morning, Pretty soon it’ll be “job killing blood libel”.
Ija
Jonah Goldberg thinks Palin should not have used the term. If the author of Liberal Fascism thinks you have gone too far, maybe you should reconsider, no?
http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/256946/blood-libel-jonah-goldberg
jwb
@Redshirt: Yes, liberal academics thought postmodernism was a fun way to play with texts. The conservatives meanwhile spent their time and money instrumentalizing the postmodern insights to politics in the age of virtual and total mediazation. The marxist academics as usual were actually onto the danger rather early, but their warnings were admittedly often misaimed and so their analyses easily dismissed even though they shouldn’t have been, and their influence at the time was particularly low, due to the fall of the Berlin wall. That’s how I remember it anyhow.
Ron
Hah, the first thing I thought of when I saw the post on TPM about Sarah was “Holy shit, John was right with his tweet”. And then I thought about a conversation I had with my wife last night. We were both really amazed at how quiet Palin had been since this happened and thought it was a mistake for her. Well, if she’s gonna say ridiculously stupid shit like this, I guess it would have been better for her to maintain her silence.
Cat Lady
Well, it wasn’t Ari Fleischer giving Palin advice:
Who the fuck is giving her advice? Trig?
hueyplong
The comments under Jonah Goldberg’s item on “blood libel” so track our own stereotyping of what the right wingers do, they defy parody.
Ron
@Ija: Have you looked at any of the comments. According to them, some people on the left saying “Hey, maybe Palin’s target images created a bad situation” is JUST LIKE the old blood libel against Jewish people. These people are insane.
Alwhite
Because, in this brave new world, conservative is the new Jewish. As soon as the movement can find a John Lennon they will release “Conservatives are the Hebs of the World”
Johnna
Ms. Palin, what you have just said is one of the most insanely idiotic things I have ever heard. At no point in your rambling, incoherent response were you even close to anything that could be considered a rational thought. Everyone in this room is now dumber for having listened to it. I award you no points, and may God have mercy on your soul.
de stijl
It sounds like Palin and company could use a Golem to protect them against this blood libel. Maybe Cantor could help them whip one up.
Omnes Omnibus
@RSR:
… medieval Christians.
Ron
@hueyplong: Poe’s Law seems to apply to the right wing in general now. It’s like the video of the crazy woman blaming the weird mass bird deaths on the repeal of DADT. One of the “rated” comments on the youtube video was domething to the effect of “I didn’t see an Onion News Network intro before this”. When reality is indistinguishable from parody, we are in trouble.
General Stuck
Tammy Bruce and her Bulldog 44 Special weigh in for team Sarah.
This is all shaping up like a bad Tarantino script. Good day to go galt.
Rick Taylor
I finally listened to Sarah Palin’s Facebook address. It was mostly forgettable, certainly not as bad as I expected. She talked about respecting each other despite our differences which is a bit of a laugh from her, but at the same time positive. The line about “blood libel” seemed to come out of nowhere. Of course now it’s all people are talking about. Given the rest of what she said, I can’t imagine she wanted all the talk to be about that. I guess in the company she’s used to, using the term “blood libel” like that is common and not at all remarkable.
jinxtigr
@chopper:
Trust me… I understand that, but I guarantee that’s not what SHE means by it. I’ve spelled out what SHE means, and it’s important.
I am absolutely fine with those words having established use. I’m not contradicting that at all.
But what they mean now is “liberals have insulted you so badly, that our whole family now has to KILL their whole family.” Which is god-damned different from the implications of your meaning.
This will also show you who’s in the Republican control system, and who’s in the Tea Party control system. This is coming from the Tea Party, not Rove, not the Republicans. This is why Boehner looks scared.
Ija
@Ron:
For my sanity, I didn’t look at the comments. Life is too short and all that :)
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
@RandyH: But they start out drinking wine, and it turns into Jesus’ blood. When did that change?
Redshift
And remember, the theme of 1984 is controlling thought by controlling language.
Once again, using Orwell as an instruction manual.
geg6
Weeeeell…
Gotta say that when the Doughy Pantload thinks you’ve gone a bit too far, you may have gone a bit too far.
http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/2011/01/about_blood_libel.php?ref=fpblg
chopper
@jinxtigr:
no, you’ve spelled out what you think she means, and you’re wrong. the specific term has a thousand year history. you don’t just redefine it yourself all of a sudden when you hear it and say hey, that must be what other people mean when they say it too!
maybe you can redefine the term ‘anti-semite’ and now whenever a politician uses the term they really mean what you think they mean!
seriously, go away.
Moonbatting Average
Sarah Palin is the Jew of Liberal Fascism?
jwb
@General Stuck: It’s true: Tarantino so needs to make this movie.
TR
@jinxtigr:
You can keep insisting that, but it’s not true.
I’m a Southerner. I understand feuds, and I understand blood oaths, and all the rest. “Blood libel” has never been uttered in that context.
Violet
@Ija:
Jonah’s Goldberg’s dad was Jewish. I don’t know if he himself is. But it’s typical wingnut behavior not to care about an issue until it becomes personal.
kerFuFFler
@chopper: @chopper: “here’s an example of a real, honest-to-god modern ‘blood libel’ – making up a rumor that democrats are going to put old people in front of ‘death panels’ to decide if they should be put down like dogs. that’s a fucking blood libel. ”
Brilliant point!
aimai
@Moonbatting Average:
Funny you should say that. Here’s a helpful poster’s comment from Goldberg’s mild rebuke:
aimai
MTiffany
Yes, both sides and such…
jinxtigr
@chopper: No. I’m not such a troll that I’m gonna go at you all day over this, even with lives at stake. If you seriously think freaking SARAH PALIN is going to use words consistent with their thousand year history, I’m at a loss, really.
It’s her good fortune that there’s an alternate meaning that’s a really tasteless reference, but she doesn’t know shit about history, nor do her followers, so it’s worrying that you’re so desperate to spin her use of the words to mean that specific thing she doesn’t know shit about.
When all the time, she does know all about being insulted, about ‘don’t retreat, reload’, about putting gunsights on her enemies, about being the honorable defender of all that is right and good with America. *spit*
Anyone believing that spin, know that you are implying Sarah Palin is aware of thousands of years of history. How likely is that, and how likely is it that she just throws words together to speak to feelings of intolerable insult and vengeance? Or are you saying Palin doesn’t talk in word salad?
aimai
@jnfr:
How did I miss this? Your friend wins the internets for ever. I think John should definitely make that a rotating tag line. Will no one think of the unemployed bloody matzoh makers?
aimai
Cat Lady
@aimai:
Whiskey Tango Foxtrot? I recognize that it’s English, but that paragraph did a double reverse twisting triple backflip into bizarro world by the second sentence. How can that person manage to put pants on right?
Zach
@Karen: “Is it my paranoia but by saying that, it’s almost like Sarah Palin is saying, Jews are evil, kill them before they kill you.”
No, she’s saying that her ilk are being inaccurately held responsible for violence. It’s not even an approximation of a blood libel, because the “libel” in a blood libel is that any blood sacrifice happened at all.
An actual blood libel against Sarah Palin would be something like saying that she was inciting violence by her followers without any evidence that any violence actually occurred.
aimai
@jinxtigr:
Once again neither Sarah Palin nor all her followers–nor, I guarantee you, her speechwriters–are Southern or aiming only at some niche Southern culture market. She stumbled across the term because it was already being used by other people her people read and because it sounded ugly. Also, I’d like to add that in the Southern Honor complex you are talking about a woman like Palin would claim the right to be defended, not to fight back, on the grounds that her womanhood had been attacked. On the campaign trail she tried to use feminism and attacks on her role as a woman and as a mother in this way–specifically lashing out at David Letterman by accusing him of making a sexual reference to her underage child and using Todd very publicly to “defend” her against the writer. That kind of sexualization of honor is much more in keeping with her role as a female icon than any kind of covert call for a “blood feud.” You simply don’t know what you are talking about from a cultural perspective.
aimai
General Stuck
Having grown up in the heart of feudin’ country, it is true that the term “blood libel” is not one used commonly for this purpose, which is usually based of reciprocation via the biblical “eye for an eye” sense of justice. However, Palin is not from the south, or Appalachia, and with the usual caution of entertaining speculation on what goes on in her pea brain, I suspect she was saying generally what @jinxtigr: said. But who knows, other than Sarah, possibly.
Kryptik
@aimai:
Someone has no idea what the fuck ‘buzzwords’ are. Shellacked is a curious and uncommon word, but nothing more. Things like ‘death panels’, ‘death tax’, ‘tax relief’, ‘government option’, etc., etc. Those are euphemism and loaded wording, with specific intent. Blood Libel is the exact same thing. Comparing this and the use of ‘shellacked’ is utterly stupid, but considering where that comment was from, I’m not exactly surprised.
jwb
@kerFuFFler: She has a point. Clearly, criticism of violent rhetoric can be intemperate and make people feel bad, and that’s just not good for society. Now, she is clearly mistaken in asserting that violent rhetoric is harmless because it also makes people feel bad. But since both sides are making people feel bad, they are equally culpable and we need to condemn both. I must add, however, that critics of the violent rhetoric had an opportunity to de-escalate the conflict and chose not to, so really they deserve far more of the blame in this case. Besides Sarah just winked at me and I now have this starbursty feeling.
/snark
Bubblegum Tate
Mark Noonan’s been all over this talking point, too. Mark Noonan, by the way, considers himself an expert historian with tremendous depth of knowledge on religious persecution. Uh-huh.
Kryptik
Also, just a thought on the real meaning behind Palin’s use of ‘blood libel’….why is the burden of proof on those insisting that the phrase is being used in the same exact historical sense as it’s been for centuries, and not on the people insisting it’s a slip of the tongue when she meant blood feuds?
chopper
@jinxtigr:
she also used the word ‘reprehensible’. obviously, she used the term in its alternate meaning which i just made up now, which means a reproduction of a ‘sensible hen’, i.e. to make a diorama of a smart chicken.
yeah, you and me both.
seriously, you’re wrong and you know it. you’re just being uber-defensive and stubborn (ironic in a discussion about palin). we have these words and phrases in our language that have a different, more specific meaning than the might let on by just looking at the words with no history or context. as i said before, ‘anti-semitism’ is one of them. ‘blood libel’ is also one of them.
if you saw palin utter the term ‘anti-semitism’, would you assume she was calling someone anti-arab because ‘i looked it up in the dictionary and arabs are ‘semites’ too’? of course not. the term is more specific than that due to its historical use, no matter how you wish to parse them and invent your own new meanings for them that nobody’s heard of.
again, get out of here.
Continental Op
The always sane Pam Geller has been accusing critics of Israeli tactics in Gaza and Lebanon of blood libel for some time now.
J
@chopper: A devastating observation. If it’s too much to expect the right wing crazies who dominate the public discourse in our land to stop lying and slandering, is it also too much to expect the press and media to stop treating false and libelous accusations like the ‘death panels’ as all in good fun. As a commenter at Kevin Drum’s site put it in response to the, possibly sensible, point that the targets by themselves weren’t that big a deal, it’s the targets, the gun talk in combination with the vicious lies.
jinxtigr
@aimai: My friend, I hope to fuck I don’t. I hope like hell I’m completely full of shit here, and Palin is trying to peaceably align herself with Jewish victims of hideous libel, without any intent to goad on retribution.
I really, really hope you’re right, and that I am wrong. If you are right, I will be the most gratefully apologizing idiot you ever saw, and I’ll be really happy.
I wish I could be that happy and secure, but I’m still worried, and I want to see what gets stirred up by this.
DannyB
@G. Nelson Buttnergle (formerly Mumphrey (formerly Renfrew Squeevil (formerly Mumphrey Oddison Yamm (formerly Mumphrey O. Yamm (formerly Mumphrey))))): And on top of all that, their taxes pay for services that other people use. The horror.
DannyB
@G. Nelson Buttnergle (formerly Mumphrey (formerly Renfrew Squeevil (formerly Mumphrey Oddison Yamm (formerly Mumphrey O. Yamm (formerly Mumphrey))))): And on top of all that, their taxes pay for services that other people use. The horror.
Mnemosyne
@chopper:
I think what jinxtigr meant is what aimai said — Palin doesn’t actually know what “blood libel” means, so she’s making up her own definition. This is a woman who makes up her own words, so I don’t think it’s a stretch to think that she made up her own definition of an existing phrase that she heard. She’s really, deeply, profoundly ignorant of, well, everything.
I don’t think the definition jinxtigr came up with is right, either. In Palin’s pointy little head, it’s probably more like, “Hmm, they accused me of making that man kill those people, and he did it with a gun, so there was blood, and that makes it a BLOOD LIBEL!”
Shinobi
Can I just say how really really disappointed I am in Jon Henke? Back in the QandO days he seemed to have some actual intellectual interest in getting it right, even if based on a tragically flawed libertarian philosophy. But now he’s clearly just a hack for the conservatives, and it makes me very very sad.
I really think that partisanship is the thing that destroys our political discourse. Partisans are SO concerned with their side being right that they are willing to completely disregard the truth in order to “win.” And this turns smart people who want to do the right thing for the country into willing liars who spend all their time shilling for their side.
The right really needs to find some valid things to stand for, and I hope that if they do the left will be willing to acknowledge it. I don’t know how much longer I can listen to people I used to respect talk about how liberals are evil communist nazi’s who want to eat your children. I may need to go Galt.
ppcli
@Omnes Omnibus:
“@RSR:
Because if Palin et al are being persecuted like Jews, that makes their persecutors just like…
… medieval Christians.”
Shame on you for perpetrating another blood libel on Christians. Everyone knows that it was medieval soçialist atheists who persecuted Jews, as spelled out in Jonah Goldberg’s next bestseller *Liberal Autos-de-fé”
honus
@Karen: What also jumped out at me in palin’s video was her emphasis on the “beautiful service, the beautiful catholic mass” and then the use of blood libel, especially in light of the fact that Giffords is Jewish.
JD_PhD
It’s another way in which the Christianist far-right uses Jews for their own ends. Israel exists so that Jesus can save the born-again, and anti-semitism so that we can understand Sarah’s suffering.
chopper
@Mnemosyne:
sarah palin didn’t write that speech. this wasn’t some off-the-cuff shit in a debate, guys, where she invented some new stupid word. she read a pre-written speech offa teleprompter, written by her speechwriters.
Mnemosyne
@chopper:
We’re talking about a woman who made up the word “refudiate,” then insisted that it really was too a real word that she found in the dictionary, and then doubled down and kept using it.
I don’t think the “blood libel” thing was part of her prepared remarks (you know, the ones that actually used words correctly). It was something she busted out because she saw the phrase somewhere and decided that it fit because of the made-up definition in her head.
I still don’t think the definition in her head is the one jinxtigr came up with, though. She’s crafty, but not that crafty.
jwb
@chopper: My guess is that Palin had little to do with the term one way or the other, and what we’re talking about here is the speechwriter, who undoubtedly did know the significance of the term, whether or not he or she understood its full historical import. And it remains a very puzzling question why the speechwriter went there, knowing the history of the term and all. In any case, it seems a badly misplayed piece. An alternative hypothesis, if you presume the competence of Palin’s staff, would be that it was best move in a set of very poor options, that it was designed perhaps to distract from something much worse or to scramble the deck and allow a new focus to emerge in the story.
Mnemosyne
@chopper:
To me, it looked like she went off-script for that part. YMMV, of course.
If it were any other politician, I might agree with you that the person was using the phrase properly knowing it’s full meaning, but this is Sarah fucking Palin we’re talking about. She makes shit up and insists it’s true in the face of mountains of evidence against her.
Lolis
Someone else has pointed out today is an awful day to be claiming the center of attention. Sarah is detracting from the memorial service for the victims.
chopper
@Mnemosyne:
that would make more sense if the term hadn’t been floating around in the same context for the past couple of days. it started making it’s way through the wurlitzer before she said it.
Caramuru
@Ija:
She misspells a word on Twitter and the right-wing world rallies around her to validate it as an act of genius. She’s a symbol of infallible conservative righteousness. Jonah Goldberg is more likely to reconsider his comment than she is.
jwb
@Mnemosyne: I don’t see Palin going off script here. I’m also not convinced that the whole “refudiate” episode wasn’t scripted.
Cat Lady
@Mnemosyne:
I agree with this. She’s impulsive and pig headed, and probably thought that phrase sounded sufficiently descriptive of whatever the word salady thoughts were that were tumbling around in the space between her ears at the moment she was assembling that speech. I don’t give her any credit at all for thoughtful meaning. She’s an idiot.
jwb
@chopper: Actually, although I basically agree with you in other respects, the fact that the term was already in play would make it more likely that Palin would use the term on her own, presuming you believe that she keeps up with conservative talking points.
General Stuck
@Mnemosyne:
I agree, not a dog whistle for wingers to go on some sort of rampage. More like threatening a spring Twitter offensive of stoopid surrounding all our liberal asses.
jwb
@Cat Lady: But then you are presuming that Palin wrote this on her own, which makes even less sense and runs contrary to everything we know about her.
Cat Lady
@jwb:
She’s also known to “go rogue”, so I think she took what was written for her, took something else she thought sounded good but of course didn’t understand, and ran with it. Also, too.
Mnemosyne
@chopper:
To me, that makes it even more likely that she has no idea what the fuck “blood libel” means. She (or, more likely, her speechwriter) saw the phrase in the WSJ or elsewhere, thought, “Ooh, that sounds cool!” and stuck it in.
I am, however, fully prepared for her to double down when she’s called on it and insist that she totally knows what “blood libel” means and yes she meant to use it that way. She is not someone who can ever admit a mistake or a weakness.
gogol's wife
@jinxtigr:
I will repeat what I said in the other thread. It doesn’t matter what she meant by it. The term is an ancient term and people have paid for it with their lives. She doesn’t get to use it to refer to her troubles. IT IS OBSCENE FOR HER TO ATTEMPT TO REDEFINE “BLOOD LIBEL.” And trying to parse her private meaning of it is a waste of time.
jnfr
@aimai:
Please spread it around! I think it’s a meme that deserves to be enshrined somewhere.
jwb
@Cat Lady: It still feels to me like the term was planted by the speechwriter rather than Palin going offscript.
Krystal
Just saw this:
Running list of victims of Saturday’s shooting:
Sarah Palin
Rush Limbaugh
Figures of Speech
Nick
You see what happens when you fight back? Now we’ve made them martyrs and victims. Now you’ll see Palin’s face more than Giffords’ and she’ll be elevated to the same level as Obama tonight.
Kryptik
I think it’s telling that the Left’s response to his has mostly been ‘Violent rhetoric can have consequences’ The right’s response has generally been ‘HATE MORE LIBERALS HATE MORE LIBERALS HATE MORE LIBERALS, they’re really the violent hateful ones HATE MORE LIBERALS!!’
Omnes Omnibus
@Nick: And if you don’t fight back at all, you lose. I don’t think that this turns out well for Palin in the long run.
Cat Lady
@jwb:
It just sort of comes out of nowhere in the speech, which to me, nowhere = Palin’s brain, which flags it as a Palin game time decision. Like when she had her speech loaded into the teleprompter the night McCain lost after she’d been told absolutely no. But, YMMV.
Woodrow L. Goode, IV
Actually, I think it’s a high-tech lynching of an uppity white trash woman.
But I always was a traditionalist.
Kryptik
@Omnes Omnibus:
Unfortunately, time will tell. Palin should’ve been on the wane so many times before, as should Beck, Limbaugh, O’Reilly, Bachmann, the two Rep. Kings on the GOP side, etc., etc. etc. And instead it gets flipped around on us and hey, look, libs really are responsible for everything bad for this country, LETS KILL THEM!! (metaphorically of course, but…)
It feels like it’s already started…
scav
I’m going to repeat myself in a prequel: “[T]hat woman sure has a screaming talent for insisting on being the bride at every wedding, the corpse at every funeral, and the victim in any massacre[.] Blood libel when not only was a Jew the primary target but a child is dead? Grab that spotlight girl, ignore the dying turkeys behind you!” She may energize parts of her base but I don’t know how well she stands up to the harsh light of the spotlight to those impenetrable and inexplicable few that have yet to learn of her stellar sparkles. Yes, I do know about the other setting of a harsh light.
catclub
@jnfr: lol
That is the worst kind of blood libel.
Omnes Omnibus
@Kryptik: I tend toward unbridled optimism. Both my wife and mother* have used the term “dreamer.” They say they are realists, and I use the term “pessimist.”
(*) Any discussion of personality similarities between my wife and my mother and the psychological quirks thereby exposed may be postponed until never. Does never work for you?
Citizen_X
@Xenos:
I see what he did there.
Kryptik
@Omnes Omnibus:
I think I’ve honestly lost any capacity for optimism where Politics is concerned.
Enoch Root
Just a reminder, in case you kids get lost in the maze laid down by Sarah Palin’s idiocy….
A radical right-winger tried to assassinate a Democratic Congressperson in Arizona. In the attempt, he killed a federal judge and 8 other people, including a 9-year-old child.
Stop arguing about Sarah Palin’s use of ‘blood libel’ this instant, and keep talking about how the right needs to change its ways or more of these ‘lone gunmen acting alone’ crazy types will try to kill more Democrats.
The blame is squarely on the right. Don’t be distracted, or you’ll be culpable in the future.
I realize it’s easier to talk about the minor idiocy of Palin than to hold the memory of a deceased 9-year-old in your mind and stay outraged, but please try. Don’t let this story vanish after only a few days.
Ash Can
@gogol’s wife: After hearing about Conservapedia’s hideously backward definition of the term, I’m not convinced it’s a complete waste of time to consider what she may have meant by it. I think it’s fair to assume that Conservapedia is at least on the radar screens of Palin, her associates (including her speechwriters), and her audience. If any of them consider Conservapedia, or the information it presents, to be in any way authoritative — which I think is a reasonable possibility — then her use of the term could be even worse than it appears at face value.
Having said that, I certainly hope that the people arguing in these threads are correct that her use of the term is not a coded incitement of violence directed to her audience. But given the history of right-wing extremists over the past couple of decades I don’t feel confident enough in their basic sense of human decency to feel comfortable ignoring this as a possible outcome.
jinxtigr
@Kryptik: Yeah, which is why I’ve been making my interpretation of ‘blood libel’ so strenuously.
Mine:
“hate more liberals oh and KILL them now!”- pretty much same message
Various posters:
“hate more liberals OH suddenly and randomly hate Jews!”- what?
You Don't Say
1. I have no idea what she meant by ‘blood libel’ but it scares the shit out of me 2. she needs to be ignored.
scav
@Citizen_X: ooh yes, veddy nice, thanks for the subtle relook.
for those in need of a break, hows about Romanian birds apparently killing themselves in a drunken orgy (at least, here’s hoping the second part is true). I may soon adopt them as role-models.
You Don't Say
@You Don’t Say: Oh, and the truly scary stuff comes * after* the phrase ‘blood libel’ — saying that using it *will* incite the violence they purport to abhor.
jinxtigr
@Enoch Root:
Sorry :(
Is it any explanation to you that, in arguing like that, what I’m basically saying is that (in a convoluted way loaded with dogwhistle) Sarah Palin just told ‘lone gunmen acting alone’ crazy types to kill Democrats?
If that’s what she said- with the ‘blood libel’, and the reference to dueling, and individuals take responsibility for their own actions etc- then it’s kind of a big deal. If she said outright, “Tea Party patriots need to take your guns and go now and kill liberals, for their evil and insults can no longer be borne and will never be forgiven by us” then it’d be obvious what was going on. Isn’t there a pattern of lots of indirect suggestion and symbolism encouraging exactly what I just said? Isn’t it a fair concern whether she is, not taking some radical different tack, but taking a continued doubling-down and escalation of exactly what she’s been about the whole time? What’s more probable?
General Stuck
@scav:
You Drink
You Fly
You Die!
Omnes Omnibus
@scav: If you had ever been to Constanta, you would understand why. The Black Sea coast can be gorgeous, but Constanta itself isn’t particularly lovely.
chopper
@jwb:
that’s if she wrote the line herself, which she didn’t. it wasn’t her going off script either, the sentence in which the phrase was uttered is a pretty normal one, not a typical palin word salad.
this was a written speech, written by speechwriters. the phrase had been making the rounds for a bit.
mdh
Does this mean we can finally call their leaders Judas’? You know, just to keep up the farce they’re starting?
Sasha
I think we have this year’s first nominee for the Hoekstroika Award.
Svensker
@Mnemosyne:
Completely agree. I don’t think any of the righties throwing “blood libel” around have any idea of the actual meaning. As I said in a previous thread, I’d bet that the “blood” part is simply an intensifier for them and that:
libel = bad
blood libel = really big, bad, MEAN libel
Don’t impute cleverness when it is simply ignorance combined with wanting to sound all smart and significant.
jwb
@Cat Lady: Well, I find all of her speeches are constructed like a series of non sequiturs, even those I know have been scripted for her, so this one didn’t particularly stick out at me. But I’m also not a careful Palin watcher, so I’m willing to defer to your judgment if you think it looked like she was going out on her own here.
pseudonymous in nc
Sarah Palin: trolling her way to the GOP nomination.
jwb
@chopper: I tend to agree with you about the scripting of the speech—though more careful Palin watchers than I am suggest otherwise. I still haven’t a clue what the fuck the speechwriters were trying to accomplish and offer either distraction and an attempt to scramble the deck and get something of a do-over. Nick’s suggestion that its primary function was to distract from Obama’s appearance today is actually the best I’ve yet seen, though it seems a rather risky, almost reckless move to make for that purpose.
M!
Say”Sorry” to Sarah Palin
M!
Say”Sorry” to Sarah Palin
http://newsallaroundus.blogspot.com/2011/01/saysorry-to-sarah-palin-former-governor.html
sukabi
@jinxtigr: I don’t think any of Palin’s campaign stuff of the last year or her statements of the last several days are “spur of the moment, didn’t understand what she’s saying” things… she’s getting support and advice from some of the most extreme elements the GOP has to offer. They’ve spent YEARS studying language and how to use it as a weapon… and are experts at the “dog whistle”.
I’ll bet the only statement that’s been made that was her’s and Todd’s was the first very short one expressing condolences. Everything else has been calculated to make the most “noise”, and is right in step with Limbaugh, Beck and the other howler monkeys that are cranking it up.
liberal
@Shinobi:
Your mistake was ever having respect for any right-wingers in the first place.
M!
Say"Sorry" to Sarah Palinhttp://newsallaroundus.blogspot.com/2011/01/saysorry-to-sarah-palin-former-governor.html
Leo Soderman
Bear with me for a moment for something that might seem off topic: an excerpt from Psychology Today:
What does this have to do with the matter? Palin’s charm to a great number of followers is her “folksy” speech. Her “you betchas” make her seem to be just like those she speaks to. But, like the FBI Special Agent, that speech is intended for a specific purpose – to disarm the listener and create a specific reaction. She’s a “folksy mama grizzly who’s protective of her cubs!”, and that is fully intended. “Refudiate” may or may not have been an unintentional flub. But I can say that I am fairly certain that “blood libel” was not. It was a pre-written, likely vetted speech. Someone on her team put that language into the speech for a specific intent.
Meanwhile, the whole “she’s too dumb to know the difference” argument only aids her. Why? Because her followers will rally to her side, claiming “she would never do such a thing, she didn’t know the meaning, how dare you attack her you elitist pig!”
And the subject moves from her adding to the hostile climate to whether she is being persecuted – which is exactly what she wants.
No, if you want to decry this, you need to recognize it was not the act and speech of an idiot. It was well thought out, and served a specific, intended purpose.
opit
What is the matter with you people ? ( as if I didn’t know that the job of pundits was to miss the obvious ) Palin works for Faux News. All the monopoly mass media outlets parrot the same lines.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/thomas-b-edsall/the-rove-legacy_b_603862.html
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/social/prettyinpink/david-axelrod-blasts-karl_n_424413_38251006.html
Huffpo is still lame compared to Rolling Stone
Karl Rove Seizing Control Of GOP
http://www.disinfo.com/tag/republicans/page/2/
PanurgeATL
@Shinobi:
What they stand for is preserving “Norman Rockwell” at all costs. Liberals (of whatever definition) over the past 35 years have actually been helping them do it as a misguided gesture of “atonement” for their apparent sins of the ’60s. Yes, I really do think it comes down to that.