Is picking on airheads not a waste of time?

Damn she is just one scary person. She'll step over her own mother just to get what she wants.

And I had to hit 'reload' to see the comment. Why does Gothamist try to incite murder? Reload?! My god.

She's a fucking moron. Anyone not aware of the loaded history of that term has no business using it. Hell, why not say "the media wants me to sit in the back of the bus" or "they want to send me to a reservation" while she's at it as well?

And this isn't even getting into her shameless attention-whoring on a day that was supposed to be about the victims of this shooting, although it seems Palin considers herself one as well.

All this from a self-proclaimed "leadership figure". Yeah, right.

oh crap! I've called restaurants for a reservation, should I do recon first to make sure the person answering the phone isn't a Native American?

This doesn't even make sense. Why would you call a restaurant to ask for an Indian reservation (whatever "ask for" an Indian reservation might mean)?

you don't understand the concept of let's say calling Peter Luger's and saying; '"Hi, I'd like a reservation for 6 people on January 18th at 7pm." Don't be stupid, you get what I'm saying. So, shouldn't Native American's be enraged at the (perceived/fake) insensitivity? Or does it only count when Palin offends?

Wow, you dine at Luger's? Nice! :)

I think you missed my point. Your example doesn't make sense because in order for us to imagine the hypothetical host of the restaurant as being offended, we would have to image the host as not understanding that they work at a restaurant. In other words, we would have to understand the host as having an irrational response, in which case, the host would not be justified in his/her response.

This is not analogous to Palin's case. In her case, "our" offense is justified given the absence of another meaning to the term "blood libel". We can, of course, interpret her as not really understanding what "blood libel" means and attaching to it some other meaning (e.g. "really really bad libel involving death"), but that doesn't somehow magically neutralize the primary meaning of the term. And given that the historical (what I'm calling "primary") meaning of the term is closely related to the way she actually used it, those who are offended are not, like the hypothetical restaurant host, failing to be rational. It is perfectly reasonable to be offended by the (justifiably perceived) comparison between the systematic, historical oppression of a group of people and the comments that were made in light of the shootings.

Now that we know that Palin did not mean to make that comparison, should we still be offended? Here, I think we might find some more common ground. Her ignorance of the term, the fact that she should have known better, can still be the source of our offense, but her intentions cannot. Clearly, she did not intend to cause offense, since she did not intend to make the comparison.

(A side note: I personally believe that we can discuss whether or not some of the comments against her were libelous - I think some of them verged on it. But that is a completely different discussion.)

>> Wow, you dine at Luger's? Nice! :) >>

I was gonna say... fancy pants over here. What do you think, yer better than me?

There are some words that have 2 meanings. (ask Led Zeppelin)

You've called restaurants and asked for an area of land managed by a Native American tribe under the United States Department of the Interior's Bureau of Indian Affairs?

to repeat: I've called restaurants and asked for a reservation. Extrapolate from that whatever your brain will permit.

"Crazyhorse Steakhouse, may I help you?" ... "You want to make a WHAT?!"

This is a special phrase reserved for sole use by the Chosen People. Get with the program.

What do the Scottish have to do with it?

Sarah Palin thinks her way of expressing things is catchy and cute and she's making lots of cash which is her primary interest. We think of her as a politician when she's an entertainer and always wanted to be. Politics was the easy option for her way up in Alaska. Who in the media has said that Sarah Palin has blood on her hands? I have only heard questions about whether or not her "gun" rhetoric may indirectly encourage unbalanced minds to do crazy things. If you're on the edge mentally, can listening to bombastic rhetoric day after day can push you over the edge? When I listen to Glen Beck, I laugh, because his line of reasoning is so nutty, but if you're nuts anyway, it probably sounds logical. Why not get the "gun" rhetoric out of the political debate? Then we won't have to wonder how it may contribute to tragedies like this one.

Have the dead child's grieving parents sent their condolences to Sarah Palin in this, her hour of need?

"Mary C. Boys, a professor at Union Theological Seminary who has studied the history of blood libel as well as a Catholic nun"

Mary Boys studied a Catholic nun? Damn! Say that sentence out loud. It's way to much fun.

Was this "Nun on an operating table / psychiatrist couch" or was this "Jane Goodall and the chimpanzees" kind of studying? Nuns in the wild, as it were?

She was accused all over the liberal media without evidence that the blood of the six dead and twelve wounded was on her hands. It was a libel. That makes it a "blood libel." The only stupidity on display here is the linking of her with the non-political killer Loughner.

I graduated magna cum laude and earned a joint MBA/JD. I, too, assumed that "blood libel" meant one had falsely been accused in the media of killing someone.

But when you go to the University of Idaho, people just assume "ignorance" equates to "stupiditiy", especially if you're a conservative.

Phew, going for an MBA - if someone like reprehensible like yourself can make it, it should be a cakewalk then.

Wait, that isn't a good thing.

Either way assuming like what you do is just what ignorant people do.