Just Talk Or Real Threat? Shooting Raises Questions About Rhetoric

Washington - When Rep. Gabrielle Giffords found herself targeted for defeat last year with a map showing a rifle's crosshairs over her district, she worried it might incite violence.

"When people do that, they've got to realize there's consequences to that action," she said, after Sarah Palin used the crosshairs to tell her followers of 20 House Democrats who should be defeated.

There's no evidence that Palin's ad contributed to a gunman's decision Saturday to shoot Giffords in a rampage that killed six bystanders and left her gravely wounded with a brain injury. But the shooting is sparking an intense debate over whether incendiary political talk across the country — punctuated with references to guns and the blood of slain politicians — is a real danger, or merely vivid political rhetoric.

Many liberals say it's definitely dangerous. They say it fuels anger and could help push some who seethe with rage over the line into violence.

Many conservatives say it's just talk, and that any attempt to blame them for Giffords' shooting is a cynical attempt to exploit a tragedy for political gain.

This much is clear: Images of bloody violence have been rising in political debate in recent years, and experts say that can find a ready audience among the mentally unbalanced

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"Paranoia is the most political of mental illnesses. Paranoids need enemies, and politics is full of enemies," said Jerrold Post, the director of the Political Psychology program at George Washington University and the author of the book, "Political Paranoia."

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