Quick Thoughts About the Shooting in Arizona

I've been in Florida for the past week without real internet access (checking my email and facebook a couple times a day doesn't count), so I haven't really been up to date on anything beyond basic cable news. I'm slowly catching up, but I'll probably have to be content with missing about three days worth of blogs, especially because I want to head to the pool in a couple of minutes to catch the last hour of today's sunshine. (I'm going home tomorrow night- I have to enjoy every minute I have in the only state in America that currently has no snow!)

So I'll just post some quick thoughts about the awful shooting this week and even though my quick skimming this afternoon has shown that many people have written smarter and more articulate thoughts than my own, here's what I have from the shooting in Arizona this week:

1. Inflammatory rhetoric is bad; blaming shooting sprees on inflammatory rhetoric is also pretty bad.

2. I keep imagining the situation of these parents, who have been holed up in their home, basically crying for days straight. Most parents don't know what they're doing when they raise kids, and especially ones with severe mental illnesses. Parents, cops, friends and the university didn't see this coming, but everyone besides the parents can move on.

3. Sarah Palin is just...I don't even have words. Josh Marshall from TPM put it best- "Today has been set aside to honor the victims of the Tucson massacre. And Sarah Palin has apparently decided she's one of them." (Ezra Klein had very good response, check it out.)

4. Pretty impressed with Boehner through all this. Make fun of his constant weeping all you want, but there's something to be said for emotional politicians when tragedies hit. It's good for America to remember that the most important part of this horrible event is the murder of innocent people.