Time Provides Perspective

The verbal attacks based on the alleged causes for the Terror in Tucson were strong and harsh, but not based in fact or reality. It was almost as if "the other side" saw the PR advantage to the old adage that the best defense is a strong offense; however, that tactic was more offensive than offense, and both sides of the political spectrum are guilty of rising to the verbal bait.

In the online newspaper this morning, a blogger loses it: this entire situation is a result of the attacks of the right wing on the left. If Sarah Palin had not ... . At the end of his tirade, the blogger cautions the reader to be careful what you say and how you say it, apparently oblivious to his own incautious use of vitriol to explain how damaging vitriol can be, especially in a political environment. I'm pretty sure that the reason the Director of the FBI flew directly to Tucson was to be the public face of the investigation: the local sheriff did no one any favors by his very public, very emotional, and very, very incorrect characterization of this mass murder as a direct result of political rhetoric and racism, in his mind equating the struggle to secure the borders with the Safeway Shooting. The sheriff compromised the future court case by reacting more from his personal involvement in both the local politics and the people who are the victims of this tragedy than as a sworn law enforcement official.

The absolute horror of incorrectly announcing the death of one shooting victim, as well as the consistent use of the past tense in describing her close personal relationship to so many people whose faces appeared on the TV screen, created confusion that simply did not have to be transmitted to the world in a rush to be the first on-camera with what was assumed to be the up-to-the-minute truth. Being the first on-scene far too often leads to be the most wrong, rather than the TV network with the best reporting. Once those words go out, there is no taking them back. Deaths were reported of living persons; an accomplice was tarred and feathered when there was no accomplice; a murderer was motivated by political rhetoric when it now seems more likely he is a victim of his own paranoid schitzophrenia.

Witnesses stepped in front of the camera in ill-advised media appearances, including a community college teacher and a student who claim to be well-aware of the danger this criminal posed to himself and others -- putting themselves into not just the chain of evidence, but in the line to be sued! A former grade-school classmate of the shooter came forward to share her close friendship with him, although she had not seen him since 8th grade and her close personal relationship was based on them both being in the band. We have been shocked by the link to Hollywood celebrities, including a distant second-cousin relationship with Gwynneth Paltrow, who has never met Gabrielle Griffiths! When the parents of the shooter had the audacity not just to refuse to be interviewed, but barracaded themselves behind plywood to avoid being filmed during this difficult time, the media took it as a personal affront.

And the absolute gall of the shooter not to utter one word: how dare he invoke his rights when the world wants to know everything there is to know about him, his family, his mental illness, his motivation, his proficiency with the handgun ... there is no end to what the world wants to know!!

This is what has to stop: the rush to judgment. Whatever happened to the "no comment" so prevalent in our past? Loose lips sink a ship, but tight lips protect the evidence until it is presented in a court of law. The world may want to know, but we really have no "right" to know until we know what really happened, who is involved, and what this means now that we've figured it out.

I don't want to see my right to voice my opinion compromised by the media's intrusiveness into crime scenes, or the local sheriff's rush to personal judgment, nor by anyone calling me out for speaking my mind simply because I do not agree with their point of view. Sometimes, a good argument helps the participants and the observers clarify their thinking, but everyone needs to focus on the fact that we can accept that others may have a different perspective and/or point of view, without having to agree with them -- or harming them.

What is it the coaches say? "Leave it on the field, gentlemen. Leave it on the field."