Hyperbole Will Surely Be the Death of Us All !!!!!!

What happened in Tucson is tragic. It seems pretty obvious that Jared Lee Loughner is really messed up. A kid expelled from his local community college for mental health reasons and concern for public safety should be in regular treatment, and should not be able to legally purchase a Glock. Private citizens cannot legally purchase the magazine he used which allowed him to rapidly fire so many rounds into the heads and bodies of folks just like you, me, our parents and kids. Whoever illegally sold the magazine to him should be tried as an accessory to murder and never be allowed within 1000 yards of a firearm again.

I get all that. I think just about every reasonable human being would agree with everything stated above.

As a slightly left-leaning down-the-middler, I also get the frustration and disgust with the current state of political discourse. I avoid Glen Beck, Fox News, Rush Limbaugh, Michael Savage, WHAM, and - for that matter - Keith Olberman and Ed Schultz. I find NPR to be much more level-headed in everything short of knee-jerk personnel decisions.

I don't like Sarah Palin as a candidate. I'm of the opinion that if she was physically unattractive she'd be back home in Wasila. Forever. She'd better quickly hit the books and gain some gravitas, because gravity is already beginning to address that which attracted the spotlight to her in the first place. (I can say that because I'm pushing 50, too.)

But here is where I find myself drawing the line: I can't find Sarah Palin, Glen Beck, Rush Limbaugh or partisan bluster remotely responsible for a sick kid who did a sick thing. I firmly believe the above listed politainers play fast and loose with facts when they bother with facts at all. I firmly believe they further poison the already brackish political waters (and, again, I'd throw Keith Olberman and his constant faux outrage into the same pot). I firmly believe they make it very difficult to reach out and reason with "the other side of the aisle," no matter which side you're on.

But I find my conservative acquaintances to be among the most upright and law-abiding citizens I know. Even if I can't talk politics with them, I know I can trust them personally. Some of them own legal fire arms. As far as I know, none of them has ever so much as pointed a steak knife at another human being. Conservative anger -- or even hubris -- is not a crime. And even if political vitriol might speak to some armed-to-the-teeth psychopath,  ornate wallpaper patterns and the neighbor's dog do, too.

I very much want to end the political polarization of this nation. How can we do that when we take our own accusations to such polar extremes?