Was the Shooting in Arizona an Exercise in Free Speech?

We do not know why the shooter targeted Rep. Giffords. Sarah Palin did not arm him or pull the trigger. We do not know if the shooter admired, loathed or ignored Sarah Palin. We will eventually know, and that will be a different accounting. But only Sarah Palin put 20 Democratic members of Congress in her crosshairs, and only Sarah Palin bragged that 18 are now gone, leaving Rep. Giffords and Rep. Nick Rahall of West Virginia.

Someone has to say it. There has been an astonishing acceleration of violent right wing rhetoric. At the same time, the mainstream media has come to accept armed revolution (second amendment remedies) and violence as legitimate political discourse instead of calling it out as behavior that crosses a very dangerous line. In the past week alone, incendiary devices were received at the offices of the Democratic Secretary of Homeland Security and the Democratic Governor of Maryland.

This is what Sarah Palin, Sharron Angle and others like them have wrought with their violent and vitriolic rhetoric that literally places gun sights on people who don't agree with their extreme views. Apologists on the right are already saying that while tragic, this event was simply the result of an isolated act by a deranged individual. There have always been deranged individuals. But they have not always had easy access to guns nor have they always lived in a 24-hour-a-day media machine that promotes a toxic soup of violent attacks on political opponents.

Sarah Palin: "America's Enduring Strength" from Sarah Palin on Vimeo.

We enjoy the right of free speech in this country, but even it has its limits. Oliver Wendell Holmes' opinion in the United States Supreme Court case Schenck v. United Statesin 1919, upheld the Espionage Act of 1917 and concluded that a defendant did not have a First Amendment right to free speech against the draft during World War I.

Holmes, writing for a unanimous majority, ruled that it was illegal to distribute flyers opposing the draft during World War I. Holmes argued this abridgment of free speech was permissible because it presented a "clear and present danger" to the government's recruitment efforts for the war. Holmes wrote:

The most stringent protection of free speech would not protect a man falsely shouting fire in a theater and causing a panic. The question in every case is whether the words used are used in such circumstances and are of such a nature as to create a clear and present danger that they will bring about the substantive evils that Congress has a right to prevent.

Following this definition, aren't Palin's Facebook crosshairs map and words ("Don't Retreat, Reload") of a nature and used in such circumstance as to incite violence? Isn't the Arizona shooting a perfect example of "clear and present danger"? Seems like we are getting no better than the Taliban.

Public Relations Nightmares: Lessons Learned

The story about Toyota Motor Corp.'s problems with the "unintended acceleration" story made history in the Public Relations arena in 2010. Toyota now joins rank with other big companies that have impaired the public interest by ignoring or mishandling information. Here's a look at the PR Walk of Shame:

Toyota, 2010: The most disturbing aspect of the Toyota story is that the company appears to have dismissed early questions about the unintended acceleration problem. "Toyota either ignored or minimized reports of sudden acceleration," Representative Edolphus Towns, a Democrat from New York, told company chief Akio Toyoda, the grandson of the company founder, during a congressional hearing in February. So far, five deaths have been linked to the accelerator problem, and 29 more fatalities are under investigation. Toyota faces a criminal inquiry as well as untold civil penalties and lasting damage to its reputation and to its business.

Bridgestone/Firestone Inc.: On August 9, 2000, the U.S. government announced that Bridgestone/Firestone would "voluntary" recall 6.5 million radial tires, at a cost of about $350 million. But the recall came two years after the first complaints that tires were coming apart at the seams and after a study by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration pointed a finger at the company. Almost 200 deaths were linked to the recalled tires.

Merck, 2004: The pharmaceuticals giant faced questions as early as 2000 about the safety of Vioxx. The painkiller, once prescribed to 80 million people worldwide, had been associated with heart-related health risks and the risk of stroke. It was recalled in 2004, and Merck set aside $970 million to cover legal costs. According to some estimates, the drug may have contributed to nearly 28,000 deaths.

Wyeth, 1997: Faced with a crisis over a potentially lethal antiobesity drug combo known as Fen-Phen, American Home Products decided to address the problem by changing its name to Wyeth. In retrospect, the name change has an air of black comedy about it. AHP marketed fenfluromine and phentermine, which were taken together as an obesity treatment. Fenfluromine was linked to lung and heart problems and government and private researchers examined 100 deaths among users. The liabilities in the case hit about $13 billion. Wyeth was eventually sold to Pfizer.

General Motors, 1963: In his groundbreaking book on the U.S. auto industry, Unsafe at Any Speed, consumer advocate Ralph Nader used one of his eight chapters to address concerns with the Chevrolet Corvair, a sporty compact car. The chapter famously asserts that the 1960-63 models were accident prone, and that GM ignored the advice of a Chevy mechanic, George Caramagna, who advised that an anti-roll bar be incorporated into the design. The company decided to address the situation by developing special tire pressures, which weren't well communicated to salespeople and owners. And GM hired detectives to dig up dirt on Nader.