US wrestles with 'toxic' rhetoric after shooting spree - Vancouver Sun

The attempted assassination of a U.S. congresswoman prompted a wrenching debate Sunday about whether overheated political rhetoric was to blame.

The attack at a political event in a Tucson, Ariz., mall parking lot Saturday killed six people, wounded 14 and left police hunting for a clear motive.

Gabrielle Giffords, a 40-year-old Democrat representing Arizona, remained in critical condition at University Medical Center in Tucson. Doctors expressed cautious optimism about her chances of recovery from a bullet through her brain.

Jared Lee Loughner, 22, faces initial charges of attempted murder and murder of federal employees.

A trail of correspondence and Internet postings, apparently by Loughner, reveal a disturbed young man who nursed a grudge against the U.S. government, complained about rising illiteracy in Arizona and had called for the creation of a new American currency.

Authorities said evidence discovered in Loughner's Tucson home included a letter, apparently written by the suspect, that included Giffords's name, described "my assassination" and said it had been "planned ahead."

Authorities also discovered evidence pointing to earlier contact between Loughner and the Democratic lawmaker. An Aug. 30, 2007, form letter to Loughner from Giffords thanked him for attending "Congress on your Corner" at a Tucson shopping centre.

It was at a similar event on Saturday where a man rushed up to Giffords with a 9-mm semi-automatic handgun and shot her in the head at close range. Then he turned the weapon on the small crowd attending the lawmaker's meet-and-greet.

In all, 20 people were shot, police said. Of the 10 people hospitalized, doctors said five remain in serious condition. The others are in fair condition.

The shooting has deeply shaken U.S. members of Congress, who appealed for bipartisan unity.

But condemnations of the attack came in tandem with complaints, primarily from Democrats, that the increasingly poisonous tenor of political debate in the U.S. was contributing to an atmosphere that had increased the possibility of violence against public servants.

"We are in a dark place in this country right now and the atmospheric condition is toxic," Rep. Emanuel Cleaver, a Missouri Democrat and chairman of the congressional black caucus, said on NBC's Meet the Press.

Clarence Dupnik, the county sheriff, could hardly contain his anger as he criticized the political atmosphere, particularly in Arizona, where the issue of immigration is to the fore.

Asked if Giffords had any enemies, her father Spencer, 75, said: "Yeah, the whole Tea Party," referring to the right-wing grassroots movement that has been responsible for the upswing in political fortunes of the Republicans.

Rep. Trent Franks, an Arizona Republican, said Americans try to "solve our problems by ballots and not bullets" and any time there is "threatening debate and things of that nature, then it's very dangerous."

But Franks urged lawmakers not to jump to conclusions that Giffords's shooting had any connection to the state of political debate in the country.

"We don't want to give [the shooter] too much credit here, to somehow politically analyze this, [that] somehow he was making a grand political statement," Franks said. "This guy was a deranged lunatic that had no respect for his fellow human beings and completely rejected any kind of constitutional foundation of this nation."

Giffords was sworn into office last week for her third term representing Arizona's 8th District in the U.S. House of Representatives. Her re-election campaign was marked by political attacks by conservatives over her support of U.S. President Barack Obama's health care reform legislation.

Giffords was also one of 20 members of Congress who was included in a controversial online posting by former Republican vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin that placed a rifle's crosshairs target over her congressional district.