"Dead to me"

You know what? I'm willing to bet that there are some football fans in Indianapolis today who woke up this morning and said, "Peyton Manning is dead to me now", just as there were Mets fans who cried into their beer after Carlos Beltran struck out with the bat on his shoulder in game 7 of the 2006 NLCS that Beltran was dead to them.

This poster at Democratic Underground cried in 2008 that Keith Olbermann was dead to him/her now.

A blogger named Gethyn Pugh said TODAY that Morrissey is dead to her now.

Greg Pollowitz of National Review posted in May that Heinz Ketchup was dead to him now.

Henry Blodget said in June that Tiger Woods is dead to him now.

Gene Weingarten lamented last September in the Washington Post that English -- the entire language -- is dead to him now.

Matthew Berry at ESPN has an entire LIST of people who are "dead to him." LeBron James is at the top of that list.

Here's a site called Colbert Is Dead To Me.

Here's a guy who says that busty reality show personality Kendra Wilkinson is dead to him.

Singer Amy Winehouse ranted online back in September that 'Mark Ronson Is Dead To Me'.

Need I go on? Or do you get the picture?

The Urban Dictionary describes "dead to me" as "old english saying that was used to announce that the person in question was disowned or would never be "seen, or heard" again." You know, sort of like the "shunning", like the Amish do. It doesn't mean "I'm going to kill [person in question]." It doesn't even mean that you wish the person in question dead. It means "as if the other person is gone forever from your life." There are many ways a person can be gone from one's life. Yes, that person can die. You can also decide to cut said person out of your life, in which case that person is [as if] dead to you.

New York Times hack Matt Bai is clearly too stupid, or wanting too much to have access to the new Republican House of Representatives, to understand this distinction:

Within minutes of the first reports Saturday that Representative Gabrielle Giffords, an Arizona Democrat, and a score of people with her had been shot in Tucson, pages began disappearing from the Web. One was Sarah Palin’s infamous “cross hairs” map from last year, which showed a series of contested Congressional districts, including Ms. Giffords’s, with gun targets trained on them. Another was from Daily Kos, the liberal blog, where one of the congresswoman’s apparently liberal constituents declared her “dead to me” after Ms. Giffords voted against Nancy Pelosi in House leadership elections last week.

Yup. A blogger who had decided to refuse to ever support Gabrielle Giffords again and who used a figure of speech is exactly the same as a former Vice-Presidential and possible presidential candidate leaving this on her web site long after the election. A blogger who uses a figure of speech is exactly the same as said potential presidential candidate citing the bullseyes on said map in a tweet sent after the election, and then having her spokesperson try to convince us that they're "surveyor symbols." A blogger who uses a figure of speech is exactly the same as supporters of a potential presidential candidate who post a video alluding to her shooting and killing another potential presidential candidate. A blogger who uses a figure of speech is exactly the same as a Senate candidate saying that if Congress doesn't adhere to the Teabagger agenda, "second amendment remedies" might be required.

Said blogger posts as BoyBlue over at Daily Kos. Said blogger removed said post which contained said figure of speech because said blogger realized that in light of what happened to Rep. Giffords yesterday, the post was in bad taste. Nowhere in said post did said blogger threaten Rep. Giffords. Still...this blogger recognized how the words could be misconstrued...and has apologized and explained:

Most of you know by now my diary bemoaning Rep. Giffords' voting against Nancy Pelosi has been taken by the far right to preemptively protect themselves when it is inevitably found out that the perps against Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords are tied to the far right and even perhaps (not saying this definitively) to the Jesse Kelly campaign or simply some of his disgruntled sour grapes supporters. I was not happy with MY congresswoman feeding into the then emerging media narrative at the time (not anymore because the shooting has overshadowed everything), that NINETEEN fellow Dems voted against former Speaker Nancy Pelosi as our leader in the House. At the time of the vote for leader, Giffords voted for Rep. Lewis, whom I admire deeply. However, the media of course spun ALL 19 votes against Pelosi as disgruntled Democrats who voted against her because Pelosi was too far to the Left. Giffords herself told me how much she admires Nancy Pelosi.

Thus, I considered it a betrayal that Giffords would feed into that false media meme of a mini "revolt" against Nancy Pelosi by those in her own party. This is especially meaningful because Giffords' name was listed along with Heath Shuler's. I made a VERY poor choice of words when I partially titled the diary, "now dead to me." Of course i wished no harm to Gabby. I still LIKED and LIKE her (everyone who knows her does, she has this infectious smile and demeanor); however, I spent my money, my family spent their money, and we all volunteered for her campaigns ever since she ran for the CD for the first time. And we weren't happy with her feeding into that media narrative against Pelosi. My mom even cried when she heard of Gabby's vote. My mom and i ADORE Speaker Pelosi.

I am an atheist so I have NOT prayed in the traditional sense for all the victims, including Gabby. BUT, i have definitely sent many positive thoughts her way and keep hoping she will make a FULL recovery. My father is a GOPer and he is Catholic and HE has prayed for Giffords. My mom and I cried when we heard the news yesterday. I had been invited to attend the event, but my mom, who has health issues, had dizzying spells; thus, at the VERY last minute, I decided not to go to the event. My reason for going to the event would have been to ask her what was she thinking by feeding into this anti-Pelosi and anti-111th Congress as being too liberal for the nation narrative. My mom is grateful she was dizzy, because I could have been a casualty. I live seven miles from the location of the event. I would bet my house that it will come out that some disgruntled former Jesse Kelly rightwing supporters did this. Most of you have no idea just what kind of far rightwing nut Jesse Kelly is and just how crazed, not unlike Nazis, his supporters were. I was at Tucson's yearly gay pride festival in October. I was driving a full-size pickup (i'm a good liberal now, driving a hybrid, haha). I had Gabby paraphernalia ALL over the truck, including large yard signs attached to it. I was attempting to leave, making an attempt to drive out of the park's parking lot where the gay pride event was held, and a bunch of Kelly "church" people LITERALLY attacked my vehicle, banging on it, including one with a large stick.

They yelled that "of course all of that bitch's (Giffords') supporters were 'god-hating' faggots!" They threatened to pull me out of my truck and beat "some sense" into me. I replied to them in VERY vulgar terms and told them through my rolled-down window that if they didn't get out of the way, i'd proceed to go and they'd get ran over. They replied, "go ahead, AIDS-spreading faggot!" So i promptly drove forward. Obviously, they all got out of the way. When i got home, i noticed they had managed to rip most of my Giffords for Congress stuff off my truck. So it is not surprising to me seeing the ugliest campaign i have EVER seen, that supporters of the fascist side would not take his loss lightly. And the gun laws here in Arizona are FAR too lax. So:

1. i fully apologize to all the victims in this shooting, including Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, for my poor choice of words in that diary.

2. i fully and respectfully apologize to this blog and to Markos himself for the bad publicity amongst the right wing this has caused, including the NYT.

3. i apologize to the DailyKos membership and readership for being maligned by the far right blogs.

THAT is what you do when you have a heart and a soul. You recognize when you have made a mistake, however inadvertent a mistake, and you apologize not "if anyone was offended", but for the act. This is what humans do.

Sarah Palin has refused to apologize for her rhetoric. In fact, she's sent her spokesidiot out to try to convince us that the crosshairs on the now-infamous poster were "surveyors marks", forgetting that the internet is forever. All Palin would have to do is say, "Look...it was a heated campaign. Campaigns often use the rhetoric of war. We went too far with this, and we certainly never intended to inspire anyone to violence, if that is what happened here. We were wrong. We agree that more civility is beneficial to our nation and we look forward to spirited dialogue with the other side."

Would that be so hard? But instead she sends her spokesmoron out to make it all about The Victimization of Sarah Palin.

Matt Bai doesn't get this. Like all television and newspaper journalists today, he's been ordered to subscribe to the "Both Sides Do It" doctrine.

Show me ONE instance where a commenter on a blog anywhere who ever used shooting analogies against George W. Bush or any other conservative has ever been embraced by the larger progressive community -- or by the Democratic Party. Yes, there have been isolated anonymously-attributed leftist messageboard posts and blog comments advocating violence against members of the previous administration. But they never made it into the mainstream, because on the left, we know the difference between crackpots and political discourse.

We still do not know what motivated Jared Lee Loughlin to attempt to assassinate a Congresswoman who was simply doing her job by meeting with her constituents. But even if it turns out that his neighbor's dog told him to do it, that doesn't change the fact that there is an angry right-wing in this country that has been going apeshit ever since a black man took over the White House. And there is a sizable contingent that has been embraced by the Republican Party which regards threats to murder those who disagree with you as legitimate political discourse.