///"Concocting connections to advance an argument actually weakens it. The argument for tonal moderation has been done a tremendous disservice by those who sought to score political points in the absence of proof."

New York Times. The Tucson Witch Hunt, Charles M. Blow, Op-Ed, January 14, 2011. ////

Except that no one has to concoct anything. I wouldn't believe a paper that hired Jason Blair and Judith Miller. I am the public and the public does not believe Jared Loughner was tea party member or was trying to carry out their agenda for them. But under no circumstances do I believe Sarah Palin is guiltless.

Here is why Sarah Palin is finished and will never survive running for another office: It doesn't matter a lick about Jared Loughner. It doesn't matter why he did it. Let's just assume he was acting completely on his own and his actions had absolutely nothing to do with the tea party or the RW rhetoric.

That's not what has ruined Palin. What ruined Palin is her actions just after the shooting. Between the time that the shooting occurred and the few hours that elapsed before the shooter was identified, Palin's map with the crosshairs came down and her statement on her FB page "Don't rettreat--instead RELOAD!" was removed. Why did she do that except that she obviously believed that she WAS responsible for the shooting. Then she remained silent for several days to make sure the tea party spin doctors made Loughner into a certifiable looney BEFORE she made any public statement.

In other words, she was destroying the evidence and whitewashing her websites in order to disavow any connection to an incident she feared that she was intimately connected to--that she, in fact, caused. Her actions are as transparent as a glass window. She was already distancing herself from her own rhetoric and tactics to prepare for the possibility that the shooter was, in fact, one of her dedicated followers. THAT is damning.

So if she somehow manages to throw her hat in the race in 2012 (and the tea party has so few candidates with any degree of mass public appeal that this is a possibility), she will be asked that: "Why did you remove your map and your 'reload' statement immediately after the shooting occurred and before anyone knew who the shooter was?"

What can she possibly answer when the only possible answer is that she was afraid that her words and tactics caused it? And why would she fear that except she knew perfectly well that the tactics were at best questionable and at worst capable of pushing a whacko to kill someone on her target list?

Then to get up a few days later and say, "See? He was just a whack job! It had nothing to do with me!" Doesn't hide the truth: she obviously thought right after the shooting that it did have something to do with her. She was acknowledging that the people who were calling for her to take down the map and tone down the rhetoric were right.