I syndicate conservative columnist Susan Brown, who had this interesting observation on the Arizona shooting and the tendency to "blame Republicans":

Once upon a time in America, civility inspired citizens to pause from partisanship long enough to acknowledge horrific tragedies like the Tucson Arizona massacre for what they are rather than use the tragedy as an opportunity to twist, spin, distort, pervert and misrepresent facts and hurl unfounded accusations in a feeble attempt to gain political ground.

For the progressive pundit “journalists,” civility is a faint memory – if it ever existed at all – as they relentlessly hold Sarah Palin in their crosshairs and justify the politicization of the Tucson massacre by drawing an imaginary line between Palin and conservatives to the bloodshed.

Dismissing intelligent discourse that the suspect is allegedly a nonpartisan psychopath who was booted out of college and rejected from the military due to mental issues and drug addiction, the left strapped their saddle to their tired one-trick pony called “Blame Conservatives.”

The left seems to be grappling to hold on to their fading utopian dream and will do anything, hell or high water, to keep people in their column next election and to keep their delusion alive. The hollow attempt to pin the shooter’s inspiration on Sarah Palin’s now famous “target map” fell short and exposed the nastiness and desperation of the progressive “Do As I Say, Not As I Do” movement. In reality, “target” maps have been used by both sides - including the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee - for a long time.

Nate Beeler / Washington Examiner

Writing about the massacre in his oxymoronically titled column, The Conscience of a Liberal, columnist Paul Krugman flushed any semblance of credibility when he wrote, “We don’t have proof yet that this was political, but the odds are that it was….And yes, she [Congresswoman Gabrielle Gifford] was on Sarah Palin’s infamous “crosshairs” list…But violent acts are what happen when you create a climate of hate. And it’s long past time for the GOP’s leaders to take a stand against the hate-mongers.”

Certainly this is a time to stand against hate mongering, but knowingly casting false blame is a cold political maneuver that fails to consider the victims and their families, including a precious 9-year-old girl whose life was snuffed out. Slaughtered. Is it not time for the left to take a stand, Mr. Krugman? Palin haters have made statements like, “Let’s stone her, old school.” Madonna’s YouTube Palin-rant promised to “kick her ass,” and “comedian” Sandra Bernhard vowed Palin would be “gang-raped by my big black brothers.”

Where was the conscience of progressives, when people adorned themselves with “Kill Bush” t-shirts and donned “Bush the only dope worth shooting” signs? Why did they not stand against violence when the Obama supporter destroyed GOP signs while shouting “You f**cking House @!$%# white-black bitch?”

In his recent letter to Fox News CEO Rupert Murdock, Media Matters CEO David Brock wrote, “Beck and Palin are two of Fox’s most recognizable figures. Before this heartbreaking tragedy in Arizona, you were unwilling or unable to rein in their violent rhetoric. But now, in the wake of the killings, your network must take a stand.”

Taking a stand against violence is admirable, but it is unconscionable to bend reality in an attempt to politicize violence and disingenuously connect conservatives to a crime committed by an alleged mentally unstable drug addict. Like the Virginia Tech massacre, Tucson will be evermore scarred by the horrific act of a deranged madman. It is time for this nation to respectfully pause and return to civility.

Cartoonists have begun to weigh in on the senseless shooting that occurred on Saturday in Arizona. Below is my take on the tragedy. Cartoons remain a powerful way to encapsulate an event such as this in a single, powerful image. Click to view our sideshow of AZ Shooting cartoons.

Daryl Cagle / msnbc.com, PoliticalCartoons.com

Click here to view the cartoon slideshow.

I syndicate columnist Tina Dupuy, who had this interesting observation on the Arizona shooting and Sarah Palin:

David Fitzsimmons / Arizona Daily Star

Last Saturday morning 20 people were shot in a Tucson Safeway parking lot by a 22-year-old who stated on YouTube he “won’t pay debt with a currency that’s not backed by gold and silver.” Fifteen minutes after the news broke, former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin tweeted, “The price of gold today is at $1,368.90 an ounce.”

Coincidence?

Yes.

None of us want to live in a society where hyperbole, exaggeration, satire, bad taste and horrible timing are subjective. Stupidity is legal. So are bad jokes. Ditto for calls for revolution. As are declarations using violent imagery. Pornography, too.

So Sarah Palin has a right to display images on her sites SarahPAC, Facebook and TakeDownthe20.com. On those sites she had riflescope icons over the districts of Democratic congresspersons who voted in favor of health care reform. She stated in bold red letters: “We’ve diagnosed the problem. Help us prescribe the solution.”

David Fitzsimmons / Arizona Daily Star

In March, shortly after TakeDownthe20.com was launched, the window of Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords’ Tucson office was shot out with a pellet gun. Giffords said in an interview, “The rhetoric and firing people up….we’re on Sarah Palin’s targeted list. But the thing is that the way that she has it depicted has the crosshairs of a gunsight over our district. And when people do that, they’ve got to realize there’s consequences to that action.”

There were reports of Tea Party protesters outside her office with signs like, “It’s time to reload” and “One way or another, you’re gone.”

Why? Because people listened to Sarah Palin. They listened to her debunked baloney that reforming health care would kill your grandmother. According to Palin, Giffords was trying to kill everyone’s favorite elderly relative. Therefore, there was a target on her.

Joep Bertrams / The Netherlands

There is no evidence any of those people who listened to Palin shot the member of congress in the head with a semi-auto Glock. Besides being steeped in revolution, a cockeyed view of The Constitution and anti-government rhetoric, the shooter has no connection to Palin.

However, minutes after the former governor tweeted about gold, her website was scrubbed of the now infamous crosshairs graphic. It was gone. Then there was a note on her Facebook page: “On behalf of Todd and my family, we all pray for the victims and their families, and for peace and justice.”

So in a moment of national peril – when a political “enemy” who was on a hit list had been “taken down” - the FIRST thing Palin does is act in her own interests?

In a word: yes.

This is the most cowardly thing I’ve ever witnessed. If you are going to say outrageous things, then you are going to have to stand by outrageous things.

AZ Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords was targeted with cross-hairs by Sarah Palin's SarahPAC.

By law Palin has the right to hurl verbal grenades. But free speech doesn’t mean you’re not accountable for the things you say. It means the government can’t pass laws to make saying them a crime. It doesn’t mean you can beat the drum of rebellion, sell a couple books, delete a graphic, embrace the Bill of Rights and you are magically not a selfish weasel.

Sarah Palin has the courage to delete her convictions and saunter away whistling like nothing happened. All of it is legal. I agree, and I will fight for that: Sarah Palin has the right to be spineless.

Here’s the thing: Palin had an opportunity to have a “bullhorn moment.” She had the opportunity to rise to the occasion and prove all her critics wrong. She could have proven she truly is a leader. That she’s not just a capitalizing catty mean girl who can’t tell the difference between an opponent and an enemy. That she is worthy of all this presidential buzz and not just skating by on some mushy conservative platitudes and good looks. She could have come out strong and expressed regret for demonizing a member of Congress who was shot in the head with a 9mm.

But instead…she cowered. Pitiful.

To be clear, I’m not blaming Sarah Palin for 20 people being shot – six of them dying from their injuries. I’m blaming Sarah Palin for taking down her “take down” map sans comment. I’m not blaming her for throwing bombs. I am blaming her for not uttering remorse when they explode.

Palin wants her followers to “stand up?”

Her first.