Unfortunately, there are some out there who might be weak enough to take action when she tells raucous crowds that, back where she comes from, "they shoot their enemies right between the eyes."
Although I think she's more a mean-spirited dimwit with a loose tongue than a frontline general, Palin does have enough charisma to appeal to a certain segment. She and political talkers Glenn Beck, Michael Savage and Rush Limbaugh (to name a few) regularly use their platforms to stoke the flames of hatred because they resent America's growing diversity.
The Census Bureau projects that Americans identified as "white" will be in the minority by midcentury, and this may be one of the reasons driving some tea partiers to turn incendiary.
Chants of "We want our country back," as well as some recent threats to some members of Congress are likely evidence of that. But it's one thing to voice an opinion at a rally, and another to damage their politicians' property or threaten to harm their families.
I understand that the tea partiers are frustrated about double-digit unemployment. But did they forget it was George Bush who sunk our economy with an unpopular Iraq war we could ill afford, and a $750 billion bank bailout that benefited overpaid CEOs, yet proved to be a huge flop for most Americans?
Although he believes the perpetrators of America's increasingly overheated political climate are in the minority, Pulitzer Prize-winning Washington Post columnist Eugene Robinson makes this assessment: "We've reached a point where some people's heads are about to explode."
