National Review‘s Rich Lowry, presumably in an implied defense of Sarah Palin’s crosshairs (or, if you prefer, surveyor’s) map, presents the cover of Saturday’s New York Post. Chait approves. But I think there’s an important distinction here. A long and terrible history exists of people resolving political disputes through violence and murder. No such tradition exists in sports (beyond the carefully contained and controlled violence that defines a sport like football).
That said, Brendan Nyhan is right that you can doubt that Jared Loughner was incited by political rhetoric or imagery and still deplore those things when they intimate violence.