Cockeyed Platonist (CP) loves the great overarching abstraction: they make the world of randomness ,of the sometimes irrational somehow understandable, intellectually manageable; there is an orderliness of intellectual constructs that the human world sometimes, but not always demonstrates. But the events of Tucson have thrown that orderly pattern of explanation into the chaotic province of the irrational. CP finds the human world of chaos manageable only by constructing his fables of explanation outside the dimensions of time and space, in the more comfortable world of cerebral constructs. But most importantly today his fellow conservatives stand falsely accused of a contributory negligence, regarding their eliminationists political rhetoric, as contributing to and exacerbating  a political atmosphere of  toxicity : although CP will argue against any direct causation, or any demonstrable link.  He, of course, is offended by this obvious untruth and seeks to blunt the attack of his political rivals with a highly rationalized intellectual argument.  Can there be a direct relation between the level, the pitch, of political discourse and human action? CP argues against such a relation, as any good partisan would. Is the demonstrable rabble rousing of the Tea Party, the Minute Men and Neo-Nazis in the Tucson area connectible to the violent actions of an irrational individual?

The sighting of Youtube video postings and clear evidence of the mental state of Jared Loughner are duly presented. Then CP will opine on the nature of the schizophrenic mind set of Mr. Loughner using  Dr. E. Fuller Torrey, a research psychiatrist, whose book, “The Insanity Offense,”  he uses to construct part of his argument .CP then begins a long  accusatory rant against certain Liberal  Media figures  presenting in muddled fashion the notion of ’suppressed evidence’ naming various names and accusing them of at the least bad faith in reporting and editorializing on the nature of right wing culpability: in terms of violent political rhetoric and the part it played in providing an atmosphere of permission for this irrational political actor. But the real target of the collective animus of certain liberal commentators is Sarah Palin; she is the target of this vicious smear campaign. Here CP rises to the defense by citing his moral superiority in overcoming his own dislike of Ms. Palin to defend her against vicious attack. The more apt title of this column should have been, In Defense of Sarah Palin. How are we to forgive and forget the use of these hallowed intellectual abstractions as an elaborate defense of the arch No-Nothing Sarah Palin? The question remains in the continuing American Political Melodrama.