I wanted to give this a few days before I made any comments on it, but the race to judgment on the events of the past 72 hours in Arizona has made it impossible for me to sit on the sidelines. In the hours after the shooting, there was speculation that the incident was tied to either the Tea Party or some offshoot of it. Indeed, some Tea Party websites openly speculated how long it would take for the media to connect the dots to them.

It didn't take long.

There were some who blamed the heated rhetoric in politics, wither by politicians like Sarah Palin and her target map graphics or the histrionic rantings of radio talk show hosts as the trigger to the events. There were predictions of how long it would take for a thread to be drawn to this option and it didn't take long.

As I write this on early Monday morning the national radio talk shows haven't started yet but local stations back east have begun the finger pointing. I can only imagine what will be said locally and what might be said on the national yappers.

I urged caution when I saw a lot of the friends I have on Facebook jump to the conclusion, without any prompting from local officials, that the gunman must be tied to the Tea Party. I was equally disturbed when Senator Kyl went on Face the Nation Sunday and when confronted with the police assessment that the heated political conversation could trigger an unstable person to do unstable things, he felt the comment was out of line and in his own way gently suggested the police officer was out of line.

All of this, the shooting, the motivations and our reaction to it, it will be looked at in a light that unfortunately will be colored by our perceived notions and our partisan positions. Keith Olbermann had a special broadcast on his show Saturday and the underlying focus was to lay blame at the feet of right wing talk radio and FoxNews. Yes, he did apologize for any incendiary statement he may have made, but it reminded me of what my mother sometimes does when she will seem to give an olive branch to show she may have done wrong on something, but the underlying message is if I did something wrong, it pales in comparison to the pain and suffering you have caused. One of the panelist on his show, and I say one but I'm sure others conveyed the same message, said that while the Democrats in the past may have had violent elements, the Republicans today make those left wing fringe elements seem quaint, oh and by the way, those left wing elements were fighting against the war in Vietnam and social injustice, not taxes for the rich.

The bodies of the dead haven't been buried, the call for decorum has yet to stop echoing from the walls and people are slowly starting to lay blame and take sides. This is what I worry about; that those in the political arena will still think of politics as a game. The lives of people aren't pawns. We aren't part of some elaborate three dimensional chess game. As much as I may have reasons for being uncomfortable about the praises heaped on the nine year old girl that was killed, she was a nine year old girl. She had a future ahead of her. She didn't deserve to die in front of a Safeway because she was going to see a Congressional representative. It shouldn't be a given that political figures need to have body guards and security to meet constituents, but we are moving to that realization.

It has been said time and time again that words have meaning and actions. It doesn't make sense to the average person that the rhetoric can be so heated; raised to the point where each side considers the other side evil, then later those same sides can sit across the table from one another and come to a compromise. We raise the stakes to insane levels and in doing so there will be people who won't feel comfortable with the outcome. It used to be people voted at the ballot box and whatever happened happened. Now, on both sides, the vitriol is raised to the point where you can't lose graciously.

Toxic talk claims another victim, That is how Bill Press just started his radio show. The word assassination was used in describing the gunman. While I can understand it might be the right meaning, giving the gunman the moniker of assassin only makes his action more politically motivated than unhinged gunman. I fear the rhetoric, the actions will only continue and the talk volume will only rise.