Gabby_ A Story of Courage and Hope - Alison Hanson [76]
When Gabby was alone with me, though, she spoke more candidly. Like her staffers, she felt the rumbles of the volcano and feared that it might blow.
She was troubled that her district was one of twenty targeted on Sarah Palin’s Facebook page and website, Sarahpac.com. Gabby understood that politics is a rough game. But she was taken aback by the image on Palin’s website. It featured a United States map with gun sights over the districts where Sarah Palin hoped her supporters would defeat Democrats who had supported President Obama’s health-care plan. The headline was “We’ve diagnosed the problem . . . Help us prescribe the solution.” Palin also sent out a Twitter message—“Don’t Retreat, Instead—RELOAD!”—encouraging her followers to visit her Facebook page.
Gabby told me that Palin’s rhetoric had no place in political discourse. “It sends all the wrong messages,” she’d say. “It’s a dangerous thing to do.”
In March 2010, a few hours after Gabby voted to approve the healthcare overhaul, someone shot out the glass door and side window of her office. Police suspected a pellet gun was used, though the perpetrator was never caught. That, more than anything up to that point, was distressing for Gabby’s staffers. They feared for their safety.
After the attack on her office, Gabby was invited to go on MSNBC to talk about it. One of the interviewers, Chuck Todd, asked her, “Are you fearful today?”
“You know, I’m not,” Gabby answered. “We have had hundreds and hundreds of protesters over the course of the last several months . . . The rhetoric is incredibly heated, not just the calls, but the e-mails, the slurs.”
Rather than talk about fear, Gabby wanted to appeal to people’s better instincts and ideals. “You’ve got to think about it,” she said. “Our democracy is a light, a beacon really, around the world, because we effect change at the ballot box and not because of these, you know, outbursts of violence.”
Gabby didn’t want to make this a partisan issue. She mentioned that she had seen “extreme activism” and efforts to inflame emotions among both Democrats and Republicans. “I think it’s important for all leaders, not just leaders of the Republican party or the Democratic party, to say, ‘Look, we can’t stand for this.’”
During that interview, Gabby decided to mention her feelings about the Sarah Palin website. “For example, we’re on Sarah Palin’s targeted list. But the thing is, the way she has it depicted has crosshairs of a gun sight over our district. When people do that, they’ve got to realize the consequences to that action.”
Todd pointed out that “in fairness, campaign rhetoric and war rhetoric have been interchangeable for years.” He asked Gabby if she thought Palin really intended to suggest violence.
Gabby held her ground. “You know, I can’t say. I’m not Sarah Palin. But what I can say is that in the years that some of my colleagues have served—twenty, thirty years—they’ve never seen it like this. We have to work out our problems by negotiating, working together, hopefully Democrats and Republicans. I understand that this health-care bill is incredibly personal, probably the most significant vote cast here for decades, frankly. But the reality is that we’ve got to focus on the policy, focus on the process. Leaders—community leaders, not just political leaders—need to stand back when things get too fired up and say, ‘Whoa, let’s take a step back here.’”
On the day Gabby was shot, Sarah Palin’s rhetoric came quickly into my head. In fact, when President Obama called that afternoon to offer his help and his condolences over the tragedy, I told him that Gabby and I had found Palin’s website very disturbing.
“Sarah Palin actually has a map with gun crosshairs over people’s districts!” I said.
I had woken up that morning never imagining that by sunset I’d be talking on the phone with the president about my critically wounded wife. But now, as Gabby struggled to stay alive and I had my cell phone pressed hard against my ear, I needed to vent and President Obama