Gabby_ A Story of Courage and Hope - Alison Hanson [77]
It was just a few hours after the shooting, but I felt as if I already had gone through the early stages of grief—disbelief, shock—and had settled firmly into the anger stage. I didn’t know who this guy was who had shot my wife. (I wouldn’t even learn his name until days later.) I didn’t know why he had done it. But I did know that there had been an environment that encouraged hatred, a lot of it focused on my wife. I needed to talk about it.
“You know, Mr. President,” I said, “politics in Arizona has really gotten out of control.” I recounted for him my disgust over a fund-raiser held by Gabby’s opponent, Jesse Kelly, in the 2010 race for her seat. A candidate with heavy support from the Tea Party, Kelly had invited supporters to “Get on Target for Victory in November” by paying fifty dollars to shoot a fully automatic M16. His ads invited shooters to “help remove Gabrielle Giffords from office.” A six-foot-eight former U.S. Marine, Kelly was featured in his ad campaign holding a gun, with the tag line “Send a Warrior to Congress.”
President Obama listened when I told him about Kelly and Palin. I don’t remember him commenting on them directly. He did ask questions about the others who were killed and injured, and about Gabby’s care. Before we hung up, he said, “You have the full resources of the United States government. Call me if you need anything. You and Gabby have a friend in the White House.” I thanked him for listening—we’d been on the phone less than ten minutes—and then an operator came on the line and gave me a direct number I could call if I needed to reach the president.
In the days that followed, Sarah Palin received a great deal of media attention about the crosshairs controversy. In response, one of her aides said that the bull’s-eyes on her website map were actually surveyor’s marks, not gun crosshairs. (The map had been taken off the site the day of the shooting.) Palin herself posted an eight-minute video online in which she said her “heart broke for the innocent victims” in Tucson. “It’s inexcusable and incomprehensible why a single evil man took the lives of peaceful citizens that day,” she said. But she also had a message for those who questioned her rhetoric, adding: “Within hours of a tragedy unfolding, journalists and pundits should not manufacture a blood libel that serves only to incite the very hatred and violence they purport to condemn. That is reprehensible.”
Gabby and I both were aware that there are mentally ill people who do horrible things. I don’t know if the shooter in Tucson ever looked at Sarah Palin’s website, or any others that targeted Gabby. Whether he did or he didn’t, he pulled the trigger again and again and again. He is to blame. He did it. That goes without saying.
And yet, at the same time, I agreed with what Gabby said before she was injured. All of us, especially those who want to be leaders, have a responsibility to the higher callings of democracy and civility. We need to tone it down, speak more respectfully, and fully recognize that words have consequences.
I’ve been told by John Coale, a Palin advisor, that Sarah and her husband, Todd, were “devastated” by the tragedy in Tucson. Coale, a Washington attorney and the husband of Greta Van Susteren of Fox News, was sincere when he reached out to tell me that. I don’t doubt his description.
In the early days after Gabby was shot, I thought Sarah Palin might call me to say she wished Gabby well and that she was praying for her and the other victims. We heard from many Republicans offering heart-felt messages. Given that a lot of the discussion in the wake of the shooting had singled out Palin, I expected she might also want to clear the air.
As Gabby remained in her coma, and I sat by her side, I found myself thinking about what I would say if the phone rang and it was Palin. I even ended up constructing a few precise words.
“Thank you for reaching out,” I planned to tell her. “Gabby is hanging in there. Thank you for asking.”
I would have listened to what Palin had to