Stumping for McCain, Sarah Palin dials back the gun rhetoric

But the debate over the newly enacted healthcare reform law is far from over. And even if the rhetoric has cooled down for now, both sides are bracing for more wrangling to come.

Palin always garners attention. Her speech at the McCain rally was carried live on national cable. On Saturday, she is the headliner at a tea party “mega rally” in Searchlight, Nev., hometown of Senate majority leader Harry Reid (D) of Nevada.

In Tucson, Palin spoke of “this BS coming from the lamestream media, lately, about us inciting violence.”

“Don’t let the conversation be diverted,” she continued. “Don’t let a distraction like that get you off track. Keep fighting hard for these candidates, who are all about the common-sense conservative solutions that we need.”

Palin's gun rhetoric typical politics?

Most conservatives have defended Palin’s gun imagery, calling it typical political discourse, which often centers on talk of “battlegrounds” and “fighting.” On NBC’s Today Show on Thursday, McCain dismissed concerns about Palin’s use of the term “reload” on Twitter and the crosshairs on Facebook. “I’ve heard all of that language throughout my political career,” he said.

McCain, of course, has reason to go easy on Palin at the moment – not that that explains his reaction. And despite her well-publicized complaints about McCain’s advisers during the presidential campaign, she has maintained good relations with McCain himself. After all, her career skyrocketed after he plucked her from obscurity and put her on the ticket with him.

But not all conservatives are happy about Palin’s rhetoric. On “The View” TV show on Thursday, co-host Elizabeth Hasselbeck called Palin’s use of crosshairs imagery “despicable.” Ms. Hasselbeck’s critique raised eyebrows in particular because she had stumped for Palin during the 2008 campaign.

Dan Schnur, an aide to McCain during his 2000 presidential campaign, is unimpressed. Mr. Schnur, now director of the Jesse M. Unruh Institute of Politics at the University of Southern California, called Palin’s rhetoric “part of a time-honored, bipartisan tradition of using borderline inappropriate weaponry and military metaphors when talking about politics.”

At the moment, he added, “everybody’s nerves are a little bit raw.”

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