RUTHFULLY YOURS

Remember when, in early 2011, in the wake of the massacre that wounded Rep. Gabrielle Giffords and killed 6 others, President Obama called “for a New Era of Civility in U.S. Politics”?

The scene inside McKale Memorial Arena was a mix of grief and celebration, where a capacity crowd of 14,000 gathered beneath championship banners for the University of Arizona Wildcats. The service, which was televised nationally on the major broadcast and cable news networks, gave the president an opportunity — and burden — to lead the nation in mourning during prime time.

Aides said Mr. Obama wrote much of the speech himself late Tuesday night at the White House. Laden with religion nuance, the speech seemed as though Mr. Obama was striking a preacher’s tone with a politician’s reverb.

That was when blame was being heaped on Sarah Palin for issuing a map with targets on congressional districts that were believed to be possible wins for the GOP. There mere visual metaphor of a target was an outrageous incitement, according to the theory of the moment, because clearly insane people like the perp, Jared Loughner, could be so suggestible.

That was before the Left began its campaign to incite an assassination attempt on President Trump. The campaign has encompassed publicity-seeking entertainers as well as the ostensible guardians of high cultures, such as Shakespeare in the Park.

Yesterday, the campaign to suggest that assassination is a thinkable option for those who hate Republicans reached a member of “The World’s Greatest Deliberative Body.” Pam Key reports on Breitbart:

During a rapid fire question “vetting,” host Ellen DeGeneres asked, “If you had to be stuck on an elevator with either President Trump, Mike Pence, or Jeff Sessions, who would it be?”

Harris quipped, “Does one of us have to come out alive?”

Yes, because killing constitutional officers is a hilarious subject for a joke.

If only the Barack Obama of 2011 were still with us:

“At a time when our discourse has become so sharply polarized, at a time when we are far too eager to lay the blame for all that ails the world at the feet of those who think differently than we do,” he said, “it’s important for us to pause for a moment and make sure that we are talking with each other in a way that heals, not a way that wounds.”

Will anyone file a complaint with the Senate Ethics Committee?

Senator Harris is widely reputed to be running for president in 2020. Once a Democrat raches the Oal Office, expect the pieties of 2011to return in amplified form.