Whether Loughner was merely a deranged kid who would latch onto whatever philosophy he could find, or whether he actively sought out far-right conspiracy theories, I don’t think you can deny the general milieu of anti-government rhetoric that just so happened to nestle in the very state where Loughner lived.

Harold Ford clearly has read George Orwell’s 1984, but I’m not sure he understood that “Newspeak” is not something to which a reality-based politician should aspire. But when Harold Ford uses the day set aside to commemorate a man dedicated to non-violence to speak glowingly of taking electrical cords to our national backside, there’s something very, very wrong going on.