A Capitol Hill vigil for Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (Photo: Jay Westcott)

DEMOCRATIC CONGRESSWOMAN GABRIELLE GIFFORDS—Arizona's first Jewish Congresswoman, the state's third woman elected to Congress, and a self-described "former Republican"—survived a point-blank shot to the head on Saturday after appearing to meet constituents outside a Tucson, Ariz. Safeway.

In the wake of the assassination attempt—and faced with an incoherent Internet trail of accused shooter Jared Lee Loughner—commentators have focused on the violent rhetoric that has consumed the United States political process over the past several years. AFTER THE JUMP: Sarah Palin's camp retreats on "reload" imagery; hypermasculine rhetoric examined; the role of the partisan (and mainstream) media; Westboro Baptist Church throws its hat in the ring:

SARAH PALIN—who responded to Giffords' support of healthcare reform by placing the Congresswoman within gun crosshairs and urging conservatives to not "retreat," but "RELOAD"— struggles to dissociate herself from the gun imagery targeting Giffords:

"We never ever, ever intended it to be gun sights," [Palin spokeswoman Rebecca Mounsor] said in an interview with talk radio host Tammy Bruce Saturday. "It was simply crosshairs like you'd see on maps." Bruce suggested that they could, in fact, be seen as "surveyor's symbols." Mansour added that "it never occurred to us that anybody would consider it violent" and called any attempts to politicize the Arizona tragedy "repulsive."

The suggestion that the symbols were related to guns seemed to come, however, from Palin herself. On March 23, Palin tweeted to her supporters a note about the aforementioned Facebook message, writing, "Commonsense Conservatives & lovers of America: 'Don't Retreat, Instead - RELOAD!' Pls see my Facebook page." And as Politico's Jonathan Martin points out, in November Palin boasted about defeating 18 of the 20 members on her "bullseye" list.

GIFFORDS HERSELF has previously denounced Palin's violent imagery and lamented the "mean girl" culture on Capitol Hill.

JESSICA VALENTI reflects on the culture of violent masculinity voiced by female politicians on the right:

Stephen Ducat, author of The Wimp Factor: Gender Gaps, Holy Wars and the Politics of Anxious Masculinity, says that masculine and violent language is often used in elections and campaigns – especially by men on the right – because of a fear of being perceived as feminine. In a sexist society, what could be worse than being called a girl? So it doesn't seem unlikely that conservative female politicians feel the need to peddle their ideas in gendered and violent language in order to fit in with the masculinised right.

After all, the phrase – and sentiment – "man up" was one of the most popular in the 2010 elections. In the Colorado Senate primary, Republican Jane Norton accused her opponent of not being "man enough"; in the Delaware Senate primary, Republican Christine O'Donnell said that her opponent was "unmanly"; Angle told Harry Reid to "man up"; and Palin praised Republican Arizona Governor Jan Brewer as having "the cojones that our president does not have" to enforce immigration laws.

In a country that sees masculinity – especially violent masculinity – as the ideal, it's no wonder that this type of language resonates. But it's a sad state of affairs when women in politics have to resort to using the same gendered stereotypes that kept all women out of public service for so long.

GIFFORDS VIGIL attendee Patricia Cerswell loudly blamed Sarah Palin for the assassination attempt: "She has blood on her hands," Cerswell said of Palin. MEANWHILE, Giffords' astronaut husband Mark Kelly pointed fingers at "the level of angry rhetoric that he believes incites people."

WHETHER OR NOT accused shooter Jared Lee Loughner took inspiration from political rhetoric is beyond the point, the New Yorker's George Packer argues. That rhetoric is still wrong:

the tragedy wouldn't change this basic fact: for the past two years, many conservative leaders, activists, and media figures have made a habit of trying to delegitimize their political opponents. Not just arguing against their opponents, but doing everything possible to turn them into enemies of the country and cast them out beyond the pale. Instead of “soft on defense,” one routinely hears the words “treason” and “traitor.” The President isn't a big-government liberal—he's a socialist who wants to impose tyranny. He's also, according to a minority of Republicans, including elected officials, an impostor. Even the reading of the Constitution on the first day of the 112th Congress was conceived as an assault on the legitimacy of the Democratic Administration and Congress.

This relentlessly hostile rhetoric has become standard issue on the right. (On the left it appears in anonymous comment threads, not congressional speeches and national T.V. programs.) And it has gone almost entirely uncriticized by Republican leaders. Partisan media encourages it, while the mainstream media finds it titillating and airs it, often without comment, so that the gradual effect is to desensitize even people to whom the rhetoric is repellent. We’ve all grown so used to it over the past couple of years that it took the shock of an assassination attempt to show us the ugliness to which our politics has sunk.

The massacre in Tucson is, in a sense, irrelevant to the important point. Whatever drove Jared Lee Loughner, America's political frequencies are full of violent static.

IN A SHOW OF SOLIDARITY with the hateful rhetoric permeating the U.S. political process, the Westboro Baptist Church plans to nonsensically picket the funerals of 9-year-old victim Christina Taylor Green, along with the five others killed in the shooting.