And since I wasn't around to comment on the whole "toxic rhetoric" thing I'll throw my two cents in.

I think it's ridiculous that anyone is throwing blame around for anything that was said from Palin's targets to Obama's "gun to a knife fight". It's literary devices not just used in political speeches but all literature. It's figurative, not literal. It's never to be taken seriously and never is... unless of course politics is involved and can be used to someones advantage.

To blame someone for that is the same kind of paranoid schizaphrenic conspiracy theory crap that Loughner seemed to suffer from. I swear anymore it's as if everyone in the media suffers mass hysteria. It's like thinking the whole thing was planned by the government to brainwash the masses to carry out some political assassinations or something. Bogus