It has only been a few days since one of the worst political “massacres” in modern America was perpetrated by someone who can, at best, be described as a lunatic. The attack against Democratic U.S. Representative Gabrielle Giffords ended with a shocked crowd of on lookers who will likely need therapy for years to come, fourteen of them wounded, and six dead including U.S. Judge John Roll, Gabe Zimmerman, a member of Rep. Gifford’s staff, and nine-year-old Christina Green, who, in a twist of irony was born on September 11, 2001. It will be remembered for years to come as a tragic day, and still the pundits and politicians are exploiting this travesty for their own idealogical gains before the dead made it to the morgue.

Standing amongst the ashes of ruined lives, the pundits have stepped in to speculate on a question best left to police to answer: “why?”

Of course, the left-wing talking heads, always ready to find a reason to verbally flog Sarah Palin, have stepped in and decided that it is Palin who is responsible for the travesty of January 8, 2011. The argument goes that Jared Lee Loughner was pushed over the edge to commit his crime by the over-the-top and “militant” rhetoric of conservatives that has effectively raised the boiling point of U.S politics.

I’ll grant you – the conservative movement in American does have its share of virulent rhetoric, but there is a problem with these accusations, though. What is conveniently overlooked by these pundits is the contribution that the left-wing has made to the pressure-cooker that is now American politics. Fact of the matter is that in politics, the expression “it takes two to tango” applies. The current politically charged climate owes just as much to Democrats as it does to Republicans.

For example, let’s take “Crosshairgate.” Even MSNBC, the typically left-leaning news outlet pointed out that the “crosshairs” method of designating political targets has been used by Democrats against Republicans in the past. Navigate over to the website for the Democratic Leadership Council, and you can find an old article from 2004 ruminating over the results of the election that previous November where states were “targeted” for an increase in Democratic activity to tip the balance in the future. Granted, they used bulls-eyes instead of crosshairs, and they didn’t allude to specific persons, but the idea is the same: target specific areas for political activity. I don’t think those Democrats were in any way suggesting that Republicans should be metaphorically painted with bull’s-eyes on their backs any more than Sarah Palin intended to imply that specific persons should be targeted for violence.

Then, of course, there is the pandering to fear – a political sin of which both parties are guilty. Most notably during the health care debate, Democrats were quite insistent that without passing “Obamacare,” health care in America would continue increasing in expense and become less accessible to the masses. Meanwhile, Republicans were exploiting a variation on the exact same fear by insisting that “Obamacare” would result in in rationed health care, including Palin’s infamous “Death Panels.” While I don’t necessarily think the health care reform package passed is the best would could have done, the truth is that neither scenario posited by the parties is really rooted in actual reality. Instead, both parties leveraged the politics of fear because, fear equals votes.

So then, the political bomb that exists in America is the fault of both parties; of liberals and conservatives, of Democrats and Republicans. Both groups danced this tensioning tango, and both must accept responsibility now that the bomb has gone off.

But, that’s not what has happened. Instead, the most evil of all evil political constructs has finally reared its head – blame. The left-wing fires off one salvo claiming that Palin’s graphic encouraged violence against Rep. Giffords, that the Tea Party is evil, and conservative rhetoric is rearing a generation of psychopaths. To its credit, for a political subculture apparently giving rise to young nut cases, the right-wing response has been level-headed and balanced. There haven’t been threats of retribution, but instead a very logical response. I very much agree with Glenn Beck’s statement that “[we should] hold those responsible for the violence, responsible for the violence.”

Still, this type of activity doesn’t exist in a vacuum. While it’s more likely, given Mein Kampf and The Communist Manefesto are reported to be among his favorite reads, that Jared Lee Loughner has been gravitating towards political extremism for some time, that doesn’t mean that other acts of violence don’t occur as a result of knee-jerk reaction to political rhetoric or extremist propaganda. What comes immediately to my mind is the 2008 Republican National Convention, where “good,” young (presumably) liberals rioted, looted, and defaced whatever they could find.

The bottom line is that both parties have created this blame monster that inhabits American politics, and it is this monster that has taken on a life of its own and drives this idea that one segment of society is out to “get” or to otherwise disenfranchise the rest of society, and until we slay that monster and bring the rhetoric down to reasonable levels we had best get used to politically rooted crime on both ends of the idealogical spectrum.