SARAH PALIN was accused yesterday of using violent imagery to whip up the poisonous political atmosphere blamed by some for the killings.
The former Republican vicepresidential contender posted a 'target map' on her Facebook page last March, telling voters in the forthcoming mid-term elections: 'It's time to take a stand.' The graphic used gunsight-style crosshair targets on the districts of 20 Democrat politicians she had singled out for defeat after they supported Barack Obama's healthcare reforms.
One of the targets was Gabrielle Giffords. Her Tucson office was hit by shotgun pellets the same month.
She later criticised Mrs Palin's choice of imagery, saying: 'When people do that, they've got to realise there are consequences to that action.' Mrs Palin, who has boasted of her experience as a hunter, sent an accompanying message on Twitter in which she repeated a favourite maxim of her father: 'Don't Retreat, Instead RELOAD.' The map was removed from the internet yesterday. But Rebecca Mansour, a member of Mrs Palin's team, said the crosshairs were not meant to be gunsights. 'It was simply crosshairs like you'd see on maps. It never occurred to us anybody would consider it violent.'
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