The Hill News

Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin (R) on Wednesday accused the media of "blood libel" by looking to assign blame for the shooting of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-Ariz.).

Palin waged a pointed defense of herself and other political leaders who used sometimes incendiary rhetoric during the 2010 campaign, rhetoric which some Democrats have blamed for creating an environment fueling last Saturday's assassination attempt against Giffords.

"After this shocking tragedy, I listened at first puzzled, then with concern, and now with sadness, to the irresponsible statements from people attempting to apportion blame for this terrible event," Palin said in a statement and accompanying video posted to her Facebook page. 

Palin lashed out at the media, a traditional target of her enmity, for having fueled the notion that rhetoric had fueled the attack against Giffords.

"But, especially within hours of a tragedy unfolding, journalists and pundits should not manufacture a blood libel that serves only to incite the very hatred and violence they purport to condemn," she wrote. "That is reprehensible."

Palin's come under particular scrutiny for her role in campaigning against Giffords. The Arizona congresswoman was one of many who'd been targeted for defeat by Palin, represented last fall in a map released by SarahPAC featuring crosshairs over targeted districts. Palin introduced the map on Twitter by encouraging conservatives to, "Don't retreat, instead - RELOAD!"

The potential 2012 presidential made an allusion to that map in her statement on Wednesday, saying that gun imagery wasn't isolated to the right.

"Acts of monstrous criminality stand on their own," she wrote. "They begin and end with the ! criminals who commit them, not collectively with all the citizens of a state, not with those who listen to talk radio, not with maps of swing districts used by both sides of the aisle, not with law-abiding citizens who respectfully exercise their First Amendment rights at campaign rallies, not with those who proudly voted in the last election."

For Palin, the Arizona shooting represents a delicate situation in which she'll have to reconcile her rhetoric, which had faced criticism before last weekend's attack, with the new political reality following the attempted murder of Giffords. While Jared Loughner, the alleged shooter in the incident, appears to be less motivated by specific politics than by mental illness, the immediate aftermath of the assault had keyed in on the likelihood that Loughner might have ties to the Tea Party, a movement Palin had encouraged over the past two years.