The Hill News

In the aftermath of the attempted assassination of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-Ariz.), there has been near-hysteria about the tenor of our political culture. Has the inflammatory rhetoric gone too far? Is there too much vitriol in American politics? Is the Tea Party movement to blame?

This entire pointed conversation about our current state of political affairs â€" spearheaded largely by the American left â€"reveals a serious lack of self-reflection or historical perspective.

For those who feel compelled to point fingers at conservative radio personalities, Sarah Palin or the more indistinct Tea Party, they ought to take some time to read Joanne Freeman’s Affairs of Honor: National Politics in the New Republic. If one is under the illusion that there was ever a golden era of political politeness, the Yale University professor of American history will tell you otherwise. “Regional distrust, personal animosity, accusation, suspicion, implication, and denouncement,” Freeman writes, “was the tenor of national politics from the outset.”

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