First things first, if you clicked on this post because of a certain something teased by the title: shame, shame, shame!

I am not a pundit or an especially keen observer of things political. I’m an entertainer. Even so, I still have my political feelings and leanings, and I can’t help, from time to time, to inject a bit of that into my blog offerings. At the end of the day, I’m only human.

In fact, politically speaking, I find myself on the short end of the stick the vast majority of the time. Apparently I like to be different from those around me. That decidedly makes me a poor choice for armchair editorializing.

Even so, I’ve been thinking a lot about the latest brouhaha about the reaction to the shooting in Arizona and Sarah Palin. It’s one of those things that I just can’t shake and I find it back on my mind again and again.

I admit, my first response to the shooting was reflexively visceral. I remembered Palin’s tweet about “reload” and how it directly referenced a Facebook post with bullseye symbols denoting candidates for office in the United States.

Never have I suspected a causal relationship between these facts, but I did think it was highly unfortunate that a person Palin had labeled with a bulleye icon had been shot. I remember thinking, “I sure wouldn’t want to be in Palin’s shoes.”

If it was me, being in that sort of circumstance would have left me feeling bad.

This is when I had an idea and decided to take another approach. Maybe it’s the part of me that takes a bit of pride in being unbiased and considers itself to be, at least on some level, a scientist. What if, I surmised, we chucked politics and identities out the window? I decided to strip things down, to deconstruct the situation and try to examine some basic facts.

What we have in this case is a person’s comments and symbols directed at another human being who ended up being shot. I submit that most people in that situation would feel bad about something like that. I know I would.

But how did Palin respond? With an eight-minute video that initially attempted to portray understanding and compassion but clearly switched gears to make the point that opinions about her were a “blood libel.”

Again, forget about the content of the “blood libel” thing. There are those who will take great umbrage to that on the content-level. That’s not pertinent to my point here.

I don’t think it should work like this. Understanding and compassion are fine, but how can you include the “blood libel” response in the same message? That effectively makes the whole video a me-oriented thing. It’s like including the word “but” in a compliment, statement, or apology.

“I’m sorry about what I did but …”

“I like your cooking but …”

“I feel for your loss but …”

“I love you but …”

What could possibly come next in these examples that won’t impact and minimize the tone of the initial statement? I read something about this recently, but alas I can’t remember the specifics or where I saw it. Basically it was about the falseness of statements that begin with an overt message and then subtly change tone in the middle. This results in the overall message not matching what was initially said.

In other words, at least with the persona she projects to the public, she doesn’t feel that bad. In fact, she takes a line in the sand approach and makes it about her. In that light, the portions of the video that pertain to understanding and compassion ring hollow.

This is a trend with Palin. Her approach is part “in your face” and part “never back down.” She takes pride in doing what others perceive as being “politically incorrect.” Then, if there happens to be any fallout, she ups the ante by taking a position that is basically the kindergarten equivalent of, “you push me, I’ll push you back.” That projects a certain image and makes it easier to forget who really pushed first.

Forget the specifics of what she actually said and try to look at her behaviors and overall patterns. To me this is what scares me about the possibility of Palin in the White House.