I mean, I guess the headline worked. I clicked through. How can you not click on a headline like "Gabby Giffords gets mean," after all? That headline is an attack aimed at one of the undisputed heroes of American politics, a woman who was shot in the head by a madman and lived to become a passionate anti-gun advocate. So. You win this round, Politico! I clicked through and read the article. But I just don't get the point of it.

The article says Giffords has "unleashed some of the nastiest ads of the campaign season" around the country. These ads are so "nasty," apparently, that "even some left-leaning commentators say [they] go too far." Here's one of the supposedly controversial ads:

And I just don't get it. Where's the transgression, here? Martha McSally is pro-gun, and so an ad featuring a grieving mother whose daughter and husband were killed by a gun-wielding psycho seems to be a fair addition to the conversation. (You can watch the rest of the ads at the YouTube page for Giffords' SuperPAC, Americans for Responsible Solutions.) According to this AZ Central story, McSally called for the ad to be pulled, saying she dealt with
her own stalker at one time. She says that an ad connecting her in some way to a stalker-related murder is "not only personally offensive, it's degrading to all women and victims who have experienced this pain." In response, the executive director of Americans for Responsible Solutions argues that "Martha McSally refuses to support common-sense steps like expanding background checks to keep guns out of stalkers' hands."

Perhaps, at most, I'm willing to concede the fact that these ads are slightly impolite, maybe? Because they tie politicians to crimes that are not directly related to legislation they championed? I guess? But the main complaint about these ads seems to be that they tie pro-gun politicians directly to the consequences of their beliefs. These ads remind viewers that guns are machines built to end lives. They're not just props in ads where people rant about the Constitution and blather about freedom; they're death-machines. Are we really at the point in American political history where politicians get to complain and cry victim when they're confronted with reality?