Sarah "Pinocchio" Palin Tries More Dishonest Damage Control

Sarah Palin made a decision a long time ago to strongly ally herself with gun owning middle America, and has included comments in her speeches, press release pictures, and even her website that involve guns. She has exhibited a pattern of behavior that closely associates her with guns, as exampled in this picture:

It was Sarah Palin who said after the passing of the Health Care Reform Act:

"It's not a time to retreat, it's time to reload."

She caught flack for this inflammatory comment, defending her statement by saying she was misunderstood:

 "Palin urged the media not to read any incitement into that other than re-dedication to the upset of the D.C. political establishment that's still celebrating the healthcare bill's first signing." ~LATimes.com

It was Sarah Palin's website that had this map on it:

Now that one of the people on this list has suffered an assassination attempt after vocally complaining about being a marked target, Team Palin has announced that these are not cross-hairs on the map, they are "surveyor's symbols". Through my experience this latest spin of the facts seems nothing less than the elaboration of a bad liar. I am hardly alone in that thought.

I have two questions:

1. If these were "surveyor's marks" on Palin's map, why wasn't that made clear prior to the shooting when Congresswoman Giffords complained about this map on national television?

2. Would surveyor's marks change the fact that these people were targeted?

It does not seem that this gunman in the Tucson Shootings was motivated by Palin's rhetoric. I'm confident there are others out there that Palin's message could motivate into violence. I am glad to see Palin has conceded the point enough to have pulled the offensive map from her website.

Maybe someone told Palin that she shouldn't show weakness now at a time when she is being attacked from all sides over her rhetoric, and that she needs to continue defending her talking points. To me it seems all her recent actions have done is make her look both insensitive and dishonest.  Insensitive, because she could have spent her time talking about the victims, their families, or the pain America is in over this tragedy, but instead she used  the majority of her time to talk about herself and how she felt attacked. Regardless of whether she was being unfairly attacked she should have known this is a time true leaders would show concern and compassion unconcerned for themselves.

Palin seems dishonest because not even her most ardent supporters are willing to defend her map as innocuous. I say dishonest because even she on her twitter account had this to say about the map in question:

"Remember months ago 'bullseye' icon used 2 target the 20 Obamacare-lovin' incumbent seats?..."