Orlando Jones' Call to Kill Sarah Palin: Was Palin Ever Sorry for Gabrielle Giffords Shooting?

Bad social media judgments are hardly forgotten. It is especially so if you happen to be the Gov. of Alaska who tried to pull off an aggressive rhetorical campaign against Democratic representatives during last year's national midterm elections.

Former Gov. of Alaska Sarah Palin targeted each of the twenty Democratic representatives who voted for health care reform during her 'Take Back the 20' campaign in the 2010 midterm elections. She supported her political rhetoric with an illustrative map that put them in the crosshairs of a gun sight over their districts.

Number four on that list was Gabrielle Giffords, the congressional candidate from Arizona, who was shot on Jan. 8.

In March 2010, immediately after Palin's controversial map was up, Giffords had expressed her concern about the use of crosshairs on Palin's campaign webpage denoting targeted congressional seats including Giffords's, in Arizona's 8th district.

Shortly after the map's posting and the subsequent vandalizing of her office that month, Giffords said, We're in Sarah Palin's 'targeted' list, but the thing is that the way she has it depicted, we're in the crosshairs of a gun sight over our district. When people do that, they've got to realize that there are consequences to that action.

The image was removed from Palin's 'Take Back the 20' Web site following the infamous Tucson mass shooting in January in which nineteen individuals were shot. However, her Facebook page still has the map and her post intact.

The seemingly stale news deserves attention in the wake of a new social media controversy regarding a tweet posted by comedian and television actor Orlando Jones immediately after the assassination of Col. Moammar Gadhafi.

Jones was panned by his Twitter followers for posting a call to murder former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, who tweeted Saturday: Libyan Rebels kill Gaddafi, if American liberals want respect they better stop listening to Aretha [Franklin] & kill Sarah Palin. The tweet, which Jones later claimed was a joke, drew criticism from bloggers and interest from the Secret Service and other law enforcement authorities.

A Secret Service source, quoted by the Chicago Sun Times, expressed outrage that a public person like Orlando Jones would be so stupid as to make any kind of suggestion -- joking or not -- about killing a politician or other high-profile individual.

There are enough nutcases out there without planting these kinds of seeds to give a weak-minded person a dangerous idea, the source said.

Jones has posted an apology on his Facebook page and has tweeted a link to the apology Wednesday in which he said he prays that no harm comes to Governor Palin.

This has gotten way out of hand. The tweet I posted on October 22nd has upset a lot of people. For this, I apologize. I pray that no harm to comes to Governor Palin. I'm not a political pundit and I certainly don't believe in murder. I think laughter is great medicine. I'd love to elevate the conversation but no one seems interested in that. So I'll keep on going for smiles even when I miss by a mile :-), Jones wrote.

In Jones' case, the tweet was deleted within five days of posting it, and didn't obviously lead to Palin's attempted or actual assassination. Moreover, Jones apologized promptly. But for Palin, it took about ten months to delete a detestable map and a post against congressional candidates from her campaign Web site. And the deletion came only after a shocking mass shooting in Arizona occured, in which six high profile individuals were killed. It is even more terrible to see that Sarah Palin's Facebook page still hosts a copy of her 'scandalous' map.

If Jones owes an apology to Palin, how is it that Palin got away with her own 'murderous call' with no apology whatsoever?