tartysuz

Out, damned spot; out, I say. One, two,—why, then ’tis time to do’t. Hell is murky. Fie, my lord, fie, a soldier and afeard? What need we fear who knows it when none can call our power to account? Yet who would have thought the old man to have had so much blood in him?

Source, with explanatory notes

Sarah Palin can try to scrub that "Don't Retreat, RELOAD" tweet all she wants, but she cannot undo the fact that she and her cronies have accelerated a poisonous discourse that literal-minded would-be kings of the castles of their own minds have acted upon.

(In the past two years, the FBI and Homeland Security have issued warnings about the possible effect of right-wing vitriol. There has been a steady drip of a trend for regular but unstable joes who have attempted or carried out attacks on public figures or institutions. Remember when U.S. political scene ignored the mounting number and deadliness of Islamist extremist attacks on their own embassies and the U.S. Cole?) ETA: Thanks to dewline for pointing out this David Olive piece which covers the ground I was thinking of, but with more specifics.

News of Palin's attempt to wash her hands of responsibility reminded me Lady Macbeth's most famous words -- "Out, damned spot" -- but the key to this quote is actually a couple of lines later, when she says "What need we fear who knows it when none can call our power to account?" This captures the idea that the elite of the political right have that they they are unquestionably correct, and therefore accountable to no one. (Some of them will say they are accountable to God, but since He doesn't issue audit reports, we'll never know in our Earthly lifetimes.)

One additional note of supreme, almost literary irony: the 9-year-old girl who was killed was born on September 11, 2001. To stretch the Macbeth parallel, here is the future that the addled thane murdered, to realize his Lady's strong words.