What??

Conservatives Don't Like This

Tonight there was a house-packed memorial service on the campus of the University of Arizona in Tucson to honor the six people slaughtered, and the fourteen wounded on Saturday by a crazed shooter in that place. The place was packed. I forget the name of the building, but it's where they play basketball. About 13,000 people were there. All the political luminaries, including the president and Ms Obama, the entire Arizona congressional delegation, the state governor, Janet Nepolitano, former governor, Sandra Day O'Conner, former Supreme Court justice, and so forth.

TPM reports that the tee-shirt you see there on the left gave conservatives the red-ass. OK, now you tell me . . . what's so offensive about a blue tee-shirt that says "Together We Thrive Tucson & America"? I have to confess I'm so dense I just didn't appreciate the deep offensiveness of this tee-shirt until I read the piece and some of the comments thereto. I append the "explanation" for your edification.

The University Of Arizona did not immediately respond to requests for more information on the shirts, which are drawing fire in the conservative twitter- and blogosphere tonight. The White House did not respond to a request for comment. A person familiar with the event confirmed the university put the event together, and was responsible for t-shirts, tickets, fliers, etc.

"I'm having a physical reaction to the T-shirts," Amanda Carpenter, a speech writer for Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC) tweeted tonight. "I'm tearing up. This feels wrong."

(The tweet has since been deleted.)

Other conservatives on Twitter shared in the sentiment. Some have already speculated the shirts were paid for with taxpayer dollars.

Michelle Malkin had earlier raised a rukus about the event's logo on her blog.

"Isn't the churning of the instant messaging machine a bit, well, unseemly?" she wrote. "Can't the Democrat political stage managers give it a break just once?"

Right-wing media star Tammy Bruce had some of the harshest attacks on the event and the crowd here in Tucson. She likened the event to the 2002 funeral for Sen. Paul Wellstone (D-MN), which conservatives at the time claimed was unfairly turned into a political rally by Wellstone's supporters.

"Massacre Rally Theatre is a complete abomination. Absolutely obscene," Bruce tweeted Wednesday.

I have just one question. WTF is wrong with these people?

Related articles

• Missing The Message (alan.com)
• Obama leads memorial for Tucson shooting (alternet.org)
• At Arizona memorial, Obama urges a discussion that 'heals' (mcclatchydc.com)