Can’t believe I’m doing this, but here’s the full text of Sarah Palin’s address. Normal politicians give out the text of their remarks instead of just releasing videos like someone hiding in the Northwest Frontier Province, but I think everyone agrees that Sarah Palin is not a normal politician. This reads like a Shouts & Murmurs.

Like millions of Americans, I learned about the tragic events in Arizona on Saturday, and my heart broke for the innocent victims. No words can fill the hole left by the death of an innocent, but we do mourn for victims’ families as we express our sympathy. I agree with the sentiment shared yesterday at the beautiful Catholic mass held in honor of the victims. The mass will hopefully help begin a healing process for the families touched by this tragedy—and for our country. Our exceptional country, so vibrant with ideas and passionate exchange and debate of ideas, it’s a light to the rest of the world.

Congresswoman Giffords and her constituents were exercising their right to exchange ideas that day, to celebrate our republic’s core values and peacefully assemble to petition our government. It’s inexcusable, incomprehensible why a single evil man took the lives of peaceful citizens that day.  There’s a bittersweet irony that the strength of the American spirit shines brightest in times of tragedy.  We saw that in Arizona.  We saw the tenacity of those clinging to life, the compassion of those who kept the victims alive, and the heroism of those who overpowered a deranged gunman. [I’m pretty sure Obama has yet to use the word “deranged” in a speech.]

I’ve spent the last few days reflecting on what happened, praying for guidance.  After the shocking tragedy, I listened at first puzzled, then with concern, and now with sadness to the irresponsible statements from people attempting to apportion blame for this terrible event.  President Reagan said, “We must reject the idea that every time a law is broken, society is guilty, rather than the lawbreaker. It is time to restore the precept that each American is accountable for his actions.” Acts of monstrous criminality stand on their own. They begin and end with the criminals who commit them, not collectively with all the citizens of a state. Not with those who listen to talk radio, not with maps of swing districts used by both sides of the aisle, not with the law-abiding citizens at campaign rallies, and not with those who proudly voted in the last election.  The last election was all about taking responsibility for our country’s future. [The last sentence is a complete non sequitur.]

Now President Obama and I may not agree on everything, but I know that he would join me in affirming the health of our democratic process.  Two years ago, his party was victorious; last November, the other party won.  In both elections the will of the American people was heard, and the peaceful transition of power proved yet again the enduring strength of our republic.  Vigorous and spirited public debates during elections are among our most cherished traditions.  And after the election, we shake hands and we get back to work.  And often both sides find common ground back in D.C., and elsewhere.  If you don’t like a person’s vision for the country, you’re free to debate that vision.  If you don’t like their ideas, you’re free to propose better ideas. But, especially within hours of a tragedy unfolding, journalists and pundi[n]ts should not manufacture a blood libel that serves only to incite the very hatred and violence that they purport to condemn. [This has gotten lost in all the noise, but Palin is making a demand for one side not to make attacks on her in the middle of an entire paragraph on the necessity of unfettered speech in American politics. Perhaps her point is that we’re no longer in election season.] That is reprehensible. There are those who claim political rhetoric is to blame for the despicable act of this deranged, apparently apolitical criminal.  And they claim political debate has somehow gotten more heated just recently.  [Forgive the constant editorializing, but let me just point out that rhetoric, like the earth, is not something Sarah Palin believes can heat up over a span of decades.]  But when was it less heated? Back in those calm days when political figures literally settled their differences with dueling pistols?  In an ideal [idyll, she says] world, all discourse [she accents the second syllable] would be civil and all disagreements cordial, but our Founding Fathers knew they weren’t designing this system for perfect men and women.  If men and women were angels, there would be no need for government.  Our founders’ genius was to design a system that helped settle the inevitable conflicts caused by our imperfect passions in civil ways.  So we must condemn violence if our republic is to endure. [That’s a non sequitur. Also it’s the third time she’s referred to a republic, while she’s referred to “our democratic system” once.]  As I said while campaigning for others last March, in Arizona, during a very heated primary race, I said we know violence isn’t the answer.  When we take up our arms, we’re talking about our vote.  Yes, our debates are full of passion, but we settle our political differences respectfully, at the ballot box, as we did just two months ago, and as our republic [4x] enables us to do again in the next election, and the next. That’s who we are as Americans, and how we were meant to be.  Public discourse [accented properly on the first syllable this time] and debate isn’t a sign of crisis, but of our enduring strength.  It is part of why America is exceptional.  No one should be deterred from speaking up and speaking out in peaceful dissent.  And we certainly must not be deterred by those who embrace evil and call it good.  And we will not be stopped from celebrating the greatness of our country and our foundational freedoms by those who mock its greatness by being intolerant of differing opinion, and seeking to muzzle dissent with shrill cries of imagined insults. [Not only is this not a grammatically correct sentence, as it should be seek instead of “seeking,” but it was uttered by a woman who tweeted “Ground Zero Mosque supporters: doesn’t it stab you in the heart, as it does ours throughout the heartland? Peaceful Muslims, pls refudiate” To me, that is pretty much the definition of mocking the greatness of our country’s freedoms with shrill cries of imagined insults.]

Just days before she was shot, Congresswoman Giffords read the First Amendment on the floor of the House, and it was beautiful moment—and more than simply symbolic, as some claimed—to have our Constitution read by our Congress.  I’m confident she knew that reading our sacred charter of liberty was more than just symbolic.  But less than a week after Congresswoman Giffords reaffirmed our protected freedoms, another member of Congress announced that he would propose a law that would criminalize speech that he found offensive.  It is in the hour when our values are challenged that we must remain resolved to protect those values.  Recall how the events of 9/11 challenged our values, and we had to fight the tendency to trade our freedoms for perceived security. [Wait, this is the first I’ve ever heard of Palin being opposed to Bush-era civil liberties violations.]  And so it is today.

Let us honor those precious lives cut short in Tucson by praying for them and their families, and by cherishing their memories.  Let us pray for the full recovery of the wounded.  And let us pray for our country.  In times like these, we need God’s guidance, and the peace he provides.  We need strength to not let the random acts of a criminal turn us against ourselves, or weaken our solid foundation, or provide a pretext to stifle debate.  America must be stronger than the evil we saw last week.  We are better than the mindless finger-pointing we endured in the wake of the tragedy. We will come out of this stronger and more united in our desire to peacefully engage in the great debates of our time, to respectfully embrace our differences in a positive manner, and to unite in the knowledge that, though our ideas may be different, we must all strive for a better future for our country.  Yes, may God bless America.

Well, “respectfully embrace our differences in a positive manner” is not exactly “With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation’s wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations.” We’ll see what Obama says tonight. But I expect that Jon Favreau’s not looking over his shoulder just yet.