Explaining Sarah Palin’s ‘Don’t Retreat, Reload’ Comment

I haven’t joined the dogpile on Sarah Palin’s response to the health care reform vote — she set up a page of vulnerable Democrats that displayed target signs on their districts — because Palin’s been using this rhetoric for her entire career in national politics. This tweet, for example, has quickly become infamous:

But that’s a reference to what, according to Palin, is a family witticism. The final chapter of “Going Rogue” begins with a quote from her father, Chuck Heath:

I think Palin’s gotten tripped up by the same thing flummoxing other conservatives this week — in the context of angry threats against pro-health care Democrats, the revolutionary rhetoric of the GOP this last year sounds… well, revolutionary.