There's been a rush to build a storyline about the weekend shooting in Arizona that left six dead and Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords fighting for her life.
But many of the pieces don't quite fit so far, according to nationally syndicated columnist Ruben Navarrette, who wrote for the Arizona Republic in the late 1990s.
True, he agrees that the political discourse has gone downhill.
"It's what happens when you condone small mindedness and bigotry. They let it run free. They need to clamp it down," said Navarrete during an interview with San Diego Red on Monday. He blames politicians for letting it get out of hand, especially Republicans "who have benefitted from that kind of animosity toward immigrants."
Navarette stressed there is no evidence that Jared Lee Loughner, the man accused in the shooting, is anti-immigrant.
Loughner isn't talking and a motive for this shooting is still far from clear, he said.
"The narrative that she was shot by a right winger, Tea Partier, doesn't hold up," said Navarrete.
Navarette laid them out in a weekend column for CNN.com where he pointed out in detail that Giffords was a true conservative Democrat with enemies on both sides of the political spectrum.
The "liberal left who in the first hours of the shooting rushed to blame the tragedy on right wing talk radio, the Tea Party movement and even potential 2012 GOP presidential hopeful Sarah Palin- have at least two things standing in their way," Navarrete wrote.
"First Giffords is a Democrat but she's a conservative one.
In fact on issues such as immigration she was often criticized for not being liberal enough for some of her Democratic constitutents.
"Secondly, just as Giffords isn't exactly a left-winger, it's also far from clear Loughner is a right winger," Navarette said.
Loughner is a accused of opening gunfire outside a Safeway supermarket in Tucson that killed six people, including a nine-year-old girl and a federal judge, and wounded 14 others, including Giffords.
Navarette said he agrees the nation is having a necessary discussion about the importance of toning down political rhetoric.
"We have gotten to a point where we are very rude to each other, very mean to each other, very unprofessional in the way we disagree," said Navarette, who wrote for the Arizona Republic newspaper in the late 1990s.
Navarette said he was agreeing with Pima County Sheriff Clarence Dupnik who shortly after the shooting in Tucson decried the "vitriolic rhetoric" heard on radio and television on a regular basis around the country.
"The bigotry that goes on in this country is getting to be outrageous," Dupnik said. "An unfortunately, Arizona I think has become sort of the capital. We have become the mecca for prejudice and bigotry."
