As U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords fights for her life after a mad gunman shot her on Saturday, some Democrats and major media have moved to pin the blame for her attack on the tea party movement and conservatives like Sarah Palin, despite the fact that the shooter was both deranged and fascinated by leftwing politics.

Giffords' Democratic colleague, Arizona Congressman Raul Grijalva, told Mother Jones magazine within hours after the rampage that the “political tone and tenor” created by Palin and the tea party movement had set the stage for the shooting.

Grijalva said Palin's “apparatus” had put Giffords' and his own life at risk.

“Both Gabby and I were targeted in the apparatus in that cycle [saying] these people are ‘enemies.’” He added: “The Palin express better look at their tone and their tenor.”

The liberal New York Times was not far behind Grijalva, publishing a lead story headlined "Bloodshed Puts New Focus on Vitriol in Politics."

The Times insuated that conservative criticism of President Barack Obama and his policies may have been at the root of this weekend's violence, noting "... it was hard to separate what had happened from the heated nature of the debate that has swirled around Mr. Obama and Democratic policies of the past two years."

The paper even suggested tea party criticisms of  Obama's healthcare plan, the debate over Arizona's new rules on police handling of illegal immigrants and even the fact Giffords was Jewish could have played a role. The Times also claimed that the fact Palin's political action committee had targeted Giffords for defeat may have played a role.

Former House Majority Leader and tea party patriarch Dick Armey tells Newsmax his activists were responsible for thwarting Democrats’ attempts to ram a spending bill through the lame duck session of Congress.

The Texas Republican also declares that the House Republican majority should vote to repeal Obamacare and “something magical could happen in the Senate,” asserts that “virtually anybody” who gains the Republican nomination will defeat President Obama in 2012 — and predicts that none of the current GOP front-runners will be the party’s nominee.

Armey was first elected in 1984 and served as majority leader from 1995 until he left the House in 2003. He was a chief author of the Contract with America in the 1990s, and today is chairman of FreedomWorks, a 700,000-member organization advocating smaller government.

On Sunday, Armey, like many political leaders, decried the shootings in Arizona that seriously wounded Rep. Gabrielle Giffords and killed six others.

"The fact of the matter is, we still have extremely important critical issues of public policy that must be sorted out," Armey said on ABC's "This Week."

"Now, hopefully this will be done in a more civil way. But this incident is no basis by which anybody who sees their duty to America to stand down from that duty, but to redouble it, perhaps with a greater degree of caution, and hopefully with a greater degree of civility.

"We've always wanted that," he said. "But still, nevertheless, we must do our duty and defend our liberties in this great country."