So we’ve all seen the infamous and unfortunate Palin campaign map circa 2010.
Source: Cleveland Leader
Below is the Democratic Leadership Council’s “Targeting Strategy” circa 2004 with a reference to Republican-leaning states being “behind enemy lines.”
Source: Democratic Leadership Council
You know what they say about people living in glass houses…
Reflections of a Rational Republican 
Once again, you point out an important and obvious fact: no one is completely innocent of not using angry language in going after opponents. But (and, this is a big BUT), there’s a huge difference between using common terms like “targeting” and symbols like a bulls-eye and using inciting-to-violence language like “take out the bastards” and symbols like gunsight cross-hairs. I just read that Keith Obermann apologized for things he said which could be inflammatory. I’d like to see more apologies. Yet, we haven’t seen Glenn Beck, Sarah Palin, Rush Limbaugh, Bill O’Reilly, or Mitch McConnell, John Boehner or Michelle Bachman, or anyone on the Right doing the same. Instead, they’re justifying what they’ve said. How will we ever have peaceful coexistence in America when one side is against the concepts of compromise and self-criticism?
The arrow kills just as effectively as a bullet. I see no difference whatsoever.
To your second point, what Keith Olbermann offered was not much of an apology. Below is his semi-apology. Notice the hedge of :”how ever inadvertent they might have been,” which implies that the right’s suggestions of violence were not inadvertent. They likely were not, but neither were the left’s.
“And if those of us considered to be ‘on the left’ do not re-dedicate ourselves to our vigilance to eliminate all our own suggestions of violence – how ever inadvertent they might have been, then we too deserve the repudiation of the more sober and peaceful of our politicians and our viewers and our networks.”
Were you aware that Pat Buchanan and Joe Scarborough have urged Palin and others to apologize for their violent rhetoric? I do know that within hours of this horrible tragedy and long before any information surfaced about the motivations of the shooter, the left immediately began pointing fingers at the right. What could have been a moment of unity was turned into a shameless opportunity for political gain.
Again, both sides are culpable for hyperbolic political rhetoric and it is time that we rose above it.