What is the President going to do about the people on his side?

I haven't read the text of tonight's address by President Obama yet, but in light of this post that I had started to write last year, I wanted to bring up the current controversy generated by the Tucson massacre concerning
the causes of the shooting. The political opportunism started very early, and one of those who was responsible for using the massacre to launch into a diatribe against conservatives as forces of hatred and division was Sheriff Clarence Dupnik, as noted in this article in the Washington Post:

In an emotional news conference late Saturday, Pima County Sheriff Clarence W. Dupnik (D) denounced the nation's vitriolic political climate and noted Arizona's part in the rancor after a controversial crackdown on illegal immigration.


"The anger, the hatred, the bigotry that goes on in this country is getting to be outrageous, and unfortunately Arizona has become sort of the capital," Dupnik said. "We have become the mecca for prejudice and bigotry."


The fiery rhetoric that has taken hold in politics, Dupnik said, "may be free speech, but it's not without consequences."

As I asked in the post on Tribalism, "Is the [political] divide being exaggerated by those who have a story to sell or are seeking self-exaltation?" There are those who seek to portray themselves as a force for enlightenment, and it is not surprising that liberals have been pointing figures at the opposition for being irrational, prejudiced, prone to violence, etc. and blaming various people (Sarah Palin, the Tea Party movement) for the actions of an individual who has not left any evidence of a clear party affiliation that has been discovered yet. (See coverage over at AmCon and VFR, or  the mainstream Republican pundits and blogs.) So did Obama chastise Democrats for being hostile towards their fellow Americans through their "polemics of hate and division" and worsening the division?

And of course we have seen those who have used the tragedy to call for increasing the power of the state for the sake of public safety and protecting lives -- handgun control, limiting magazine capacity, and so on. Tonight my cousin said that the shooter was not in the system as someone with mental illness. So what could have been done to prevent this from happening? And where was the security at the rally?

I see from my Google results that some in the MSM contrast Sheriff Dupnik with Sheriff Joe Arpaio because of their immigration stance, but their descriptions of the two go beyond just noting their differences on that one position: Time and AOL.

Update: VFR-Loughner is a Democrat—did all that overheated left-wing rhetoric against Blue Dogs trigger the mass murder?

Edit. 1/15/11: VFR--Loughner is an Independent