Tuesday, October 07, 2008
Pretty Hate Machine
So we have McCain today getting his crowd riled up asking who Barack Obama is and then apparently giving a wink and a nod when one member of the crowd screams out "terrorist."
And later we have Sarah Palin with the same mob racket, getting members of the crowd to yell out "kill him", though it's not clear whether the call for murder was for Bill Ayers or Barack Obama. It didn't seem to matter.
These are dangerous and sick people, McCain and Palin. Whatever it takes. Stop at nothing.
The Washington Post:
McCain had said that racially explosive attacks related to Obama's former pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, are off limits. But Palin told New York Times columnist Bill Kristol in an interview published Monday: "I don't know why that association isn't discussed more."
Worse, Palin's routine attacks on the media have begun to spill into ugliness. In Clearwater, arriving reporters were greeted with shouts and taunts by the crowd of about 3,000. Palin then went on to blame Katie Couric's questions for her "less-than-successful interview with kinda mainstream media." At that, Palin supporters turned on reporters in the press area, waving thunder sticks and shouting abuse. Others hurled obscenities at a camera crew. One Palin supporter shouted a racial epithet at an African American sound man for a network and told him, "Sit down, boy."
I received in an email the sleaziest political press release I've ever seen. It came from the Republican Party of Pennsylvania and it's headlined: "PAGOP: OBAMA - A TERRORIST'S BEST FRIEND."
At the very least, these most recent efforts to debase political discourse in America feed a pernicious partisanship. Deliberately stoking a sense of bitter alienation from fellow Americans, trading in racial epithet and innuendo, openly challenging the patriotism of one's opponent: John McCain and Sarah Palin, the self-described mavericks "known" for reaching across party lines, are nurturing hateful impulses in a segment of the population that already harbors an outsize persecution complex.
These are chaotic forces to attempt to manipulate for short term political gain. One way or another, this will not end well. Country first? Farthest thing from it.
I don't say the following lightly: John McCain, you have no honor.
