When a supporter at one of his vaunted town hall meetings in Albequerque, New Mexico shouted out that Barack Obama is a "terrorist," John McCain reportedly seemed startled, but didn't correct the slur. Far from it. His running mate has been running around the country saying that Obama "pals around with terrorists." His surrogates, including disgraced former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, New Mexico Congresswoman Heather Wilson (who accused Obama of being "unpatriotic" last week, and all of right wing talk radio, sneer Obama's middle name, Hussein, every time they mention him. And the McCain campaign has, in the space of a single general election cycle, called Obama "the candidate of Hamas," a closet Muslim, and a man who wants to "pal around" with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. What is the point of all of this?
After the 9/11 terror attacks, it seems to me that there is no lower slur than to call a fellow American a terrorist sympathizer (many Americans won't make a distinction between the white Mr. Ayers and the world's Muslims, so many of whom are so very, very brown...) Such a charge is far more damaging than what the lying Swiftboat charlatans pulled on John Kerry, and even goes beyond the implications of George H.W. Bush's "Willie Horton" charge against Michael Dukakis in 1988. In those instances, the digs may have been personal, but the "terrorist" charge is also dangerous, particularly to a minority, an African-American like Obama, who needed Secret Service protection immediately upon beginning his run, because of threats to his life from racist nut jobs. By implying, in an America still suffering the after-affects of 9/11, implying that Obama is a terrorist or terrorist sympathizer is tantamount to threatening his and his families' lives.
And it is particularly stunning for such a charge to be leveled by, and on behalf of one Senator against not just a fellow American, but a Senate colleague -- a member of the small club of just 100 people in Washington. For John McCain to countenance such a damning, dangerous slur -- with all the implications for a lone right wing nut who might want to "save" America from the "terrorist" -- is so unbelievable that I almost cannot believe that McCain, who served this country in the United States Navy, is allowing it to happen.
Except that he IS allowing it to happen, including out of the mouth of a law enforcement officer, Lee County, Florida Sheriff Mike Scott, who wearing his uniform, no less, pushed forward the slanderous implication that Barack Obama, an American, a United States Senator, and a man running for president of the United States, is little more than a terrorist.
John McCain, if he has a conscience somewhere inside that brittle, angry exterior, will come to regret the campaign of 2008, if for no other reason than it robbed him, or allowed him to strip himself of, his basic integrity, by allowing him to endanger, really to threaten, a fellow American and fellow Senator's safety, for ambition alone.
A bit of hyperbole? Read on as the WaPo recounts what happened right here in Florida while Gov. Palin was giving her "palling around with terrorists" stump speech:
"I was reading my copy of the New York Times the other day," she said. "Booooo!" replied the crowd. "I knew you guys would react that way, okay," she continued. "So I was reading the New York Times and I was really interested to read about Barack's friends from Chicago." ..."Now it turns out, one of his earliest supporters is a man named Bill Ayers," Palin said. "Boooo!" said the crowd. "And, according to the New York Times, he was a domestic terrorist and part of a group that, quote, 'launched a campaign of bombings that would target the Pentagon and our U.S. Capitol,'" she continued. "Boooo!" the crowd repeated. "Kill him!" proposed one man in the audience.
Remarkably, or perhaps unremarkably, Palin did not correct him.
UPDATE: The Huffpo has more on the increasingly ugly, racist taint of the McCain-Palin crowds, including one incident involving a black camera operator:
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." Is it just me, or are the McCain-Palin rallies starting to be reminiscent of Klan rallies...?
Meanwhile, New York Gov. David Patterson weighs in on the dangers of calling a fellow American a terrorist sympathizer.Labels: 2008 election, dirty politics, John McCain, presidential candidates |
