Recently, there has been much discussion about the virulent anger directed at Senator Obama surfacing at Senator McCain and Governor Palin's campaign events. Senator McCain's response to the justifiable concerns raised by such outbursts has been conflicted. While he has received due praise for countering the most outrageous statements of two participants at a recent town hall style rally, he did this while Governor Palin and his political advertising campaign simultaneously accuse Senator Obama of acting treacherously out of "blind ambition" by putting "political ambitions in front of doing what's right for our troops" and "palling around with terrorists" and lying about it. These are inflammatory attacks, and cannot reasonably be considered "legitimate criticism of Senator Obama's record".
There is a huge amount of anger in the base of the Republican Party, fomented for years by incendiary rhetoric from pundits like Rush Limbaugh and Michael Savage. To these rabble rousers, people who disagree with them are un-American, socialists, criminals, or even traitors. The McCain campaign has given this type of rhetoric a mainstream foothold, and it is no coincidence that McCain followers are expressing fear of Obama and connecting him with terrorism and Islam. When a luminary such as Rep. John Lewis decries the climate of violence that he perceives to be growing in our country, all American citizens regardless of their political affiliations should be concerned. It is real and dangerous, as Rep. Lewis knows firsthand.
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Now those para-military black boots and short, belted jackets worn by Palin begin to make sense.
Here's part of a column by Leonard Pitts Jr. along the same lines that recently appeared in the Contra Costa Times regarding Sarah Six-Pack:
"You're left to wonder when intellectuals — thinking people, for goodness sake! — became the enemy. Are we to regard unthinking conservatives (will that adjective soon be superfluous?) as the only true conservatives? Indeed, the only true Americans?
One gets that sense from Palin's recent campaign appearances. Her attacks have grown increasingly strident and divorced from reality as John McCain's poll numbers have gone south. She blames Katie Couric, and not herself, for her inability to answer fair questions. She frames Obama as some exotic unknown with terrorist associations.
And the rabble duly rouses. They boo Couric, which is not unlike booing Mickey Mouse. They scream death threats. Someone addresses an African-American sound man for one of the networks with a racial epithet and screams, "Sit down, boy!"
There is an ugliness here. It is disguised as decency, disguised as politics, but it is only ugliness, mean and raw and given license by the desperation of a man who used to be honorable and a woman who said she was just like us. And for the record: it's not a movie.
I only wish it were."
The full article can be found at:
http://www.contracostatimes.com/search/ci_10690730?IADID=Search-www.contracostatimes.com-www.contracostatimes.com
Unfortunately, the natural progression of the campaign rhetoric (terrorist, socialist, blind ambition putting troops at risk, etc.) is already showing up as a return to McCarthyism as evidenced in the recent comment by Rep. Michele Bachmann of Minnesota who questioned the patriotism of members of Congress saying that the media should start a "penetrating expose and take a look . . . at the views of the people in Congress and find out, are they pro-American or anti-American". Sad rhetoric at a time when both parties have implicitly recognized the need for Americans to come together by nominating two candidates that express an ability to unite people and work across the partisan gap.
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