Eight years ago, when McCain was more accessible to the media, he told reporters, “I hated the gooks. I will hate them as long as I live.” Gooks is a racial epithet that demeans all Asians. Using such a term fails to distinguish McCain's prison guards from all Asians.
In 2008, a desperate McCain, with a running mate from the ranks of the radical right, is playing the card of hate and derision – by actions and by words.
The groundless and vicious attacks on Obama deride him as a foreigner, a traitor and -- exploiting his name (you don’t know who he is) -- as a black extremist. Even the McCain scowls during the debates and exclamations of “that” -- referring to Obama – plan to make Obama a target of hate and derision.
Both are playing with powerful extremist themes to denigrate Obama. Up to the last debate McCain has made no effort to distance himself from the hateful image he and his unprincipled, slandering, running mate try to project for Obama.
When Sarah Palin first brought up Obama’s irrelevant association with 1960s radical Bill Ayers, she accused Obama of “Palling around with terrorists.” Like Obama, even Republicans have served on boards with Ayers, who is now a professor.
Palin’s claim of Obama’s association with Ayers is, at the least, dishonest and, at the most, slanderous and criminal. One who knowingly incites crowds to violence, whether now or in the future, demands our total denunciation, as many embarrassed Republicans have stated and written.
McCain, and certainly not Palin, has not called off the cowardly and vicious attacks. For Palin, one might say it is akin to shooting wolves from a plane. It is no personal risk for her and with malice, she can call it a legal sport.
At McCain-Palin rallies, the raucous and insistent cries of “Treason!” and “Terrorist!” and “Kill him!” and “Off with his head!” as well as the unchecked slinging of racial epithets, are incited and frenzied calls. They are alarms that we all should heed.
In a society where the Secret Service has detained a man for touching Cheney, isn’t shouting “murder” like stating criminal intent and isn’t inciting such actions and/or words, engaging in conspiracy to do harm?
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