Tuesday, October 7, 2008

Releasing the Hounds

From Dana Milbank's column at Washingtonpost.com:

"If you turn on the news tonight when you get home, you're gonna see that, yah, this is another woeful day in the market, and the other side just doesn't understand -- no!" she said at an afternoon fundraiser at the home of mutual fund giant Jack Donahue. "Especially in a time like this, you don't propose to increase taxes. The phoniest claim in a campaign that's full of them is that Barack Obama is going to cut your taxes."

Of course, Obama never promised to cut taxes for people at $10,000-a-plate lunches in air-conditioned tents on waterfront compounds. And the crowd -- among them New York Jets owner Woody Johnson -- reacted without applause to Palin's Joe Six-Pack lines. After they didn't strike up the usual "Drill, baby, drill" or "USA" chants, Palin, rattled, read hurriedly through the rest of her speech.

The reception had been better in Clearwater, where Palin, speaking to a sea of "Palin Power" and "Sarahcuda" T-shirts, tried to link Obama to the 1960s Weather Underground. "One of his earliest supporters is a man named Bill Ayers," she 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.


McCain has forced his supporters to confront something about their candidate. His legislative pedigree and his choice of VP have drawn clear lines around the causes he's counting on for election:

The cause of the coddled billionaires who are praying for continued free rein and a laissez-faire government because they've been allowed to put their money where the economy can't take it from them.

That's his pedigree.

The cause of fear and bigotry that is looking for people to hate and fear in order to insulate and protect just one set of values and through intimidation and exclusion.

Milbank writes that at the Clearwater Florida rally One Palin supporter shouted a racial epithet at an African American sound man for a network and told him, "Sit down, boy.

That's the rabid energy that his choice of VP has unleashed.

via The Greenbelt

1 comment:

The Ridger, FCD said...

Palin's crowd is scary. She is scary. I fear after this election somebody is going to try to kill someone ... and it's going to be whoever was elected president.

Maybe it's just because I'm old enough to remember what hate does when it's licensed by party leaders.

I truly hope somebody asks McCain about this (and the "He's a traitor!" and "Treason!" shouts at his rallies) tonight, but I doubt such a question would get through.