From Dana Milbank at the Washington Post comes a disturbing, if not unsurprising, report:
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.
Oh ho, and it gets even better!
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.”
Wow. I mean, just, wow. What more can I say than that?
I’m seeing headlines in the mainstream media that say both campaigns are getting nasty. Palin is calling Obama a terrorist, or worse here. Her rallies are looking more and more like the KKK – something McCain needs to speak out against now. His campaign’s trashy rhetoric is creating a very, very toxic environment. The ironic part, of course, is that speaking out against this hateful response would probably garner some votes for McCain. But he is so deluded by the Rovian tactics that have worked in the past, he is too blinded to see it.
On the other hand, Obama is questioning McCain’s judgment on the economy and gasp used the word “erratic.” the Keating 5 scandal is for real, and is fair game. It is a scandal that happened when McCain was supposed to be acting for the American people, and it is something that McCain himself has said was one of his greatest shames. I don’t know how Obama will be able to share a stage with McCain tonight.
Sometimes the media tries to be too balanced, methinks. But if this doesn’t show people what absolute scumbags the modern Republican party is inhabited by, nothing will. If it weren’t able to play on people’s fears and racism they would have nothing to talk about.
And to think….I once respected John McCain.
UPDATE: Just in from Talking Points Memo, Palin says blames the New York Times for bringing up Ayers et all- it certainly wasn’t her fault! It’s not like the Republicans have a history of support for “personal responsibility”, right?
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