2008 Killer Comments
posted by on October 10 at 16:03 PM
From the comments on this post earlier today:
Anyone else a little frightened by all of the calls to “kill him”? Holy crap. I really hope the Secret Service is up for what the next 4 (hopefully eight!) years are likely to bring. —scharrera
And:
Barack Obama and his family must truly love this country to want to lead and actually try and help morons like these people. If people are saying ‘kill him’ in situations like this I bet there’s a few nut cases out there thinking about it all day and night. Very chilling. —Gregus
The New Yorker’s George Packer is thinking along the same lines—and in a blog post today he starts out by mentioning that Joe Klein, Andrew Sullivan, David Gergen, and others are starting to worry about this too:
A number of people are afraid that the ugly tactics of the McCain-Palin campaign are going to incite violence, maybe assassination. Joe Klein, Andrew Sullivan, McCain’s former adviser John Weaver—even the ultimate sober-sided moderate David Gergen last night on CNN. I hope they’re wrong. It’s a big leap from hateful talking points and shouted epithets to vigilantism and the lone gunman. What’s undeniably true is that Republican rallies and the incendiary language of party leaders are stirring up the darker, destructive mob passions that have a long history in American politics. At the very least, the Republican ticket is making sure that, if Obama wins, he’ll be regarded as an illegitimate and dangerous President by thirty or forty per cent of the country.
The next sentence in Packer’s post is brilliant: “Palin is too shallow to understand the weapon she’s playing with; she’s just thrilled to be the birthday girl and the object of so much semi-erotic devotion.” Anyway, the whole post is here. (And if you haven’t read Packer’s excellent reporting from the working class/racist reaches of Ohio, it’s here.)
Woah, Chris, you made a good post!
Remember that guy who shot Reagan to try and impress Jodie Foster? Palin is playing with fire.
The example everyone is using is Rabin in Israel. Yeah, I'm afraid. If Obama is shot, we not only lose a solid leader in a time of crisis and need; we're going to descend into total chaos and martial law.
If I wanted to impress Sarah Palin, I'd go buy a hockey stick.
Why doesn't Obama and the Democrats fight back with Palin's association with the Alaska Independance Party? Why aren't we getting any coverage of that? I'd be more concerned about that then the brief relationship Obama had with Ayers.
Speaking of Lieberman, he better not show up at one of those rallies. Racist bigots tend not to like Jews very much either.
Oh, and the next time a conservative disingenuously wonders why black people won't vote Republican, I'm rubbing his face in this shit.
All of this nastiness has won another conservative over to the Obama camp, Christopher Buckley, WF Bukckley Jr's son.
http://www.ktvu.com/politics/17688732/detail.html
And another condemnation: http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/opinion/oped/bal-op.mccain10oct10,0,7557571.story
That piece about Ohio voters is rather conflicting. Of course if you go down into the southernmost parts of it, you'll find racist rednecks, ignorant people unaware of the damage the Republicans are doing and voting for them (like you'll find in Northwest and Northeast Ohio or any state)...maybe I'm prejudiced as someone who lives in Ohio, but that's just how it is down there. The northern areas aren't much better, but we're lucky enough to have some jobs.
The McPalin Rhetoric is disturbing and worrisome, (and frankly, it teeters on the criminal), but I think a 30 to 40% estimation of loonies wanting Obama dead is a bit ridiculous. I'm not saying that 40% of this country isn't racist to some degree or another, but just because you have racist thoughts doesn't mean you wish anyone dead. (Also, I think Americans are now far too fat & lazy for any sort of coup attempt.)
I dislike W. with a passion but I've never wished him dead, and not just because that would mean that Cheney would become president.
Maybe it's because I work in Germany... but this shit sounds oh, so familiar. Spool back to 1933.
Don't forget to mention Fox News' Sean Hannity and his complicitness in this campaign of hate. He got a new multimillion dollar contract with Fox as a reward for his anti-Obama documentary screed this week...
Is it me, or does is seriously feel like the GOP is trying to turn Obama into a sort of Emmanuel Goldstein? More and more, when they show McCain rallies and pundits on the news, it's like watching Two Minutes Hate. It's pathetic, but also very unnerving.
Terrorist is the new Commie, and has been for the past few years.
My mother just mailed in her early ballot. She voted for Obama but she fears she's giving him a death sentence.
841 SAT, what do you expect?
ps, i know it's fake.
The irongy is if McCain were to take Packer's advice, he might actually stem his free-fall in the polls and perhaps earn an uptick. It would actually show Presidential judgement and temperament.
From now until Election Day, McPalin rallies will be attended mainly by desperate, racist, shrieking freaks, whose every shouted boo and epithet will be caught on video and audio and nauseate any remaining undecideds. And Obama will sweep to victory.
I want to bake cookies and send them to Obama's secret service agents. So scared for him.
@20: Yeah, me too ... except they'd probably have to assume they'd been poisoned or something and go blow them up ...
Obama should just travel around in a bulletproof bubble, like the Popemobile. Call it The Hopemobile.
I'm not as upset as Fnarf is, but am very proud of our fine Secret Service and the awesome job they do, each and every day.
But ... I wish they hadn't done such a great job for the last seven or so years ...
I'm from northern Kentucky, right next Cincinnati, OH. It's not all backwater here, and there are way more Obama supporters than what is shown here. That said, some people are still stuck in the past.
Although it's a remote chance, there's indeed a chance that this could happen. However, seems to me there's a simple way to head it off at the pass. The Dems just need to make it unequivocally clear that Hillary is their second choice.
I'm assuming that y'all have heard the great pro-Obama ad by Ralph Stanley of bluegrass fame? Played all over the southern mountains in the last two weeks? It was stunning. Stunning. And two days ago I saw a red pickup truck with a gun rack...and an Obama sticker!
Maybe some of those angry McCain/Palin supporters should read the courteous and conciliatory comments about them and their candidates that have been a consistent feature of pro-Obama outlets like SLOG. Perhaps that would calm them down. I'll start getting hot with the email list right away.
OMG. Crazy lefties are all in a twitter over crazy righties - talk about the pot calling the kettle black.
Seejay=Raindrop=Bailo? Just wondering.
(Who is this mysterious Seejay? I only see Seajay.)
Considering the right wing stole the presidency in 2000, and installed the current right wing disaster, Bush, it is indeed ironic that they would consider a legitimate president as illegitimate and scream death threats. It's what like the saying; evil is as evil does.
@29: No, The Stranger staff is on the ball on catching sock puppetry.
Sorry, y'all ... I ain't the wet one, or the Italian Scallion either. (And I'm not the 'Earl Fawlty,' aka Lord Basil.) There is more than one conservative that checks in here; it's not all the work of a solitary nutjob or paid minion of Karl Rove.
In fact, apart from one other board which has nothing to do with politics, this is the only one I hang out on. You see, I'm a comedy fan.
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