The Terrorist Barack Hussein Obama
http://www.truthout.org/101208B
Frank Rich believes that, "the McCain campaign has crossed the line
between tough negative campaigning and inciting vigilantism." (Photo:
Reuters)
If you think way back to the start of this marathon campaign, back
when it seemed preposterous that any black man could be a serious
presidential contender, then you remember the biggest fear about
Barack Obama: a crazy person might take a shot at him.
Some voters told reporters that they didn't want Obama to run, let
alone win, should his very presence unleash the demons who have
stalked America from Lincoln to King. After consultation with
Congress, Michael Chertoff, the homeland security secretary, gave
Obama a Secret Service detail earlier than any presidential candidate
in our history - in May 2007, some eight months before the first
Democratic primaries.
'I've got the best protection in the world, so stop worrying,'
Obama reassured his supporters. Eventually the country got conditioned
to his appearing in large arenas without incident (though I confess
that the first loud burst of fireworks at the end of his convention
stadium speech gave me a start). In America, nothing does succeed like
success. The fear receded.
Until now. 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 uninhibited slinging of racial epithets, are
actually something new in a campaign that has seen almost every
conceivable twist. They are alarms. Doing nothing is not an option.
All's fair in politics. John McCain and Sarah Palin have every
right to bring up William Ayers, even if his connection to Obama is
minor, even if Ayers's Weather Underground history dates back to
Obama's childhood, even if establishment Republicans and Democrats
alike have collaborated with the present-day Ayers in educational
reform. But it's not just the old Joe McCarthyesque guilt-by-
association game, however spurious, that's going on here. Don't for an
instant believe the many mindlessly 'even-handed' journalists who keep
saying that the McCain campaign's use of Ayers is the moral or
political equivalent of the Obama campaign's hammering on Charles
Keating.
What makes them different, and what has pumped up the Weimar-like
rage at McCain-Palin rallies, is the violent escalation in rhetoric,
especially (though not exclusively) by Palin. Obama 'launched his
political career in the living room of a domestic terrorist.' He is
'palling around with terrorists' (note the plural noun). Obama is 'not
a man who sees America the way you and I see America.' Wielding a
wildly out-of-context Obama quote, Palin slurs him as an enemy of
American troops.
By the time McCain asks the crowd 'Who is the real Barack Obama?'
it's no surprise that someone cries out 'Terrorist!' The rhetorical
conflation of Obama with terrorism is complete. It is stoked further
by the repeated invocation of Obama's middle name by surrogates
introducing McCain and Palin at these rallies. This sleight of hand at
once synchronizes with the poisonous Obama-is-a-Muslim e-mail blasts
and shifts the brand of terrorism from Ayers's Vietnam-era variety to
the radical Islamic threats of today.
That's a far cry from simply accusing Obama of being a guilty-by-
association radical leftist. Obama is being branded as a potential
killer and an accessory to past attempts at murder. 'Barack Obama's
friend tried to kill my family' was how a McCain press release last
week packaged the remembrance of a Weather Underground incident from
1970 - when Obama was 8.
We all know what punishment fits the crime of murder, or even
potential murder, if the security of post-9/11 America is at stake. We
all know how self-appointed 'patriotic' martyrs always justify taking
the law into their own hands.
Obama can hardly be held accountable for Ayers's behavior 40 years
ago, but at least McCain and Palin can try to take some responsibility
for the behavior of their own supporters in 2008. What's troubling
here is not only the candidates' loose inflammatory talk but also
their refusal to step in promptly and strongly when someone responds
to it with bloodthirsty threats in a crowded arena. Joe Biden had it
exactly right when he expressed concern last week that 'a leading
American politician who might be vice president of the United States
would not just stop midsentence and turn and condemn that.' To stay
silent is to pour gas on the fires.
It wasn't always thus with McCain. In February he loudly
disassociated himself from a speaker who brayed 'Barack Hussein Obama'
when introducing him at a rally in Ohio. Now McCain either backpedals
with tardy, pro forma expressions of respect for his opponent or lets
second-tier campaign underlings release boilerplate disavowals after
ugly incidents like the chilling Jim Crow-era flashback last week when
a Florida sheriff ranted about 'Barack Hussein Obama' at a Palin rally
while in full uniform.
From the start, there have always been two separate but equal
questions about race in this election. Is there still enough racism in
America to prevent a black man from being elected president no matter
what? And, will Republicans play the race card? The jury is out on the
first question until Nov. 4. But we now have the unambiguous answer to
the second: Yes.
McCain, who is no racist, turned to this desperate strategy only
as Obama started to pull ahead. The tone was set at the Republican
convention, with Rudy Giuliani's mocking dismissal of Obama as an
'only in America' affirmative-action baby. We also learned then that
the McCain campaign had recruited as a Palin handler none other than
Tucker Eskew, the South Carolina consultant who had worked for George
W. Bush in the notorious 2000 G.O.P. primary battle where the McCains
and their adopted Bangladeshi daughter were slimed by vicious racist
rumors.
No less disconcerting was a still-unexplained passage of Palin's
convention speech: Her use of an unattributed quote praising small-
town America (as opposed to, say, Chicago and its community
organizers) from Westbrook Pegler, the mid-century Hearst columnist
famous for his anti-Semitism, racism and violent rhetorical excess.
After an assassin tried to kill F.D.R. at a Florida rally and murdered
Chicago's mayor instead in 1933, Pegler wrote that it was 'regrettable
that Giuseppe Zangara shot the wrong man.' In the '60s, Pegler had a
wish for Bobby Kennedy: 'Some white patriot of the Southern tier will
spatter his spoonful of brains in public premises before the snow
falls.'
This is the writer who found his way into a speech by a potential
vice president at a national political convention. It's astonishing
there's been no demand for a public accounting from the McCain
campaign. Imagine if Obama had quoted a Black Panther or Louis
Farrakhan - or William Ayers - in Denver.
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