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Country First: Inciting to Violence?

By Steve Klinger.

The dynamics of events are outpacing our ability to process them. Your 401K may be a 201K by the time I post this blog. Economies abroad are staring into the precipice even as governments scramble frantically to free up a credit freeze and stop an increasingly global slide into unfathomable economic chaos.

At the same time, we’re in the midst of an election campaign that is becoming more bizarre by the day. No need to chronicle the buildup to the present, except to note the increasing desperation and cynicism of the McCain-Palin forces. Expect the negativity to accelerate after last night’s dismal performance by Mack the Knife.

Although he wouldn’t bloody his own hands on national television, he’s clearly fine with letting Sarah Barracuda attack Obama in the Atwater-Rove-Schmidt tradition: Play the fear card and stir the Nascar/NRA rabble to a fever pitch.

As Bill Maher noted on a talk show last night, branding Obama as a terrorist sympathizer and a secret Muslim is just piling on to the racial innuendoes that have been simmering just below the surface of this campaign for months. Why not get it out in the open, he asked, and just say, “Here’s a guy with a big, black, uncircumcised penis, and it smells like curry”?

Why not is because America probably has more guns per capita than almost any other nation, and enough certifiable lunatics that inciting the populace to violence could easily lead to an unthinkable tragedy. When McCain asked rhetorically in a stump speech in Albuquerque the other day about what his policies and record make Obama, someone shouted out, “Terrorist!”  When Palin linked Obama to ‘60s radical William Ayers at an event in Clearwater, Fla. and suggested Obama doesn’t have America’s best interests at heart, the crowd booed loudly and someone yelled, “Kill him!”

Our Country First VP candidate didn’t even pause to admonish the crowd.

If this is the only way the Republicans can win this race it speaks volumes about their motives, not to mention their morals. With the history of violence against public figures in the United States and the unprecedented candidacy of an African-American, the latest attacks on Obama are not only slimy, even by Republican standards, but totally unconscionable and unacceptable.

The mainstream media need to find their backbone among all the gelatinous matter and condemn these tactics unequivocally. The last thing this country needs is a ‘60s-style eruption of murderous hatred and the street violence that will inevitably follow.

Instead of instigating a potential cataclysm, the very forces of greed, self-interest, hypocrisy and hubris that got us into the financial crisis should show some genuine love of country by forging a bipartisan alliance to help bring us back from the abyss.

But don’t hold your breath.

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