Tuesday, October 07, 2008

American Brownshirts Ascendant

Dana Milbank -washingtonpost.com

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."



***

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.

I'd really like to see one of the Town Hall questioners tonight ask McCain if this is the vision of America he endorses. But I'm sure all Tom Brokaw cares about is questions about Bill Ayers and Reverend Wright. After all, he's the one who's been promising the Republicans that NBC would be nice to them.

Mr. Brokaw said he had also conducted some shuttle diplomacy in recent weeks between NBC and the McCain campaign. His mission, he said, was to assure the candidate’s aides that — despite some negative on-air commentary by Mr. Olbermann in particular — Mr. McCain could still get a fair shake from NBC News.

Here's the problem: to the Republicans, "a fair shake" means "you let us get away with anything we want and repeat every scurrilous allegation we fling wihtout analysis, fact check or followup so people believe it.' To these people, "a fair shake" means Fox News. Brokaw is going to bend over for these people. We can expect lots of questions about Bill Ayers and Revcerend Wright, and none on people in McCain and Palin crowds threatening reporters and calling for lynchings.



6 comments:

Mark Terry said...

To the Republicans, "a fair shake" means "you let us get away with anything we want and repeat every scurrilous allegation we fling wihtout analysis, fact check or followup so people believe it.'

Well, they ARE Republicans.

Anonymous said...

Well said. Bullies bully until someone fights back, then they complain and whine. Playground, boxing ring, political forum. They're all pretty much the same. I'm all for grilling the hell out of both candidates equally...except that when one candidate lies constantly, he should be confronted just as constantly.

Anonymous said...

Senator Barack Obama is prepared to hit back, including with Keating Five scandal if necessary, if Senator John McCain uses tonight’s presidential debate to attack him over his associations with controversial figures like former William C. Ayers, the former Weather Underground leader, Mr. Obama’s chief strategist said this afternoon.

Tieing together the S&L fisaco with the current home mortgage fiasco seems like a 'gimme'.

Anonymous said...

I wonder if McCain will diss Obama again tonight by not looking at him at all? Thing about it is, a lot of the macho guys on the right probably get off on that. It just reinforces their idea that Obama is a wimp. I hope Obama has the sense to let McLame rant on with his lies and then calmly cuts him off at the knees when he gets his turn, with some line akin to Reagan's, "Now, there you go again..." I think it would be far more effective than the interrupting O did last time. I wonder if Brokaw will work anything in about the Fed's new twist on the $700 billion bankscam, where they will start buying up unsecured debts from no-financial corporations? Didn't take them long to figure out how everyone could get their greedy fingers in on that boondoggle.

Anonymous said...

"You better sleep all day and run all night/
And keep your dirty little feelings deep inside/
'Cuz if you're takin' your girlfriend out tonight/
Ya better park the car well out of sight/
'Cuz if we catch you in the backseat trying to pick locks/
We're gonna send you back to mother in a cardboard box!/
You better run!"

Sorry. Floydian slip.

Anonymous said...

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