A leader’s first impulse
Posted on October 11th, 2008
Yeah, it’s just great that McCain yesterday tried to tamp the fire of fear and hatred he’s still stoking:
When a woman referred to Obama yesterday as “an Arab,” McCain cut her off and seized the microphone from her hands. “No, ma’am,” he interjected. “He is a decent family man with whom I happen to have some disagreements.”
If the problem with that response isn’t clear, try replacing “Arab” with “Jew” or “Catholic.” “He’s not a Catholic. He’s decent!” Why hasn’t there been any notice of this, as far as I can tell?
it’s worse that that, even. she skipped over directly labeling obama muslim, and instead raised the code word hatred to him being an “a-rab.”
i have no idea what the hate equivalent would be if obama’s name was joshua goldberg or antonio battista.
at least mccain did something.
Yup. McCain certainly did something.
He insinuated that Arabs weren’t ‘decent family’ men with whom he could hold a reasoned argument.
Such revelations of bigotry/racism may be expected/forgiveable in a diverse audience, but not in a presidential candidate.
The bigoted question is, are there enough Americans who will recognise the insinuation and its implications?
[...] the latent racism that scars this country’s recuperation from the evils of its past. As David points out, even McCain’s efforts to rein in the rabid ignorance and xenophobia he inflamed smack of the [...]
Followed the link here from AKMA’s… wanted you to k now that 17 hours ago a twitterer called Greenmoon made the same point. Since your post is dated before his tweet, perhaps you inspired him. Perhaps not. But I just wanted you to know that there is a widening awareness of this particular gaffe.
Err.. maybe Campbell Brown at CNN reads your blog?