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McCain To Supporter: No Ma'am, Obama Is Not An Arab
TPM Election Central —
As noted below, today's McCain event was awfully surreal, and here's some video of the best moment -- McCain grabbing the mic away from a woman who says she's scared of Obama because he's an "Arab"...
One thing that's intriguing: How quickly the crowd goes from booing McCain's demand that his supporters respect Obama to cheering his claim that that's how politics should be conducted in America. The crowd swung from booing the sentiment to cheering it in seconds.
Also: It's hard to see how his current appearance today doesn't cut against him, should his campaign amp up the attacks on Ayers (and, ...
Credit Where Credit's Due
Obsidian Wings —
by publius
McCain finally steps in and tells his audience to be respectful. Good for him. It's not exactly an easy thing to do at a campaign rally, but it's the right thing.
David Kurtz has more.
McCain booed after telling crowd to be respectful to Obama
Hot Air » Top Picks —
McCain booed after telling crowd to be respectful to Obama posted at 8:25 pm on October 10, 2008 by Allahpundit Send to a Friend | printer-friendly The gloves are off on. But then something weird happens: He acknowledges the “energy” people have been showing at rallies, and how glad he is that people are excited. But, he says, “I respect Sen. Obama and his accomplishments.” People booed at the mention of his name. McCain, visibly angry, stopped them: “I want EVERYONE to be respectful, and lets make sure we are.”… And then later, again, someone dangled a great big piece of low-hanging fruit in front of McCain: “I’m scared to bring up my child ...
The Next Generation Wants A More Stable Man
DownWithTyranny! —
While everyone waits breathlessly-- the Legislative Council having voted 12-0 in favor of release-- for the Alaska state legislature to publish the independent report on Sarah Palin's abuse of office investigation (Troopergate), Palin herself is still running around the Lower 48 inciting divisiveness and hatred towards Barack Obama. Today McCain was forced by the media to address the disgraceful situation-- and was boo-ed by the racists and yahoos Palin has attracted to McCain's rallies. Time Magazine addressed the intolerable situation-- "the kind of vicious anti-Obama attitude that's becoming a hallmark of McCain ...
Actually, this is a maverick thing to do
HorsesAss.Org —
I’m going to take John McCain at his word in the video below, where he essentially smacks down the GOP hate mongers. There are a lot of us who had a begrudging respect for McCain for a lot of years, and at least to me it’s pointless to worry about whether he should have said this a few days ago or whatever.
He said it, and as a fellow citizen I thank him. We all make mistakes. (Props to TPM for the video.) Naturally I cannot support McCain as I disagree wholeheartedly with him, but I’m no longer feeling like he wants the crazy people to get even crazier. That’s an act of patriotism in my book. ...
Time and Tides
The Mahablog —
I don’t expect the “Troopergate” report released tonight to make a big difference in the presidential campaign. People who still love the Moosewoman will dismiss it as “political.” People who don’t think much of her will still not think much of her.
More interesting to me is that today McCain supporters booed and jeered at McCain when he said Barack Obama is a “decent person.”
Senator McCain in The Outer Limits…
The Moderate Voice —
Color me amazed at the exchanges between Senator McCain and two supporters (well, I don’t know if they will support him after this; thanks to Allahpundit at Hot Air for the video):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kf6YKOkfFsE
I’m 34 years old. So I haven’t been around long enough to see many presidential ...
Weird. Sad. Surreal
Talking Points Memo —
This afternoon on the campaign trail, John McCain began dialing back (or began trying to appear to be dialing back) the rising tide of hatred and verbal violence he and his running mate have been whipping up over recent weeks. After all we've seen over recent months, I think it would naive to conclude that McCain did this for any other reason but that the attacks appeared to be backfiring. Perhaps that's ungenerous. But to think so requires a leap of faith, a judgment not grounded in any evidence from the last year of the man's behavior. The aim of such a bludgeoning assault is to force the subject of Obama's relationship to Ayers back to the center of the ...
Campaign 08: Over the Edge
The Nation: Top Stories —
Poor John McCain. He let the Bush-Cheney operatives who took over his Republican presidential campaign late in the summer talk him into running a scorched-earth campaign attacking Barack Obama. But, now that the campaign is fully operational, McCain is shocked and unsettled by what he is hearing from his own supporters. "I don't trust Obama," a woman at a town hall meeting in Minnesota told McCain. "I have read about him. He's an Arab." McCain silenced her and said, "No, ma'am. He's a decent, family man, a citizen that I just happen to have disagreements with on fundamental issues..." The crowd booed the Arizona senator's attempt to quiet the hate speech ...
Credit where due
Bitch. Ph.D. —
Good for McCain.
You Idiots
ArchPundit —
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kf6YKOkfFsE
You aren’t supposed to say it to McCain!
I can just imagine Karl Rove with his head in his hands thinking that he was never stupid enough to put Bush in the position of having to respond to purple bandaids and the such.
McCain and the "Arab"
The Reality-Based Community —
[image] McCain and the "Arab" The woman quoted by Mark Halperin telling John McCain that Barack Obama is an "Arab terrorist" — at which he corrected her — actually said merely "Arab." It's appropriate to give Halperin a hard time for misquoting, especially when apparently he had the right version earlier. There's some tendency on our side to give McCain a hard time, too, for speaking as if "Arab" were contradictory to "decent family man" or "citizen." McCain, for once, doesn't deserve it. Under the circumstances, he was doing the right thing, in the right way. There were two false ideas in that woman's mind: (and the minds of the rest ...
Tom D'Antoni: Stop the Presses!! McCain Reveals a Little Humanity!
Politics on HuffingtonPost.com —
John McCain may have finally re-discovered a sliver of his humanity. It's too late, of course, and his candidacy was doomed anyway because of the depression of 2008 but for a brief moment the old bird looked like normal a human being.
He has looked off his rocker, to put it mildly. But twice yesterday, he looked (dare I say it?) moral.
When one of the yahoos at a campaign stop expressed the anger and ignorance that McCain and his campaign have provoked over the past week, saying he was "afraid" of an Obama presidency, McCain said that Obama, "is a decent person and a person you do not have to be scared (of) as President of the United States." ...
Three Cheers for John McCain
The Moderate Voice —
I don’t even need to do a long, drawn out analysis of this (h/t to TPM) for you. Just watch the video below and consider my view that this is the John McCain I’ve known for a long time and respected. High time we saw this long overdue moment. Good job, Senator.
McCain tries to contain fire he started
Political Animal —
MCCAIN TRIES TO CONTAIN FIRE HE STARTED.... For quite a while now, the McCain campaign has stoked the fires of hate, fear, and ignorance, and Republican crowds have responded in kind, using increasingly incendiary rhetoric of their own. But yesterday, after having egged on enraged supporters all week, McCain tried a different tack -- he tried to contain the fire he helped set. At an event in Minnesota, a man told McCain he's "scared" of Obama winning. McCain responded, "I have to tell you. Sen. Obama is a decent person and a person you don't have to be scared of as president of the United States." The crowd booed ...
Bad cop/good cop---don’t buy it.
pandagon.net - we are the public option —
by Amanda Marcotte
I was fully prepared to give credit where it’s due to McCain for this maneuver.
But reading Pam’s post and Kathy’s post, my skepticism began to rise. Using surrogates to advance an attack and then “rising above” is a classic campaign tactic. To a degree, the Democrats are doing it. Biden spent much of the debate hammering at McCain, which opened the floor to Obama to speak positively about himself. McCain has nothing left but attacks now, so they’re pulling a ham-fisted, stupid version of the same ...
Did McCain acknowledge that he lost?
AMERICAblog News| A great nation deserves the truth —
Very weird video (below) from Josh Marshall over at TPM. Yesterday, McCain was forced to tell his own supporters to STFU after a week of inciting them to yell death threats about Barack Obama. Reader MG asks if the Secret Service had a little talk with McCain, and perhaps that's why he's suddenly so down on assassination talk. I wouldn't be surprised. Something happened. And McCain clearly isn't happy about it. ...
McCain's Sad Shuck and Jive
Newshoggers.com —
When do you know your campaign for president has flown seriously off the rails?
When you spend time during your campaign rallies defending your opponent against your own supporters.
VIDEO: McCain Begs Supporters to Respect Obama
The BRAD BLOG —
As Josh Marshall notes, in his must-read take on the video clips at right from a McCain rally yesterday, it's "Weird. Sad. Surreal."
"There's something else to note too," writes Marshall. "Over the last 48 hours several name brand Republicans have come out and either chided or denounced McCain's borderline incitement. And given how taboo it is to level such criticism of your own nominee at this stage of the election you have to assume these criticisms were only the tip of the iceberg, with a far more intense and angry barrage of criticism voiced privately."
"[L]look at the facial expressions. ...
Is McCain Committing Political Suicide With His Nice Guy Attitude?
Stop The ACLU —
My father just called and asked me what I thought about McCain stating Obama would make a good president, and whether I thought this was political suicide. I didn’t know exactly what he was talking about because I was on the road all day, not plugged into politics like I usually am. I went on auto-defense and assumed McCain did something to simply calm down some rowdy person at a townhall. My wife blurted out that she thought McCain sounded like a _ussy. So, now I’ve caught up, and definitely think McCain is messing up here. Is he doing the right thing? Perhaps his heart is in the right place, but he should really slow down and listen to his supporters. Obama is ...
Can an Arab be a "decent family man"?
democracyarsenal.org —
Did McCain really show integrity after a questioner said "[Obama's] an Arab"? McCain's response was that Obama was, in fact, a decent family man, so, by definition, he can't be an Arab. We all know, of course, that Arabs mistreat their women, and, almost without exception, have latent sympathies with terrorists. So, no, Arabs are not - nor are they capable - of being decent family men, which I suppose will pose a unique problem for my future wife and kids. I imagine it was also a problem for my father, who, now that I think about it, must have failed miserably in raising me.
I am sick of "Muslim" and "Arab" being ...
Coleen Rowley: Wrong Lesson from McCain's "Town Hall"
Politics on HuffingtonPost.com —
McCain's visit last Friday to the Lakeville (Minnesota) High School just 12 miles south of our home wasn't so much a bad reflection of Minnesota as it was a study in paradox. Unfortunately, the McCain campaign event, mishandled from start to finish, also furnished the worst lesson imaginable for those Lakeville high school students on how our country's constitutional democracy is supposed to function.
Paradox #1: The "Straight Talk Town Hall" was a complete contradiction of terms. McCain's "Town Hall" was simply not open to the people of Minnesota. Even people who lived in the residential housing area right across the ...
McCain's Classy Concession
Hit & Run —
Aside from the speech's almost astounding graciousness, note McCain's visceral disgust at the anti-Obama/Biden sentiments in the crowd. Sentiments he knows, on some basic level, that his campaign–especially the Sarah Palin wing of it–whipped up. As I mentioned in my column of this morning, McCain was extremely proud of the way he waged his campaign in 2000, and some important part of him must be flabbergasted that it was Barack Obama taking the comparative high ground this time around. McCain has always seen partisan politics as kind of dirty; to really compete on the presidential level, he convinced himself, he had to hold his nose, at ...
