Palin's Republican rage is dangerous and out of hand

When people start yelling racial slurs at reporters at Palin/McCain rallies, something has definitely gone wrong. Especially when the candidates do nothing to discourage this type of behavior.

Recent examples of "Republican rage" have cast doubt on whether the right really are good Americans. Sarah Palin has used this Ayers conspiracy theory to cast doubts on Barack Obama's patriotism, character, and even religious views. Never mind the policies - he's a dangerous terrorist.

This, friends, is crap of the highest degree - and it's dangerous. Andrew Sullivan tells us that the fear and loathing Republicans have turned them into nasty reptiles:

McCain and Palin have decided to stoke this rage, to foment it, to encourage paranoid notions that somehow Obama is a "secret" terrorist or Islamist or foreigner. These are base emotions in both sense of the word.

But they are also very very dangerous. This is a moment of maximal physical danger for the young Democratic nominee. And McCain is playing with fire. If he really wants to put country first, he will attack Obama on his policies - not on these inflammatory, personal, creepy grounds.

"Creepy" is right. This is the kind of behavior that led to lynch mobs in the South at the turn of the century, or - in extreme cases - Germans whistling past the concentration camp.

People who shout "kill him" at political rallies are not good Americans. They're foolish, despicable, cowardly blow-hards who deserve neither to be heard nor to be ignored. And all this foolishness may backfire on McCain: the troll-under-the-bridge strategy is the one getting the attention, not Obama serving on a board with some radical hippie. People, smart people, are starting to take notice.

It makes me ashamed, to think that we live in such an ignorant fucking country that can't see the difference between a leader who tries to sell them fear at a discount for one who offers hope and solutions to the problems we face. It's a sign of weakness and desperation when a party has to stoop low enough to use racial, ethnic, and religious slurs to smear an opponent. Is that really what our country is about? Here we had hoped that this election would be different; that this election promised two of the most respectable human beings in politics finally giving us a president we deserved - no matter the result.

No more.

This shit is scary, and the reptiles behind it are even scarier. These attacks have shown the dark side of America, and we can thank Gov. Palin for leading us there.

by Rope Hoover Palin