http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/politics/2008317820_apskinheadplot.html
All,
What have I been saying repeatedly about "the psychosis that rules America"?
Kofi
Monday, October 27, 2008
Feds disrupt skinhead plot to assassinate Obama
By LARA JAKES JORDAN
Associated Press Writer
Two white supremacists allegedly plotted to go on a national killing spree, shooting and decapitating black people and ultimately targeting Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama, federal authorities said Monday.
In all, the two men whom officials describe as neo-Nazi skinheads planned to kill 88 people - 14 by beheading, according to documents unsealed in U.S. District Court in Jackson, Tenn. The numbers 88 and 14 are symbolic in the white supremacist community.
The spree, which initially targeted an unidentified predominantly African-American school, was to end with the two men driving toward Obama, "shooting at him from the windows," the court documents show.
"Both individuals stated they would dress in all white tuxedos and wear top hats during the assassination attempt," the court complaint states. "Both individuals further stated they knew they would and were willing to die during this attempt."
An Obama spokeswoman traveling with the senator in Pennsylvania had no immediate comment.
Sheriffs' deputies in Crockett County, Tenn., arrested the two suspects - Daniel Cowart, 20, of Bells, Tenn., and Paul Schlesselman 18, of Helena-West Helena, Ark. - Oct. 22 on unspecified charges. "Once we arrested the defendants and suspected they had violated federal law, we immediately contacted federal authorities," said Crockett County Sheriff Troy Klyce.
The two were charged by federal authorities Monday with possessing an unregistered firearm, conspiring to steal firearms from a federally licensed gun dealer, and threatening a candidate for president.
Cowart and Schlesselman are being held without bond. Agents seized a rifle, a sawed-off shotgun and three pistols from the men when they were arrested. Authorities alleged the two men were preparing to break into a gun shop to steal more.
Jasper Taylor, city attorney in Bells, said Cowart was arrested on Wednesday. He was held for a few days in Bells, then moved over the weekend to another facility.
"It was kept under lid until today," Taylor said.
Until his arrest, Cowart lived with his grandparents in a southern, rural part of the county, Taylor said, adding that Cowart apparently never graduated from high school. He moved away, possibly to Arkansas or Texas, then returned over the summer, Taylor said.
Attorney Joe Byrd, who has been hired to represent Cowart, did not immediately return a call seeking comment Monday. Messages left on two phone numbers listed under Cowart's name were not immediately returned.
No telephone number for Schlesselman in Helena-West Helena could be found immediately.
The court documents say the two men met about a month ago on the Internet and found common ground in their shared "white power" and "skinhead" philosophy.
The numbers 14 and 88 are symbols in skinhead culture, referring to a 14-word phrase attributed to an imprisoned white supremacist: "We must secure the existence of our people and a future for white children" and to the eighth letter of the alphabet, H. Two "8"s or "H"s stand for "Heil Hitler."
Court records say Cowart and Schlesselman also bought nylon rope and ski masks to use in a robbery or home invasion to fund their spree, during which they allegedly planned to go from state to state and kill people. Agents said the skinheads did not identify the African-American school they were targeting by name.
Jim Cavanaugh, special agent in charge of the Nashville field office for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco Firearms and Explosives, said authorities took the threats very seriously.
"They said that would be their last, final act - that they would attempt to kill Sen. Obama," Cavanaugh said. "They didn't believe they would be able to do it, but that they would get killed trying."
He added: "They seemed determined to do it. Even if they were just to try it, it would be a trail of tears around the South."
An ATF affidavit filed in the case says Cowart and Schlesselman told investigators the day they were arrested they had shot at a glass window at Beech Grove Church of Christ, a congregation of about 60 black members in Brownsville, Tenn.
Nelson Bond, the church secretary and treasurer, said no one was at the church when the shot was fired. Members found the bullet had shattered the glass in the church's front door when they arrived for evening Bible study.
"We have been on this site for about 120 years, and we have never had a problem like this before," said Bond, 53 and a church member for 45 years.
The investigation is continuing, and more charges are possible, Cavanaugh said. He said there's no evidence - so far - that others were willing to assist Cowart and Schlesselman with the plot.
At this point, there does not appear to be any formal assassination plan, Secret Service spokesman Eric Zahren said.
"Whether or not they had the capability or the wherewithal to carry out an attack remains to be seen," he said.
Zahren said the statements about the assassination came out in interviews after the men were arrested last week.
The Secret Service became involved in the investigation once it was clear that an Obama assassination attempt was part of this violent far-reaching plot.
"We don't discount anything," Zahren said, adding that it's one thing for the defendants to make statements, but it's not the same as having an organized assassination plan.
Helena-West Helena, on the Mississippi River in east Arkansas' Delta, is in one of the nation's poorest regions, trailing even parts of Appalachia in its standard of living. Police Chief Fred Fielder said he had never heard of Schlesselman.
However, the reported threat of attacking a school filled with black students worried Fielder. Helena-West Helena, with a population of 12,200, is 66 percent black. "Predominantly black school, take your pick," he said.
---
Associated Press writers Erik Schelzig in Nashville, Tenn., Jon Gambrell in Little Rock, Ark., and Eileen Sullivan in Washington contributed to this report.
Copyright © 2008 The Seattle Times Company
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/27369927/All,COMBAT THE MADNESS! EDUCATE. ORGANIZE. MOBILIZE. THE NEW SOCIETY AND THE NEW WORLD WE SEEK IS INSIDE OF US AND ONLY US. SO STRUGGLE AND FIGHT TO CHANGE THAT WHAT MUST BE CHANGED IF WE ARE TO TRIUMPH OVER THE MASSIVE FORCES OF HATRED, REPRESSION, AND STUPIDITY NO MATTER WHO OR WHERE THEY ARE.
KOFI"You cannot change in your head that which can only be changed in society."
--C.L.R. James (1901-1989)Christian right steps up attacks on Obama
Conservative activists escalate 'doom and gloom' rhetoric as Nov. 4 nears
By Eric Gorski and Rachel Zoll
AP Religion Writers
The Associated Press
Sat., Oct. 25, 2008Terrorist strikes on four American cities. Russia rolling into Eastern Europe. Israel hit by a nuclear bomb. Gay marriage in every state. The end of the Boy Scouts.
All are plausible scenarios if Democrat Barack Obama is elected president, according to a new addition to the campaign conversation called "Letter from 2012 in Obama's America," produced by the conservative Christian group Focus on the Family Action.
The imagined look into the future is part of an escalation in rhetoric from Christian right activists who are trying to paint Obama in the worst possible terms as the campaign heads into the final stretch and polls show the Democrat ahead.
Although hard-edge attacks are common late in campaigns, the tenor of the strikes against Obama illustrate just how worried conservative Christian activists are about what should happen to their causes and influence if Democrats seize control of both Congress and the White House.
'Smells like desperation'"It looks like, walks like, talks like and smells like desperation to me," said the Rev. Kirbyjon Caldwell of Houston, an Obama supporter who backed President Bush in the past two elections. The Methodist pastor called the 2012 letter "false and ridiculous." He said it showed that some Christian conservative leaders fear that Obama's faith-based appeals to voters are working.
Like other political advocacy groups, Christian right groups often raise worries about an election's consequences to mobilize voters. In the early 1980s, for example, direct mail from the Moral Majority warned that Congress would turn a blind eye to "smut peddlers" dangling pornography to children.
"Everyone uses fear in the last part of a campaign, but evangelicals are especially theologically prone to those sorts of arguments," said Clyde Wilcox, a Georgetown University political scientist. "There's a long tradition of predicting doom and gloom."
But the tone this election year is sharper than usual and the volume has turned up as Nov. 4 nears.
Steve Strang, publisher of Charisma magazine, a Pentecostal publication, titled one of his recent weekly e-mails to readers, "Life As We Know It Will End If Obama is Elected."
Strang said gay rights and abortion rights would be strengthened in an Obama administration, taxes would rise and "people who hate Christianity will be emboldened to attack our freedoms."
Separately, a group called the Christian Anti-Defamation Commission has posted a series of videos on its site and on YouTube called "7 Reasons Barack Obama is not a Christian."
The commission accuses Obama of "subtle diabolical deceit" in saying he is Christian, while he believes that people can be saved through other faiths.
But among the strongest pieces this year is Focus on the Family Action's letter which has been posted on the group's Web site and making the e-mail rounds. Signed by "A Christian from 2012," it claims a series of events could logically happen based on the group's interpretation of Obama's record, Democratic Party positions, recent court rulings and other trends.
Among the claims:
A 6-3 liberal majority Supreme Court that results in rulings like one making gay marriage the law of the land and another forcing the Boy Scouts to "hire homosexual scoutmasters and allow them to sleep in tents with young boys." (In the imagined scenario, The Boy Scouts choose to disband rather than obey).
A series of domestic and international disasters based on Obama's "reluctance to send troops overseas." That includes terrorist attacks on U.S. soil that kill hundreds, Russia occupying the Baltic states and Eastern European countries including Poland and the Czech Republic, and al-Qaida overwhelming Iraq.
Nationalized health care with long lines for surgery and no access to hospitals for people over 80.
The goal was to "articulate the big picture," said Carrie Gordon Earll, senior director of public policy for Focus on the Family Action. "If it is a doomsday picture, then it's a realistic picture," she said.
Obama favors abortion rights and supports civil unions for same-sex couples, but says states should make their own decisions about marriage. He said he would intensify diplomatic pressure on Iran over its nuclear ambitions and add troops in Afghanistan.
On taxes, Obama has proposed an increase on the 5 percent of taxpayers who make more than $250,000 a year and advocates cuts for those who make less. His health care plan calls for the government to subsidize coverage for millions of Americans who otherwise couldn't afford it.
One of the clear targets of this latest conservative Christian push against the Democrat is younger evangelicals who might be considering him. The letter posits that young evangelicals provide the margin that let Obama defeat John McCain. But Margaret Feinberg, a Denver-area evangelical author, predicted failure.
"Young evangelicals are tired — like most people at this point in the election — and rhetoric which is fear-based, strong-arms the listener, and states opinion as fact will only polarize rather than further the informed, balanced discussion that younger voters are hungry for," she said.
Last-minute push?
In an interview, Strang said there are fewer state ballot measures to motivate conservative voters this election year and that the financial meltdown is distracting some voters from the abortion issue. But he said a last-minute push by conservative Christians in 2004 was key to Bush's re-election and predicted they could play the same role in 2008.
Kim Conger, a political scientist at Iowa State University, said a late push for evangelical voters did help Bush in 2004, "but it is a very different thing than getting people excited about John McCain," even with Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin as his vice presidential pick.
Phil Burress, head of the Ohio-based Citizens for Community Values, said the dynamics were quite different in 2004, when conservative Christians spent some energy calling Democrat John Kerry a flip-flopper but were mostly motivated by enthusiasm for George W. Bush.
Now, there is less excitement about McCain than fear of an Obama presidency, Burress said.
"This reminds me of when I was a school kid, when I had to go out in the hall and bury my head in my hands because of the atom bomb," he said.
Copyright 2008 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
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© 2008 MSNBC.com
http://www.mercurynews.com/news/ci_10787462
All,
Every single maniacally racist lie and stereotype that the rightwing Republican machine can possibly conjure up is being used in a wildly hysterical attempt to futilely save what is beyond doubt one of the most sordid, vicious, and pathological campaigns in the history of American politics (and that's saying a LOT). Obama has been relentlessly smeared, libeled, slandered, and defamed in a manner that would be absolutely unthinkable if he was a white male candidate. But this is yet another ugly demonstration of the debased psychosis that rules America so no one can pretend that they are in any way "shocked" by just how criminally malicious McCain & Palin's behavior has been and will continue to be...
Kofi
GOP says Obama 'soft on crime'By KATHLEEN HENNESSEY Associated Press WriterArticle Launched: 10/22/2008 LAS VEGAS—Republicans are going after Barack Obama's record on crime and punishment in a new mail piece accusing the Democratic presidential candidate of being "soft on crime."
The flier sent by the Republican Party in Nevada and other states this week says Obama has voted against tough penalties for drug and gang-related crimes, and is against "protecting children from danger."
To back up the last claim the party cites a 1999 Illinois state Senate bill that allowed juveniles to be prosecuted as adults for firing a gun near schools. As an Illinois state senator, Obama voted "present" on the bill. His campaign says Obama did not believe there was evidence to prove the stiffer punishment would prevent juvenile crime.
The mailer, which includes pictures of guns, cash, drugs and close-ups of the candidate, also quotes an editorial published in the journal Investor's Business Daily. The editorial said Obama "acted more as a friend to criminals than to cops ... ".
The piece describes Obama as "Not who you think he is."
The Obama campaign on Wednesday issued a statement from Tom Nee, president of the National Association of Police Organizations, denouncing the mailer.
"This is one of the most dishonest attacks yet from an increasingly dishonest, dishonorable campaign," Nee said. "It's clear that Sen. McCain and his agents would rather distort facts and scare people than talk about his disastrous public safety and economic policies that offer no change from the last eight years"
Nevada GOP executive director Zachary Moyle said the flier was sent to more than 100,000 Nevada households where voters had identified crime as a top concern. Most of the campaign mail circulated by the state party is developed nationally and dropped in several key states.
"The American people are still unfamiliar with Sen. Obama and we feel it's important to bring to light his positions on all the issues. One of the reasons he's had the success he's had is that people don't know much about him," Moyle said.
http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/10/25/palin.tension/index.html?eref=rss_politicsAll,The bloodthirsty rightwing maniacs in the McCain/Palin traveling circus of political demagogues are turning on each other like the murderous sharks and piranhas that they are. Welcome to the new protofascist hypocrites of the Republican Party yall. Beware of Palinology! Like Always: WHAT GOES AROUND COMES AROUND... KofiPalin's 'going rogue,' McCain aide says
STORY HIGHLIGHTS
Sources say there is brewing tension between McCain aides and Palin
Palin aide says she is trying to take control of her message
"She is a diva. She takes no advice from anyone," says a McCain adviser
Next Article in Politics »From Dana Bash, Peter Hamby and John King CNNALBUQUERQUE, New Mexico (CNN) -- With 10 days until Election Day, long-brewing tensions between GOP vice presidential candidate Gov. Sarah Palin and key aides to Sen. John McCain have become so intense, they are spilling out in public, sources say.
Several McCain advisers have suggested to CNN that they have become increasingly frustrated with what one aide described as Palin "going rogue."
A Palin associate, however, said the candidate is simply trying to "bust free" of what she believes was a damaging and mismanaged roll-out.
McCain sources say Palin has gone off-message several times, and they privately wonder whether the incidents were deliberate. They cited an instance in which she labeled robocalls -- recorded messages often used to attack a candidate's opponent -- "irritating" even as the campaign defended their use. Also, they pointed to her telling reporters she disagreed with the campaign's decision to pull out of Michigan.
A second McCain source says she appears to be looking out for herself more than the McCain campaign.
"She is a diva. She takes no advice from anyone," said this McCain adviser. "She does not have any relationships of trust with any of us, her family or anyone else.
"Also, she is playing for her own future and sees herself as the next leader of the party. Remember: Divas trust only unto themselves, as they see themselves as the beginning and end of all wisdom."
A Palin associate defended her, saying that she is "not good at process questions" and that her comments on Michigan and the robocalls were answers to process questions.
But this Palin source acknowledged that Palin is trying to take more control of her message, pointing to last week's impromptu news conference on a Colorado tarmac.
Tracey Schmitt, Palin's press secretary, was urgently called over after Palin wandered over to the press and started talking. Schmitt tried several times to end the unscheduled session.
"We acknowledge that perhaps she should have been out there doing more," a different Palin adviser recently said, arguing that "it's not fair to judge her off one or two sound bites" from the network interviews.
The Politico reported Saturday on Palin's frustration, specifically with McCain advisers Nicolle Wallace and Steve Schmidt. They helped decide to limit Palin's initial press contact to high-profile interviews with Charlie Gibson of ABC and Katie Couric of CBS, which all McCain sources admit were highly damaging.
In response, Wallace e-mailed CNN the same quote she gave the Politico: "If people want to throw me under the bus, my personal belief is that the most honorable thing to do is to lie there."
But two sources, one Palin associate and one McCain adviser, defended the decision to keep her press interaction limited after she was picked, both saying flatly that she was not ready and that the missteps could have been a lot worse.
They insisted that she needed time to be briefed on national and international issues and on McCain's record.
"Her lack of fundamental understanding of some key issues was dramatic," said another McCain source with direct knowledge of the process to prepare Palin after she was picked. The source said it was probably the "hardest" to get her "up to speed than any candidate in history."
Schmitt came to the back of the plane Saturday to deliver a statement to traveling reporters: "Unnamed sources with their own agenda will say what they want, but from Gov. Palin down, we have one agenda, and that's to win on Election Day."
Yet another senior McCain adviser lamented the public recriminations.
"This is what happens with a campaign that's behind; it brings out the worst in people, finger-pointing and scapegoating," this senior adviser said.
This adviser also decried the double standard, noting that Democratic nominee Sen. Barack Obama's running mate, Sen. Joe Biden, has gone off the reservation as well, most recently by telling donors at a fundraiser that America's enemies will try to "test" Obama.
Tensions like those within the McCain-Palin campaign are not unusual; vice presidential candidates also have a history of butting heads with the top of the ticket.
John Edwards and his inner circle repeatedly questioned Sen. John Kerry's strategy in 2004, and Kerry loyalists repeatedly aired in public their view that Edwards would not play the traditional attack dog role with relish because he wanted to protect his future political interests.
Even in a winning campaign like Bill Clinton's, some of Al Gore's aides in 1992 and again in 1996 questioned how Gore was being scheduled for campaign events.
Jack Kemp's aides distrusted the Bob Dole camp and vice versa, and Dan Quayle loyalists had a list of gripes remarkably similar to those now being aired by Gov. Palin's aides.
With the presidential race in its final days and polls suggesting that McCain's chances of pulling out a win are growing slim, Palin may be looking after her own future.
"She's no longer playing for 2008; she's playing 2012," Democratic pollster Peter Hart said. "And the difficulty is, when she went on 'Saturday Night Live,' she became a reinforcement of her caricature. She never allowed herself to be vetted, and at the end of the day, voters turned against her both in terms of qualifications and personally."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/story/2008/10/24/ST2008102403346.html?sid=ST2008102403346&s_pos=listPerceptions of Palin Grow Increasingly Negative, Poll SaysBy Jon Cohen and Jennifer AgiestaWashington Post Staff WritersSaturday, October 25, 2008; A03While top-of-the-ticket rivals John McCain and Barack Obama both remain broadly popular heading into Election Day, public perceptions of Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin have fallen dramatically since she emerged on the national political scene at the GOP convention.
A majority of likely voters in a new Washington Post-ABC News national poll now have unfavorable views of the Alaska governor, most still doubt her presidential qualifications and there is an even split on whether she "gets it," a perception that had been a key component of her initial appeal.
Palin's addition to the GOP ticket initially helped McCain narrow the gap with Obama on the question of which presidential hopeful "better understands the problems of people like you," but at 18 percentage points, the Democrat's margin on that question is now as big as it has been all fall. Nor has Palin attracted female voters to McCain, as his campaign had hoped.
Obama is up by a large margin among women, 57 to 41 percent in the new Post-ABC tracking poll. The senator from Illinois just about ties McCain among white women -- 48 percent back Obama, 49 percent McCain -- a group that President Bush won by 11 points four years ago and one that had shifted significantly toward the GOP this year after the Palin pick.
In polling conducted Wednesday and Thursday evenings, after the disclosure that the Republican National Committee used political funds to help Palin assemble a wardrobe for the campaign, 51 percent said they have a negative impression of her. Fewer, 46 percent, said they have a favorable view. That marks a stark turnaround from early September, when 59 percent of likely voters held positive opinions.
The declines in Palin's ratings have been even more substantial among the very voters Republicans aimed to woo. The percentage of white women viewing her favorably dropped 21 points since early September; among independent women, it fell 24 points.
More broadly, the intensity of negative feelings about Palin is also notable: Forty percent of voters have "strongly unfavorable" views, more than double the post-convention number. Nearly half of independent women now see her in a very negative light, a nearly threefold increase.
The shift in Palin's ratings come with a pronounced spike in the percentage of voters who see her as lacking the experience it takes to be a good president. Voters were about evenly divided on that question a month and a half ago, but toward the end of September a clear majority said she was not qualified. In the new poll, 58 percent said she is insufficiently experienced.
Among a recent spate of conservative defections from McCain, one leading Republican was particularly pointed about the impact of Palin's professional background on his decision. Charles Fried, a professor at Harvard Law School and former solicitor general under Ronald Reagan, asked that the McCain-Palin campaign remove his name from several committees in large part because of "the choice of Sarah Palin at a time of deep national crisis."
A Post-ABC poll earlier this week reported that the Palin pick deeply damaged voters' confidence in the types of decisions McCain would make as president.
Perhaps more fundamentally for Palin's national political future, though, is that voters in the new poll are evenly divided about whether she understands their problems. Three weeks ago, 60 percent said she did; now it is 50 percent yes, 47 percent no.
Both Democratic and independent women are half as likely as they were in late September to see Palin as empathetic. Among independent women, the percentage who view Palin as in tune with people like themselves slipped from 73 to 50 percent.
Palin's struggle to connect deepens McCain's own deficit on the issue. On the question of who is more empathetic, 55 percent of voters said Obama, 37 percent McCain. And McCain picks up few of those who view Palin as disconnected.
But the gap is smaller on overall favorability, one of the factors that buoys the GOP ticket as Election Day approaches, despite generally negative poll numbers: 63 percent of likely voters have favorable impressions of Obama, 55 percent of McCain. Among the crucial segment of independent voters, the two rivals have identical 58 percent favorable ratings.
Taking the tickets together, 53 percent of likely voters express favorable views of both Obama and his running mate, Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr., 41 percent of both McCain and Palin. Those numbers are very close to current vote preferences in the latest Post-ABC tracking poll: Fifty-three percent said they would vote Democratic if the election were held today; 44 percent would opt for the GOP.
Assistant polling analyst Kyle Dropp contributed to this report.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/us_elections_2008/7691374.stmObama criticises 'ugly' tacticsUS Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama has accused his Republican rival John McCain of negative campaigning 10 days before polling day.
Mr Obama, appearing in Nevada, said the "ugly phone calls, the misleading mail and TV ads, the careless, outrageous comments" were preventing "change".
Mr McCain accused Mr Obama in New Mexico of starting a victory lap before winning the election.
The two men are focusing on vital states in the west of the country.
Nevada, New Mexico and Colorado were all Republican at the last election but could prove crucial if the vote is tight on 4 November.
All the main national opinion polls suggest Barack Obama has a strong lead.
'Batman and Robin'Mr Obama, returning to the campaign trail after two days off in which he flew to his ailing grandmother in Hawaii, said a negative campaign was not what the country needed.
"In the final days of campaigns, the say-anything, do-anything politics too often takes over..." he said in Las Vegas, Nevada.
"The American people don't want to hear politicians attack each other - you want to hear about how we're going to attack the challenges facing middle-class families each and every day."
Both Mr McCain and Mr Obama appeared in Albuquerque on Saturday
Later, in Albuquerque, New Mexico, he sought to tie Mr McCain to the policies of the outgoing Republican President, George W Bush.
"John McCain's mad at George Bush, so opposed to George Bush's policies, that he voted with him 90% of the time for the past eight years," he told a mass rally.
"That's right, he decided to really stick it to George Bush 10% of the time... It's like Robin getting mad at Batman."
'Already written'Speaking in Mesilla, New Mexico, John McCain seized on a report in the New York Times that the Obama camp had already drafted an inaugural address for the Democrat - an allegation the campaign has rejected as "completely false".
"Senator Obama's inaugural address is already written," Mr McCain said. "I'm not making it up. A lot of voters are undecided but he's decided for them."
"What America needs now is someone who will finish the race before starting the victory lap," the Republican hopeful added.
Speaking earlier in Albuquerque, and with a Newsweek poll putting him 13 points behind Mr Obama, Mr McCain said he was happy to be the "underdog" of the election race and was going to win because "what America needs now is a fighter".
Attempting to distance himself from President Bush, he added: "We cannot spend the next four years as we have much of the last eight, hoping for our luck to change at home and abroad."
While campaigning on Saturday in Sioux City, Iowa, Mr McCain's vice-presidential candidate, Sarah Palin, said her criticism of Obama had not been negative.
"Don't be made to feel guilty - I'm not feeling guilty," she said as calls of "he's a socialist" were heard from the crowd.
http://www.miamiherald.com/news/politics/AP/story/734135.htmlAn ugly line has been crossed in this presidential campaign, one in which some people don't mind calling Barack Obama a dangerous Muslim, a terrorist and worse.
"To me, this all feels much worse than we've seen in some time," said Kathryn Kolbert, the president of People for the American Way, which monitors political speech.
Experts agree on the reasons: Obama, the Democratic nominee, is different from any other major presidential candidate in history in many ways, and people often don't accept such change gracefully.
That different background fuels many fears, said Penni Pier, who's an expert on political rhetoric. People are still scared that terrorists are ready to strike and wonder about Obama's background, she said, while the Internet and other outlets are endless sources of misinformation.
Some think that Republican strategists are, as Kolbert put it, "orchestrating" the vitriol.
Republicans heatedly deny that.
"Stuff happens at rallies for all candidates," Republican strategist Keith Appell said. "What you have (from Democrats) is an attempt to shame people to vote for Barack Obama by trying to paint those who would vote for John McCain as people who somehow, some way, harbor racist sentiments. That's disgusting."
Analysts see anger rooted in a number of societal factors, some cultural, some political.
"A great many people think they're about to lose power. The world is changing around them, and they can't stop that change. So their anger is boiling over," said Mark Potok, director of the intelligence project at the Southern Poverty Law Center, which tracks hate groups.
The nonstop bile flowing toward Obama has been expressed in many ways:
-Racism. People for the American Way has found that since the McCain campaign very publicly has accused ACORN, a grass-roots community group with strong ties to liberal politicians, of widespread voter registration fraud, "ACORN offices across the nation have been subjected to an onslaught of racist and threatening voice mails and e-mails."
-Values. Rep. Michele Bachmann, R-Minn., told MSNBC on Friday that Obama "may have anti-American views," and that if one looks at "the collection of friends that Barack Obama has had over his life ... it seems that it calls into question what Barack Obama's true beliefs and values and thoughts are."
-Patriotism and religion. At Becky's Cafe in Springfield, Ohio, Nicole Ratliff, a cable-television sales representative, echoed last week what many voters have said: "Obama won't salute the flag and he has said he was a Muslim."
Obama is and has always been a Christian. The flag controversy erupted in September 2007, when then-fellow Democratic presidential candidates Bill Richardson and Hillary Clinton had their hands over their hearts during the playing of the national anthem in Iowa, while Obama stood with his hands clasped. An Obama spokesman said at the time that the candidate sometimes put his hand over his heart and had no substantive reason for not doing so.
The venom endures largely because not only is the Illinois senator the first African-American who's ever come this close to the presidency, but his background - biracial, lived in Indonesia for a time, grew up in Hawaii, has the middle name Hussein - also isn't the stuff of past presidential resumes.
That rouses suspicion among some voters, said Pier, an associate professor of communication arts at Iowa's Wartburg College, because "people are still reeling from the 9-11 attacks, and some still have a tendency to see Muslims with fear."
In addition, Pier said, many older voters grew up when racial segregation was still legal, haven't necessarily accepted blacks in positions of power and are afraid of having a black president.
"Everything these people have stood for is sort of being questioned and to some degree eliminated by Obama," said David Bositis, a senior research associate at Washington's Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, which studies African-American voting trends.
The angry voters have a 21st-century way to come together instantly and share misinformation. No longer do most people get news from newspapers or major television networks; instead they can access talk shows or Internet sites that are sympathetic to their own views.
"I can't recall a campaign where so many people held beliefs about a candidate that were demonstrably false," said Adam Schiffer, an expert on American political behavior and media at Texas Christian University, explaining what makes these charges different from the standard campaign tit for tat.
Last week, a McCain supporter told the Arizona senator, "I don't trust Obama. ... He's an Arab."
"No, ma'am," McCain replied, "He's a decent, family man, a citizen that I just happen to have disagreements with."
