As we saw yesterday, John McCain’s latest gambit is to juice up his and Palin’s crowds into calling Obama a "terrorist", hurling racial epithets at black reporters (presumably, there aren’t many in attendance as supporters), or just random calls for murder.
A good many other bloggers who ought to know better are parroting this nonsense as if it's self-evident that McCain set out to whip up Republican crowds into threatening violence. That's almost certainly false, I'd say, and it misleads from the real point that should concern us. The widely seen video clip of McCain's reaction, as an audience member shouts that Obama is a "terrorist", shows his momentary surprise, consternation, or maybe even alarm.
No, what's shocking about McCain's tactics is that he's unleashing forces he can't control, and he's continuing down this path even after the raw reactions of his and Sarah Palin's audiences had demonstrated clearly the dangers of this demagoguery. McCain is grabbing a wolf by the ears and doesn't care to let go.
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