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The Secret Service is blaming Sarah Palin‘s hateful campaign speeches for a dramatic increase in the number of death threats against now President Elect Barack Obama.
The attacks provoked a near lynch mob atmosphere at her rallies, with supporters yelling "terrorist" and "kill him" until the McCain campaign ordered her to tone down the rhetoric.
But it has now emerged that her demagogic tone may have unintentionally encouraged white supremacists to go even further.
The Secret Service warned the Obama family in mid October that they had seen a dramatic increase in the number of threats against the Democratic candidate, coinciding with Mrs Palin’s attacks.
There is no excuse for the hate and racism that was displayed at many Republican campaign events and I would find it hard to believe that Palin did not know what she was doing (although she apparently didn’t know that Africa was a continent so the point is debatable). As crowds at her rallies shouted racial slurs directed at Obama, racist signs and even nooses were displayed on numerous occasions, she did nothing.
Sarah Palin is not the only one to blame. At any point during the election season, someone in the campaign could have said something. For the most part, that did not happen. McCain did seem to have one moment of clarity however. Possibly he realized what he and Palin had created was out of control and arguably responsible for their plummeting poll numbers. It proved to be too little too late.
There is one other phenomena that can be attributed to, or blamed on, Palin’s rhetoric — landslide defeat of the GOP. But I should stop playing the blame game.
Will the GOP learn a lesson from this election? Somehow I doubt it.
63 Comments
Can Sarah please just go back into her igloo and never be heard from again?
The racism of the McCain Palin campaign started at the top and permeated throughout. The accountability starts at the top. McCain’s accountability = bigtime loss. Will Lieberman get the accountability he so richly deserves?
Sadly, it looks like she will be around a while.
That’s a striking pic, twolf.
Two notable things:
1) The Secret Service does their best not to seem to criticize the people (like Palin) that their agents guard; they don’t want to be accused of having a political bias. For them to speak out means that they must have seen things that never hit the press — things much worse than we know about.
2) Notice that this story broke in an overseas newspaper. Once again, we have to go to the foreign press to find out what’s happening in our own damned nation.
Ah, I see in the Telegraph story that their info came from a Newsweek article. But while Newsweek may have been first, no other US media outlet, aside from the blogs, has followed. And you know full well that if it had been the other way around — if Obama’s or Biden’s words had led to death threats against McCain or Palin — that it would be all over the evening news for weeks.
Sarah Palin may be ignorant on the world matters, but I don’t give her a free pass on being ignorant of how her hate-filled speeches ignite more hatred. She made the statement “So Sambo beat the bitch” when Obama won the Dem nominee. She is racist and the hatred she spews is genuine and in my view, calculated to inspire violence. She is a violent person herself.
Yes!
Glad you picked this up twolfl. Sarah really fed the bigots by ignoring the outrageous shouting at her rallies. She fueled it. Glad she is getting slapped down for her complicity
I have never heard such a thing. Do you have proof for that claim?
Digg please
Dugg, thanks for the link.
Thanks twolf1.
Dugg — I truly would like to see Sarah Palin have some serious consequences for HER actions during the campaign. I’m not a lawyer – I’d love to see her charged with ‘inciting to riot’ or something like that. She feels she can open up her gob and let anything come out and it’s all ok. This stuff is hate speech and it incites others to do the same…and make plans to do worse.
Snopes has that as undetermined – some waitress named Lucile said it, and a blogger picked it up.
But what will that mean for the First Amendment? /s
It was not unintentional tell me how did the racists know that it was safe to yell
in a room full of Secret Service agents?
The Klan knows as well as anyone else that threatening the life of a Presidential Candidate is a good way to go directly to jailfast.
Unless you are at a Sarah Rally?
This Sarah and John never heard the racist death threats story is lame I heard it on tape and I wasn’t even there..
The John McCain Moral equivalency argument that Obama supporters said some pretty mean things about John and Sarah is not true.
Show me the Tape,
If anything happens to Obama McCain and Sarah should both resign from politics!
link? with a statement like that I think we are well on our way to proving it was no accident the racists were at Sarah’s rally’s.
Where is Dave he is up on the hate groups?
hey twolf !
am not ashamed to admit I have passed some time just staring at that NYT map – and now you gift us with the interactive version ?!?!?!?
yippee!
now I know how guys felt when porn hit the interwebs
18 Diggs already pretty good:) we need more!
Why didn’t the Secret Service detain Palin? If anyone else had been inciting violence against a candidate they’d be sitting in an interrogation room at the very least. I’m sure the Secret Service is sensitive about interfering in the political process, but come on. Palin fell just short of calling directly for the assassination of Obama. Her rhetoric should have immediately disqualified her from being cleared to be part of our government.
I wonder if Matt Lauer will ask her about the racism tomorrow on the Today Show?
now I know how guys felt when porn hit the interwebs
there’s porn?
well, I never…
What about people like Michele Bachman – her rant was pretty incindiary too.
Dugg!
Twolf1 thanks for pointing out what we all witnessed. That the Rethuglians, McCain/Palin, will use anything to try and win an election. Even if it means whipping up hate and bigotry. They know that there are a bunch of wingnuts that require only a slight shove before they WILL go violent! Glad they lost and that the violence never surfaced. That was one of my greatest fears during the race. Now we have to get that Colorado AG to be punished for his blatant use of his office to block the Federal prosecution of those meth heads who were armed and ready to kill Obama. His behavior helped to fan the flames of hate when the wingnuts saw that they probably would not be prosecuted for committing crimes against the Democratic candidate!
What about people like Michele Bachman – her rant was pretty incindiary too.
good point. The Secret Service should be made aware that when Obama gives his first State of The Union Address, there is a serial slobbery-kissing stalker waiting for Obama on the R side waiting to pounce.
Seating charts should be arranged accordingly.
Yes I wonder to… if pigs will fly.
My husband heard two truckers on CB radio last week. One referred to the n* putting a watermelon patch in the White House front yard and the other talked about a betting pool on when Obama would be assassinated. He was disgusted and saddened.
I can only hope that the Secret Service is at the top of their game, since there will be attempts. Let’s just hope they are all unsuccessful and don’t harm others in the process.
Cut Sarah some slack. Because her husband is a one hundred and twenty-eighth Inuit native; she has felt that hate as she rides on the back of his snow machine. – bleck!
Wouldn’t it be nice just to let this caricature recede to the hinterlands of Alaska? She could hunt from bush planes and shop at consignment stores and pop out a few more pups for her guy and say, “Thanks but no thanks,” to a few more earmarks in her capacity as Governor of a state that deserves her.
But, after four years, I do dearly hope that the Republican party sees fit to run her up the pole again. Huckabee and Palin in 2012! He can show her how to cook moose on a Sunbeam popcorn popper! Priceless!
And mace don’t forget the mace:)
Unfortunately, the hateful ignorance she encouraged doesn’t go away. They’re still out there, and more embittered now.
What about all the vitriole that Tom Tancredo spewed about the “brown people”!
Seating chartsballgags should bearrangedapplied accordinglyAll of this needs to be brought up and thrown in her face the next time she runs for office.
Who is the person who told all the racists to go see Sarah? Before Sarah McCain was not getting no crowds. But suddenly Sarah comes along and at every stop there are crowds and they want to kill Obama?
Coincidence or were the McCain people trying to get out the vote?
Someone in the McCain campaign told everybody in the racist movements to show Who?
let’s just say that little cretin will not be invited to RNC events anytime soon
bet it wouldn’t be too difficult to determine a dollar figure for what he cost them in support. Dweeb Ric Keller will tell ya what it cost them in votes:D
I’m getting an inkling that you know more about this porn thing than you’re letting on…. *g*
Claims of her Husband being part Inuit are not going to save her from inciting race riots or attempts on Obama’s life if anything it makes Sarah even more guilty.
That depends on the maturity of her personality. She seems stuck in that the eternal sunshine of high school where she, as a Heather, can spew anything about anyone with no consequences because, you know, she’s just saying “stuff”.
it’s these years of exposure to the godless unwashed dfh’s – pinkie swear
I can not believe the folks in Minnesota put this woman back in. Michelle Bachmann needs to be treated for rabies.
We’ve had a bit of tension at the local high school here in my small town in Tennessee.
Several kids were upset over being asked to remove their Obama t-shirts last week after the election (although there were several wearing McCain/Palin and Obama t-shirts to school BEFORE the election). He said there are a few kids who still want to argue, particularly one in his class who at least once a day rants about how Obama is Muslim and the anti-christ. He refuses to engage, knowing it would only ratchet up the tension.
But the worst of it was that three boys were suspended last week for hanging a noose in shop class.
It’s a crazy world..and there is a sizeable portion of the population that seems intent on keeping the crazy going.
such a good point.
Question for Matt Lauer to ask Sarah Palin. We all know that before you came around a McCain rally was just a small bunch of depressed people.
But after you came around crowds in the thousands in different states and they all seemed to want to hurt Obama?
Who in the Sarah or the McCain campaigns told the racists to show?
Who told them the Secret Service would not do a thing to them no matter what they said at your rallies?
Matt we have tape of every Obama rally no death threats. Every time he crowd got angry in fact Obama said no and calmed them down.
You however just threw more gas on the fire.
You need to understand that the secret service was busy keeping the press away from Palin.
I think if this did not come from Sarah Palin it would have come from someone else. Even though it has been 50 years since african americans were really allowed to be treated as americans by constitutional ammendment, it was only 100 years before that that their ancestors were slaves. Obama will go far in erasing the color barrier in some professions by some professionals, but old habits die hard. They especially hard to break when encouraged by the often homogeneous crowds that some americans keep, specifically in the south. Since people in positions of power, or in positions to try to attain power, they were going to try to exploit any preceived advantage they thought they had. I also think it Bush had not screwed up as much as he did, they could have succeded.
Expel the students what else can the school do? Or send them to the local remedial school for troubled students. Tell the Heathers and Jocks a black mark of this kind on your record and you won’t play for or cheer on any intergrated college team.
I pray to G*, Sen. > President Obama stays safe. Our first *elected* president in eight years. He has to stay safe.
I know (sigh) that Katie Couric interview was the beginning of the end for Sarah. If only we could have gotten her to talk more to the press we could have won a few more states.
In what way are women equal in Alaska, one of the leaders of rape and violent acts against women and when they are raped are asked to pay for their own rape kit?
Equal my ass
still chuckling that it was Couric, Letterman, SNL, and The View and not the vaunted Villagers wielding the most influence – delicious!
I don’t know who called in the Racists, but a safe bet is to lay it at Rove’s feet. Typically, anything that has that subtle aroma of brimstone and April fresh anti-christiness, is a Rove connection of some form or another.
Ignorance of the law is no excuse…but to even throw out there that she might not have known what it was she was doing is hard to swallow. I can’t believe you’d even go there.
Her actions were very specifically choreographed, her words carefully rehearsed and chosen. Let’s not kid ourselves…this was all intentional.
Would that we lived in a Nation that gave a shit…Democrats were imprisoned for wearing fucking t-shirts, remember that? It is a little soon to be conciliatory with these people…they should answer for their actions to the majority. I’m not asking for a mob, or jail time, or any of that crap…I just wouldn’t mind a little ostracism of this behavior is all.
I’m sorry, but this Oxdown post did not deserve elevation to the FDL front page, at least not with the unsupportable headline it currently carries.
As far as I can tell, no one from the Secret Service has spoken to a journalist on or off the record and blamed Sarah Palin for death threats against Obama. That’s the plain meaning of the headline here, and it’s not supportable.
The Newsweek article everyone cites goes no further than to say that the Secret Service warned the Obamas of increased threats. Everyone quoted in the article as linking the increased threats to the ugliness of the crowds and provocative podium rhetoric was a non-Secret Service source. None of them is quoted as claiming that the Secret Service assigned any specific cause to the increased threats.
I personally blame McCain and Palin for the McCarthyite tone that stoked an increase in threats. A lot of us do. But it is just not accurate to say that the Secret Service did.
Well I didn’t live in the Civil Rights era, but I read this nation was shamed when a lot of reporters, national and abroad recorded–photographed and wrote stories on–the evil behavior of the segregationists. A good press would be a start.
Whether it’s the secret service that says it or not, please tell me you aren’t afraid when you saw some of the things McCain supporters said of Obama. Don’t have time to link to the most inflammatory clips. But what needs to be said, needs to be said. I don’t want another JFK. I am glad that this is being addressed in any manner. (call me expedient).
My criticism extends only to misattribution of statements to the Secret Service.
I’m as disgusted and terrified by the Rethug hatefest as anyone here, and draw the same lines of causation as you do between these hate rallies and the death threats. In fact, I have little doubt that many in the Secret Service feel the same way.
But it’s wrong to claim they blamed Palin without any evidence that they did.
There are many reasons why they don’t take it straight to the press. You’re down-playing the threat. Whether the SS told the press or the Obama’s why isn’t this story deserving of attention?
I totally agree with you. When will she be ‘permanantly’ back in Alaska. I am so damn tired of seeing or hearing from her or about her it is not even close to funny.
Ugh. I am not downplaying the threats. The passage you cite is from an Independent article sourced entirely to the Newsweek article. The observation that the threats coincided with Palin’s attacks comes from the Independent writer, based on no original reporting. It is not attributed in the Newsweek article to the Secret Service, and no one quoted in the Newsweek article says that the Secret Service made any statement about either a) temporal association or b) actual causation between Palin’s statements and the threats.
As noted above, I think it’s obvious Palin and McCain both helped stoke the hate that encouraged the threats. But no one, including the Newsweek sources quoted, has said that the Secret Service went one step further than warning about the threats.
I agree with everything you have said — except to the extent you seem surprised to see an unsubstantiated rumor show up on a FDL front page as a statement of fact.
Argh. I am not saying you are downplaying the threat. After all, we live in the same country. I guess I was unclear– or whatever. I agree that we should not follow the examples of some of our more disingenous mainstream press by attributing wrong statements, or actions or blame on someone. My sole issue is the anxiety I feel hearing of the wack elements of this country and the safety of the first elected president we’ve had in 8 years. I guess I meant I wish that we could have a thread to discuss some of our anxieties, which are not without reason given that nastiness of segregationists during the Civil Rights era, the assassinations of MLK and JFK, etc.
You guys can argue amongst yourselves on the veracity of the Secret Service headline.
Fact checking and political correctness are less important than the expression of viewpoints from which valuable ideas emerge and others are washed away. This is what democracy looks like.
I agree that this issue is of prime importance. Seeing the resurgence of extremist views being aired during this election cycle has been unnerving. On the one hand, perhaps it’s important that these ugly visions are exorcised, brought into the light rather than allowed to fester in remote corners of Alaska and Mississippistan.
I don’t often hear NPR’s “Wait, wait don’t tell me”, but a month or 2 ago they had a guy on who said something both funny and apropos in response to Obama’s comment that he was 8 years old when the Weather Underground was doing their (Ayers) stuff. He said something about McCain being only 8 years old when John Wilkes Booth was alive. And it was brilliant, both skewering McCain on his age and conflating his campaign with the movement Wilkes Booth was in, conspiring to kill Lincoln.
We are facing what is–I think–a small but significantly wacked out under-the-rock movement of paranoid undereducated fucks who equate God and Country and Patriotism with some sort of Holy White Way and they are frightened of losing …something, I’m not really sure what, perhaps the vision of “Merica that has been falsely promised to them by their equally rock-under-living antecedents. These people claim themselves as patriots but are really just bigots, as the klan was and still is. White Christian daddy has driven America into a tree. Got it? (”Somebody got drunk.” Yuk yuk yuk.)
Not only do we need to speak out on this but we need to encourage government to make it increasingly difficult for such rock-under-dwellers to proceed with their vision or acting it out. This is why many of us support stronger firearm laws. Too many partly unsane people carrying guns. This is also why Sarah Palin and Entourage (Todd) look so ugly: Not only does she whip up the paramilitary types (and their parents) into the hatred frenzy, but she also appears to have the survivalist history that goes hand in hand: dreaming of a day when society falls apart and we just have to wait for Christ to appear and take us home. Nursery school stuff really and being realized here on Earth by sick minds like Bush, Palin, etc. So when gov’t and civilisation is successfully dismantled at the hands of the privateers (the same folks with MBAs from Chicago University) there might be a few rough years before Christ walks in, so have lots of guns handy and be able to shoot a deer (or anyone who doesn’t look like you). For Jesus of course.
And they claim to be Christians.
Let me then rephrase it to: Sarah Palin allegedly said “So Sambo beat the bitch”.