Unnamed Secret Service field officers have revealed to the press that Sarah Palin’s attacks on President-Elect Obama provoked numerous white supremecist assassination plots against him:
‘The Republican vice presidential candidate attracted criticism for accusing Mr Obama of “palling around with terrorists”, citing his association with the sixties radical William Ayers.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.’
McCain got all blustery when John Lewis accused his campaign of sowing the seeds of hate. But of course Lewis was perfectly right.
Anywone who knows the history of race relations in the United States knows that accusing a Black man of ‘palling around with terrorists’ is the prelude to a lynching.
McCain and Palin knew exactly what they were unleashing with that line, as did Neocon Randy Scheunemann.
It should be remembered that rightwing rhetoric in Israel lambasting Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin as a traitor was implicated in whipping up an Orthodox assassin to kill him, thus destroying the Oslo peace process.
Words have consequences, even ignorant disconnected words like those of Sarah Palin.