Are McCain And Palin “Sowing The Seeds Of Hate?”
There’s a lot of press right now about Rep. John Lewis, a Democrat John McCain has gone out of his way to praise in the past, suggesting that the McCain/Palin campaign is “sowing the seeds of hate” by bringing up Obama’s connections to radicals like William Ayers and Jeremiah Wright.
This is, in my estimation, an oblique way of playing the race card. The suggestion here is that by going after Obama’s character and judgment by talking about the people he chose to associate himself with you ask people to “hate” Obama. I think that’s bogus.
Certainly McCain and Palin don’t want to endear Obama to voters, but there is a difference between making the case for why voters should be uncomfortable with Obama being their leader and asking them to hate him.
This is a bit of spin the media is pushing pretty hard. Yesterday the media essentially fabricated a story about McCain getting booed by a crowd after he told a lady in front of that crowd that Obama isn’t an Arab. The suggestion being that the crowd is so whipped up with hatred for Obama that they’re willing to believe anything (including fabrications about his race). But the truth is that the crowd didn’t boo McCain when he told that misguided crank that Obama wasn’t an Arab. They applauded him, and only booed him later when he said that there was no reason to be afraid of an Obama Presidency (taxpayers have plenty to be afraid of).
But what’s curious to me is that the media never seems concerned about “sowing the seeds of hate” when liberals are accusing conservatives of wanting poor people to starve when the conservatives want to reform welfare. You never hear a word about “hatred” when liberals accuse conservatives of not wanting the poor and minorities to vote when conservatives suggest that voter ID laws might be a good idea.
“Sowing hatred” is never invoked as a motivation when liberals are accusing conservatives of not wanting children to get health care when conservatives oppose the expansion of health entitlements.
Isn’t that an interesting double standard? Perfectly legitimate questions about Obama’s past personal and professional affiliations raise questions about “sowing hatred,” but liberals characterizing conservative motivations on a myriad of policy fronts as being “racist” or “sexist” or “selfish” or “uncaring” almost never gets challenged by anyone but conservatives.
