Secret Service Blames Palin Rhetoric For Death Threats Against Obama
This is grossly unfair:
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.
First, it’s worth noting that those shouts of “kill him” and “terrorist” at Palin rallies weren’t ever corroborated. Sure, the media seized on them to distract from the factual pertinent connections between Obama and terrorists/radicals like William Ayers and Jeremiah Wright that Palin was talking about, but outside of claims from clearly non-objective sources there’s nothing to suggest that those things actually happened.
Second, even if random idiots were screaming such nonsense at Palin rallies, is that really Palin’s fault? It’s almost like we’re talking about a thought crime here. What Palin said was the truth. Obama associated himself with radicals and unrepentant terrorists. He allied himself with these people, for years and even decades, and Palin pointing that out was perfectly legitimate. Did it make some some idiotic bigots and thuggish extremists want to kill Obama? Maybe, but does anyone honestly believe that was Palin’s intent?
Certainly she was trying to make people dislike Obama as a candidate, and refrain from choosing him as the next leader of this country, but there was nothing inherently hateful in her criticism of him and his associations.
Frankly, I don’t think we’d even be seeing stories like this if it’d been Biden slamming McCain for associating with abortion clinic bombers (something he didn’t do) prompting pro-life activists to send him death threats.
