Based on the post-rally interview with the woman, she said she sends out hundreds of letters a day as a volunteer on McCain’s behalf and was given a letter by a friend that contained “very bad things” about Obama. She also said that she thinks, because of his father, that Obama still has some Muslim in him. So to her, Islam is some combination of STD and congenital birth defect. I suppose to her, Muslim=Arab. And of course Arab=Muslim=terrorist.
A schoolteacher in Glouster, OH, quoted in this week’s New Yorker:
And this woman is a Democrat who will not vote for McCain either.
It seems to me that it would be, mathematically speaking, difficult to be two-thirds anything.
How does that work? Half sure, even three quarters. Perhaps 666/1024 if you got really precise about 10 generations back. But 2/3?
:eek:
Maybe those “Obama is the Anti-Christ” emails were right!
I’ve been to Glouster. That comment doesn’t surprise me.
According to the McCain camp, that woman was probably a Democrat
:rolleyes:
This is discussed in the other thread, but that was the moment that proved for me it wasn’t staged.
He grabbed the microphone back. At the very momnent the woman says “He’s an Arab” you can see his facial expression melt from “I am smiling for the sake of this stupid but supportive constituent” to “Oh, fuck, a racist; I have to stop this right now.” He was clearly pissed off, an emotion he does not hide well. He was rushing his words in an effort to disagree with the woman.
I think McCain is legitimately caught off guard by the racist nastiness that’s coming up. As I’ve said before, I think this stuff might well have happened even had his campaign done absolutely nothing to encourage it. Now, to some extent I think they have. McCain was willing to do little deals with the devil to get himself elected and he deserves criticism for that. I suspect that in any scenario where a Republican candidate is losing to a black guy, this happens, but still he has to know his campaign has helped this happen. And there’s really no reason to think McCain’s himself a racist. He may well be genuinely horrified by what he’s hearing, and that’s a bad spot to be in. I don’t think George W. Bush is a racist either, but he was willing to play the same nasty little games in 2000. Politicians will do almost anything to get elected.
But now suddenly Pandora’s box is open, and the look on McCain’s face when talking down the crowd was clearly “Man, what a shitstorm this is.”
John McCain would be a bad President, and he’s not the super-honorable maverick his campaign makes him out to be, but shit, that’s true of most politicians. There’s no reason to believe he’s evil, like Kim Jong-Il or Dick Cheney. Believe me, he does not want his own crowds booing him when he says something decent. I cannot imagine that doesn’t bother him.
Okay, for everybody who doubted that this represented a true change of heart on McCain’s part, here’s an official statement released today, in his own name. If you cynics are right, he’ll try to defend the his campaign’s earlier character attacks. But if the more optimistic of us are right, he’ll encourage his supporters to show respect and moderation toward their opponents:
Oh. Well.
And the very quick Obama camp response;
I wondered that myself. But there is such a thing as ancestral collapse; it was one of the Master’s columns.
Not all of those 1024 ancestors will necessarily be unique individuals; Father #192 might be the same person as Father #506 and Father #507. You might have, in the distant past, inherited multiple times from the same person.
Wait, so he’s an incestuous Arab Muslim terrorist? My god, that’s even worse!
Don’t let Palin see this thread, for god’s sake…
Good point. It would’ve been better if something like “He’s a Christian”.*
*Yes I know “Arab” is an ethnicity, not a religion; there are plenty of Arab Christians, but it’s pretty clear that for many people (including that woman) it’s just another word for Muslim.
Well damn. McCain and Palin are actually victims of the vicious, slandering Obama camp. I’ve been repulsed by the hate-rallies with frenzied Obama supporters shouting, “Off the geriatric cracker muthafucka!” and “Lyin’ ho!”
Oh wait. Hasn’t happened. Obama has run a scrupulously clean campaign, and maintained it with an iron hand.
So much for optimism.
No tactic too scummy, no lie too vile. The GOP will need haz-mat gear to disinfect their big tent after this crapfest.
I’m going to go out on a giant limb and speculate that she doesn’t spend a large portion of her time here, or anywhere else where there are quite so many words written down.
Whoa, do you have a cite? Not that I don’t believe you-I’m just interested in reading it for myself now!
Yep. Right now, forget McCain-the ones I feel sorry for are the Secret Service. Can you IMAGINE the shit they’re dealing with right now? Ugh. I hope they’re giving Johnny Boy and Sally Ice-Stick pure fucking HELL right now.
Perhaps he’s better suited to Free Republic.
Oh, and did anyone else catch Ms. Quinnell’s comment on YouTube about the young girls who asked for a copy of her letter and then when they read it were shaking their heads? I’m wondering if they were actually thinking, “Damn, this woman’s a nutcase, someone needs to send her to Snopes, STAT!”
Someone should ask her which websites she reads. We might get lucky!
Of course she does–she’s too busy reading ALL the magazines and newspapers out there.
There’s a difference between “This man has poor judgement: he associates himself and allows himself to be influenced by terrorists.” and “This guy straps a suicide bomber vest on for size in the evening while chanting prayers of Jihad against American servicement.”
The former is a position of McCain’s campaign. If you think they’re overblowing his connection with the Weather Underground fellow, that’s fine, but it still seems to be within the bounds (bounds?!) of American campaign tactics. The latter statement is the mindset of the people like the woman in the video… and a disturbing number of McCain’s supporters.