« God, Country, and Marriage, Oh My! | Main | All Pretense of Impartiality Goes Out That Window »

October 8, 2008

Like My Mamma Always Says, People in Glass Houses...

The level to which the current presidential campaign has descended should surprise no one. After all, we are a nation that incubated two of the greatest manipulative, mean spirited, hate-mongers in contemporary history, Lee Atwater and Karl Rove. These two men innately understood the power in tweaking bigotry, xenophobia, and visceral fear. Lee Atwater himself acknowledged that the more uneducated the target audience, the easier it was to incite anger and moral outrage. Atwater may have renounced his life's actions on his deathbed, but he had already opened Pandora's Box for a new generation of political strategists. Interesting, then, that the only value to remain within said box was hope.

I have been working for two days on a separate post regarding Sarah Palin's recent injection of racism and hate-mongering into the campaign (including her apparent glee in inciting an audience member at a recent campaign stop to cheer "Kill Him!" in regards to Obama). In the meantime, I thought I would post a recently aired "Special Comment" from MSNBC's Keith Olbermann.

As my nutty mother loves to say, "Those in glass houses should not throw stones!" Someone should mention to Ms. Palin, that when she skillfully nudges her audiences to chant "terrorist" in response to Obama and demands "truthfulness" from her opponent, she is throwing open her own closet doors and inviting the bright light of inquiry. Or perhaps Ms. Palin thinks that as long as she refuses to give a press conference, she is above public reproach. That must be it.

Posted by bethamsel at October 8, 2008 10:38 AM

Comments

Posted by: neil at October 8, 2008 2:29 PM

Post a comment