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PrintOctober 14, 2008
Raising George Wallace from the dead - again
First it was Congressman John Lewis propping up the moldy corpse of George Wallace in order to deliver what has to be considered one of the most scurrilous and unprincipled attacks on a presidential candidate in modern history.
Now it's Derrick Jackson of the Boston Globe who can't resist dragging the former Alabama governor into the race for president:
Now it's Derrick Jackson of the Boston Globe who can't resist dragging the former Alabama governor into the race for president:
HAVING FAILED to convince voters that they represent a break from the tragic Bush presidency, Republican presidential candidate John McCain and vice presidential running mate Sarah Palin are careening into George Wallace territory to destroy the nation's first African-American nominee, Democrat Barack Obama.
How close? When Wallace, best known as the segregationist governor of Alabama, ran for president in 1968, supporters at a rally at Madison Square Garden surrounded black protesters and screamed - as recounted on PBS' American Experience website - "Kill 'em, Kill 'em, Kill 'em." At a Florida rally this week, according to The Washington Post, the crowd got so worked up by Palin's attacks on Obama's patriotism and the media that one supporter shouted "Kill him!" Another supporter shouted a racial epithet at an African-American sound man and added for emphasis, "Sit down, boy."
We at American Thinker have been documenting this incredible meme being advanced in the press and among liberal commentators that McCain rallies are somehow turning into "angry mobs" bent on violence.
Anyone who watches a video of these rallies gets a much different impression. In fact, placing a video of a McCain rally beside one by Obama, and using the yardstick of how excited the crowds get when one of the candidates toss some partisan red meat out into the audience, I daresay Obama crowds come out "more hateful" than McCain gatherings.
But of course, the left knows this and are advancing the false narrative anyway. It is useful to play the race card in this manner because it stifles free expression and dampens enthusiasm at GOP rallies while tarring McCain and his supporters with the smear of "racist."
As for Wallace, can't we just let the old bigot lie in peace? The idea that anything McCain has said, hinted, thought, or dreamed can be construed as encouraging or enabling racist outbursts by his audiences is a lie. Jackson knows it. He's just flinging dirt and playing the race card because so many others are doing it.
I will put it to you this way. Which is more dangerous: playing the race card to deliberately stifle free speech while smearing the candidate and his followers with the worst label in American politics? Or is it more problematic to watch happy, excited people cheering for their candidate when he or she attacks the opponent for his beliefs, his character, or his associations?
I take the race card head on with no apologies for political correctness on my own blog: "Black Night Riders Terrorizing our Politics."
