DroppinScience
10-13-2008, 08:03 PM
This one reeeeeally slipped the radar, but in Palin's convention speech, she used a quote from Westbrook Pegler, a columnist who actually openly advocated for FDR and RFK's assassinations.
This is taken from Frank Rich's column (from the NY Times) which addresses whether McCain and Palin are doing enough to stop hate speech in their rallies.
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2008/10/12-6
Excerpt below:
From the start, there have always been two separate but equal questions about race in this election. Is there still enough racism in America to prevent a black man from being elected president no matter what? And, will Republicans play the race card? The jury is out on the first question until Nov. 4. But we now have the unambiguous answer to the second: Yes.
McCain, who is no racist, turned to this desperate strategy only as Obama started to pull ahead. The tone was set at the Republican convention, with Rudy Giuliani's mocking dismissal of Obama as an "only in America" affirmative-action baby. We also learned then that the McCain campaign had recruited as a Palin handler none other than Tucker Eskew, the South Carolina consultant who had worked for George W. Bush in the notorious 2000 G.O.P. primary battle where the McCains and their adopted Bangladeshi daughter were slimed by vicious racist rumors.
No less disconcerting was a still-unexplained passage of Palin's convention speech: Her use of an unattributed quote praising small-town America (as opposed to, say, Chicago and its community organizers) from Westbrook Pegler, the mid-century Hearst columnist famous for his anti-Semitism, racism and violent rhetorical excess. After an assassin tried to kill F.D.R. at a Florida rally and murdered Chicago's mayor instead in 1933, Pegler wrote that it was "regrettable that Giuseppe Zangara shot the wrong man." In the '60s, Pegler had a wish for Bobby Kennedy: "Some white patriot of the Southern tier will spatter his spoonful of brains in public premises before the snow falls."
This is the writer who found his way into a speech by a potential vice president at a national political convention. It's astonishing there's been no demand for a public accounting from the McCain campaign. Imagine if Obama had quoted a Black Panther or Louis Farrakhan - or William Ayers - in Denver.
Just from this passage alone, there is a lot of troubling facts. Tucker Eskew (the man who spread the whisper campaign in 2000 that McCain fathered a black baby) being recruited by the McCain campaign is beyond fucked up.
Next, Palin just quoting Hegler is flat-out alarming. Granted, Palin wasn't quoting a racist or anti-Semtic quote, but just the notion that she finds the ideas of a noted bigot worth merit just screams wrong.
This is taken from Frank Rich's column (from the NY Times) which addresses whether McCain and Palin are doing enough to stop hate speech in their rallies.
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2008/10/12-6
Excerpt below:
From the start, there have always been two separate but equal questions about race in this election. Is there still enough racism in America to prevent a black man from being elected president no matter what? And, will Republicans play the race card? The jury is out on the first question until Nov. 4. But we now have the unambiguous answer to the second: Yes.
McCain, who is no racist, turned to this desperate strategy only as Obama started to pull ahead. The tone was set at the Republican convention, with Rudy Giuliani's mocking dismissal of Obama as an "only in America" affirmative-action baby. We also learned then that the McCain campaign had recruited as a Palin handler none other than Tucker Eskew, the South Carolina consultant who had worked for George W. Bush in the notorious 2000 G.O.P. primary battle where the McCains and their adopted Bangladeshi daughter were slimed by vicious racist rumors.
No less disconcerting was a still-unexplained passage of Palin's convention speech: Her use of an unattributed quote praising small-town America (as opposed to, say, Chicago and its community organizers) from Westbrook Pegler, the mid-century Hearst columnist famous for his anti-Semitism, racism and violent rhetorical excess. After an assassin tried to kill F.D.R. at a Florida rally and murdered Chicago's mayor instead in 1933, Pegler wrote that it was "regrettable that Giuseppe Zangara shot the wrong man." In the '60s, Pegler had a wish for Bobby Kennedy: "Some white patriot of the Southern tier will spatter his spoonful of brains in public premises before the snow falls."
This is the writer who found his way into a speech by a potential vice president at a national political convention. It's astonishing there's been no demand for a public accounting from the McCain campaign. Imagine if Obama had quoted a Black Panther or Louis Farrakhan - or William Ayers - in Denver.
Just from this passage alone, there is a lot of troubling facts. Tucker Eskew (the man who spread the whisper campaign in 2000 that McCain fathered a black baby) being recruited by the McCain campaign is beyond fucked up.
Next, Palin just quoting Hegler is flat-out alarming. Granted, Palin wasn't quoting a racist or anti-Semtic quote, but just the notion that she finds the ideas of a noted bigot worth merit just screams wrong.