Things from the campaign trail keep getting uglier. Here is what went down at a rally in Davenport, Iowa TODAY:
At a McCain event, as the crowd waited for McCain himself to arrive, Pastor Arnold Conrad of the Grace Evangelical Free Church of Davenport, Iowa, gave an invocation that included the following: “I would also pray, Lord, that your reputation is involved in all that happens between now and November, because there are millions of people around this world praying to their god–whether it’s Hindu, Buddha, Allah–that his opponent wins, for a variety of reasons. And Lord, I pray that you will guard your own reputation, because they’re going to think that their God is bigger than you, if that happens. So I pray that you will step forward and honor your own name with all that happens between now and Election Day.” [Link]
First of all, even the hate speech itself demonstrates gross ignorance. For goodness sake, if you are going to be a bigot at least have the courtesy to be a bigot that makes sense. “Hindu” and “Buddha” aren’t gods. Millions of people don’t worship “Hindu.” Furthermore, all three of the Abrahamic religions worship the same God, Muslims just call him Allah. Geez, can anyone just sign up to be a pastor? This was the invocation that started off the rally before McCain even arrived. I guess they wanted to get the crowd in the mood.
Update: Video is now up (thanks to commenter “baplog”)
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Here was the McCain campaign’s official response:
McCain Iowa spokeswoman Wendy Rieman: “While we understand the important role that faith plays in informing the votes of Iowans, questions about the religious background of the candidates serve to distract from the real questions in this race about Barack Obama’s judgment, policies and readiness to lead as commander in chief.” [link]
Yes, we wouldn’t want to distract from real issues. Right.
Where is there really to go from there?
ABC News’ Imtiyaz Delawala, traveling with Palin, reports that a Palin supporter in Johnstown, Pa., today was holding a Curious George monkey doll on which he’d put an Obama sticker. [Link]
If I was Delawala I’d ask for a bodyguard while reporting. All of this is increasingly troubling. After the attacks on September 11th there was a backlash that included violence against anyone perceived to be a Muslim. Should we be worrying about the same thing if Obama should win?
Update: Frank Rich of the NYTimes breaks it down.
Obama is a muslim?
Read the sentence again and this time don’t skip the word “perceived.”
McCain’s campaign must be run by complete incompetents. Today John Lewis who is widely respected on civil rights issues,criticized McCain and Palin for encouraging a atmosphere of division. McCain shot back at him, forgetting that McCain himself identified him as one of the three wise people he would consult. Instead they tried to pivot the blame on Obama and insinuated that he should apologize for Lewis? … this kid of spin makes you almost dizzy and in the end backfires.
When you have supporters call out “Kill him” and “Terrorist” at his rallies, it’s a little ironic to be attacking the messenger.
Thanks for posting this and especially the link to the Frank Rich article. That small but virulent core of fundamentalist bigots that was unleashed over the past few years and that Palin (and Mccain) continue and especially their surrogates continue to egg on is terrifying me.
Though I’m not in the U.S., I do think what’s happening now is distinctly different from what’s happened earlier. Your safety and for people of color lgbt people amy goodman types etc, including Obama, feels more endangered now to me than at any other point since the Iraq War started. It was commendable that McCain has, admidst all this, retained enough humanity to push back against one person a little, but he needs to take more responsibility for what is happening right now and exert some control over his campaign. At this point the distance between “kill him” and a crazy person actually going and trying to kill him or committing some other hate crime is not very large, I think, and its only getting smaller. There should be zero tolerance of irresponsible public speech by politicians right now by the media, the public, etc.
My God is bigger than your God!
Surely God has better things to do than help out here. Ignorance can be dangerous, it’s not always bliss. Perhaps people think all Indians are Hindus and as such they speak in a Hindu language and hence worship the Hindu God. http://lajuk.blogspot.com
Here is a WSJ article that talks about this issue as well.
talking about ignorance and religious hatred….i am surprised that SM is not covering any of the ongoing violence against Christians in Orissa.
I hit submit before I could add any comments.
McCain is walking a dangerous line here and while there may be some short term benefits to this strategy from a votes perspective, he has alienated many of his supporters in the media. Heck, Christopher Buckley (William Buckley’s Jr.’s son) has thrown his hat in the Obama ring.
The entrance bar must not be set too high for such positions… an ordained minister threatened to geld Obama.
10 · Vikram said
Maybe Jesse was just an overzealous Mohel. Anything to win Florida.
at the point they are unleashing lynch mobs, mccain has well and truly crossed a line. of course, some will persist in saying that obama’s best bet is to pretend this never happened, or as the mccain campaign is saying, apologize for john lewis’ comments, while all the time mccain and palin are brazenly and unapologetically fanning the worst fears of racism and religionism.
I just watched the film idiocracy on hbo.
Maybe what we are seeing right now is life imitating art?
if a sheriff can do it in uniform, why not a pastor?
yeah, it’s dumb ignorant bigotry. religious fundamentalists are not intelligent. but “hate speech”? this is just the standard core of beliefs on the fundamentalist evangelical right.
” while all the time mccain and palin are brazenly and unapologetically fanning the worst fears of racism and religionism.”
“If I was Delawala I’d ask for a bodyguard while reporting. All of this is increasingly troubling. After the attacks on September 11th there was a backlash that included violence against anyone perceived to be a Muslim. Should we be worrying about the same thing if Obama should win?”
It is prudent to think about these things of course, but since B.O.’s triumphal entry into Berlin and Denver, the whole world is watching us and MSM would be all over any hate crimes Like white on rice, if they are committed against blacks and probably brown muslims. Probably. alas, Rev. Wright was no kumbyah type either. Whites, Christians, atheists, wiccans, are afraid too. Riots have been predicted whether Obama wins or doesn’t win (by black pundits and white.) The fact that there have recently been election riots in Kenya is a weirdly unsettling. Fear is a major indicator in this election, like I’ve never seen it before. Fear of the foreign, but even more, fear of our “own.”
Sure is a great year for democracy.
Obama’s pulling away faster than Michael Shumacher, having already surpassed the 270 needed electoral votes, and if you toss in toss ups, Big Mac’s on the wrong end of 353-185 blowout.
So an increasingly desperate campaign has become increasingly erratic and unpresidential, as Mac carooms recklessly from one incendiary charge to another, hoping to incite a race war in a futile almost Sisyphus-like attempt to stop Americans of thinking about an imminent depression and failed war, of peace and prosperity, ie of what presidential elections have always been about.
But with every hysterical outburst he descends deeper into a polling abyiss. There are strategic reasons for this to be sure–you’re supposed to define your opponent (with stuff like Ayers) early, not wait until it looks like a hail Mary–but at the end of the day his opponent, a man more vulnerable (to a southern strategy) than Larry Craig in j.Edgar Hoover’s bathroom, has proven to have great political instincts; having read the political zeitgeist and realized Americans were in fact ready for a change.
Obama’s been here before. Not too long ago another one of his opponents grew increasingly erratic and unhinged as the inevitable approached. His supporters fretted he was blowing it but Obama remained cool, knowing a dead cat bounce when he saw one. And by the time one of her supporters became the poster-girl for white resentment, it was obvious that this little outburst just represented the last spasm of a dying campaign.
Ditto for McCain supporters. Oh, I can still imagine a scenario for a Mac comeback (the markets stabilize in the short run, OBL is captured, another terrorist attack, or a Bradley effect for the ages) but these possibilities become increasingly implausible with every passing day. McCain and his supporters are in the anger stage preceding acceptance.
McCain and the Clintons, two great American political brands, will ride off into the sunset, their legacies and reputations forever transformed, having been defeated and humiliated by the new Master of politics.
Is this really happening?
http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=4515218n
http://blog.iconflict.com/new-york-county-prints-%E2%80%98barack-osama%E2%80%99-on-ballots/
15 · razib said
Exactly.
But it’s not the beliefs that are at issue here – it’s that people are yelling things like “kill him” or “terrorist” while an angry mob cheers them. And going on to attack reporters and whatnot.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=itEucdhf4Us
razib, my apologies. I know you don’t like political discussions, but it is that time again, the folks can’t
yeah. i think michael crowley is right to point to similarities to the anger of liberals as bush retained his lead in the polls up to election day in 2004. of course, the hysteria didn’t verge into intimations of violence that i know of (i know whereof i speak, not a single bush voter in my whole social circle). i think here you might be seeing a right vs. left difference; people on the left threatened to move to canada, people on the right don’t want to move to some ferun country, so they need to change this country…by any means necessary??? well, i doubt that will happen, but people will talk.
the last comment was a response to manju. clipboard copy feature went FUBAR 😉
I’ve heard of attack dogs (including those wearing lipstick), but I’ve never heard of an attack god before.
Insecure pessimists should Always Look on the Bright Side of Life.
20 · Manju said
Was there a protester vowing to control the means of production while singing showtunes? I don’t get it. There’s a palin rally at the local racetrack. but you have to pay for tix. and i wouldn’t be able to restrain my inner Nayagan.
they seem to be pumping each other up. It’s like watching herd animals work up the courage to cross a dangerous section of a river or ascend a steep grade–they might have started off slowly, but as they pass by the protesters there’s almost a palpable, unconsciously organized hate-a-thon thing going. The mild suggestions to off one’s dirty commie/fag/rape victim self are likely in jest but these are the same people who simply can’t abide by crass art or pornography. Some turd sandwiches are more aromatic than others apparently.
McCain and Palin reportedly fighting over dirty tactics.
Well, the pastor, though a bit crude in the way he put it, is factually correct. Most people here in SM, I suppose are nominally Hindus and they seem to support Obama and seem to disdain McCain and the Republicans for clinging to their religion that is not Hinduism.
Opinion polls conducted among Arab-Americans indicate the Obama support for Obama among Muslim Arab-Americans is over 92%, making it more lop sided than support for Obama among Black Americans. Interestingly, Christian Arab Americans seem to be divided rather more evenly between Obama and McCain. Well, it seems to me that, it is not just that the “white trash†that seems to be clinging to their religions, but also Third World immigrants and their decedents.
First of all, even the hate speech itself demonstrates gross ignorance. For goodness sake, if you are going to be a bigot at least have the courtesy to be a bigot that makes sense. “Hindu†and “Buddha†aren’t gods. Millions of people don’t worship “Hindu.â€
I think it is Ok to call “Hindu” as a God. I have read some people claim that God lies in every soul or some stuff like that. That makes Buddha a god too. And Christians don’t think Allah of Quran is the same as their God.
I think the pastor is technically right. 🙂
26 · nirmal said
Because arabs are from south asia? come back with SM data.
Opinion polls conducted among Arab-Americans indicate the Obama support for Obama among Muslim Arab-Americans is over 92%
hey, where’d you find that poll? pew?
anyway, 80% of ceos support mccain, and higher income voters, especially whites, tilt republican.
24 · Nayagan said
maybe Paulson imitating Giuliani.
well, this tells you a bit about mccain, but a lot more about the republican party, which is embracing palin as their standard bearer. who will be her veep? george allen, he of their minority outreach program?
I think people are being naive in assuming that its somehow McCain who is causing people to be bigots and he is inciting them. After 9/11 on no one’s inciting innocent Sikh brothers got shot and killed. A General in the US service William Boykin said “my god is bigger than your god” and “My god is real and his is an idol” to a muslim Somali (not understanding that the Muslim God and Christian God are the same and that Muslims are stricter anti-idolists than Xtians) If this is what a General, who is supposed to be smart, thinks than what is a private thinking.
This isnt coming out somehow due to McCain inciting it. It was always there, which is just coming out as election is coming near and people are realizing that Obama becoming a president is not some kind of academic exercise but pretty close to a done deal.
What about when the highest judicial officer in the US, in uniform too, refers to Obama in the same way ? Or will Obama request an exception ?
(not understanding that the Muslim God and Christian God are the same and that Muslims are stricter anti-idolists than Xtians
i’m pretty sure that for fundy xtians idol = false god. not literally a graven image. these are not people with the most subtle lexicons.
That NY times article really does make me sick. And these videos on YouTube are mind numbing. On one of them you hear a little boy saying that the only way you should touch Obama is “with gloves on.” Watch them and then shiver
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KjxzmaXAg9E
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VJghQMq49dw&feature=related
32 · RC said
it is election season, and these sentiments were obviously not brought forth out of the ether by McCain’s pet thaumaturge, but absent the inflammatory rhetoric, why were there no rash of such incidents reported before? I would imagine that there are people unfriendly to the McCain campaign who have been faithfully taping rallies/speeches.
33 · Vikram said
It is truly heartening to see such idealists who are congenitally unable to hear high frequencies.
Right. For better or worse it is his legal name. Unless he legally dropped it and and the Sheriff still insisted on using it. It’s not like the Sheriff called him Osama Bin Laden as Ted Kennedy did. What instrument is that ? A trumpet ?
38 · Vikram said
It gives me great hope to see Americans who are so forgiving that they are willing to treat malice as just a slip of the tongue.
32 · RC said
no, but when the top leaders in the party say incendiary things, and do nothing when bloodthirsty mobs yell out “terrorist” and “kill him”, it validates behavior, which might otherwise have been considered fringe.
and once again, john mccain tries to distract voters by dragging the campaign into racial waters (calling john lewis – “one of his trusted advisors” – a divisive muckraker) to distract from the sarah palin troopergate indictment, just like he did with his campaign suspension stunt that blew up the first attempt at the bailout bill, to distract from palin’s couric interviews.
country first, indeed!
by the way. just imagine if joe biden or barack obama was indicted for… ummm.. anything… imagine how that would play.
Palin wasn’t indicted, i think. a google of “palin indicted” only pulls up the e-mail hacker guy who was indicted. BTW, there was a lot of gendered vitrol (not a real woman, for example) and swiftboating (not her kid, etc) hurled at Palin, though not from Obama.
which is an important political point. mccain/palin are too close to the smears and vitriol. they’ll turn off independents like pat buchanan did for bush when he gave that godawful speech at the convention. bigotry mixed with stupid politics. offensive on many levels.
gotta keep a distance. you don’t see Obama getting too close with the kos kids.
you don’t see Obama getting too close with the kos kids.
obama has to do damage control on a constant basis. because repubs are investigating everyone he even glanced at or went to 3rd grade with
44 · heromanyfaces said
well, he’s smart. a good politician stays away from radicals as much as possible, lest they have a trent lott moment. obama’s vulnerable on two fronts: the black community is understandably more accepting of radicals in the name of anti-racism, so being part of the community he’ll ineveitably run into the likes of farrakhan/wright. Also, the intelligentsia is more accepting of communism and various anti-freedom political ideologies, so Obama, being an intellectual got cinged by ayers and had a little che gurvera flag incident.
right wingers got to worry about confederate flags, kkk, militia groups; the latter two more or less on the outskirts of respectable society so that should be easy. but interestingly, Palin has some vague connections to the john birch society and a separatist party. the left wing blogweshere is going nuts about it (while simultaneously screaming bloody murder over ayers) but obama has chosen not to go there. probably he doesn’t need to and the rule of thumb is you don’t bother engaging the VP at a high level.
45 · Manju said
it’s a little more than good politics, it is also a question of how low you are willing to stoop to get elected, and in some cases, where your allegiances lie.
you are right. the probe concluded she was guilty of abuse of power and violated alaska’s laws, but who knows if this will translate into an indictment?
yep. another consequence of palin’s amateurishness in trying to replicate rove’s subversion of accountability laws by using private email for official business, except she used yahoo instead of a server run by her cronies. with her combination of cronyism, abuse of power, her extreme evangelical views, and her reactions of belligerence and stubbornness whenever faced with evidence of her own ignorance, she puts lipstick on a bush-cheney.
it is an important ethical as well as political point. obama and biden have stayed away from misogynistic stuff even when the most virulent crowd did it against hillary, and against palin. and in fact, he made it very clear that he wasn’t going there.
for all the nastiness, just look at this. i remember laughing when i heard barack hussein obama mooting the possibility of running for president in the fall of 2006 on a radio show. i mean, i be serious? but here we are….
amerika can surprise you.
As a Christian Evangelical who has voted Republican in the past, this is probably the most embarassing post I’ve read on this site. Despite my belief about the fundamental differences between Christianity and other religions, I can tell you that God does not need to protect or guard his own reputation. If anyone believes that God’s reputation depends on this particular election, he has a very small and limited view of God.
WHAT?!! OBAMA ISN’T MUSLIM?!!
Damn, am I going to have to vote for John McCain, now?!! Pfft, I think most Muslims in America know by now that Obama is not Muslim. Perhaps we should consider that the numbers suggested (and I would love to see an actual source)indicate that Muslims support Obama because he’s not introduced by a “My God is going to kick your God’s A## in the election” speeches? This Muslim, for one, couldn’t bear to hear another one of those.
Just as excessive sex and violence in the media is considered to be permeating the American society these racially charged incidents during campaign can be considered as “soft-core” psyops