From the unspeakably bad timing department: Most of us have already seen the video of
Shirley Nagel, the McCain supporter in Michigan who, on Halloween night, refused to give candy to the children of Obama supporters. To capture the full flavor of the current right wing insanity though, it really should be watched in tandem with an unintentionally funny video posted on Halloween, just a few hours before Shirley Nagel became an Internet star. It seems that Joe Scarborough’s young right-wing sidekick, Willie Geist, decided to film himself trying to drum up support for the McCain-Palin ticket on the Upper West Side in front of Zabar’s.
The result is a searing
few minutes of footage aired on
Scarborough Country that reveals the ugly truth about the unreasoning hatred boiling beneath the surface of “those people” living on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. See Willie Geist reel beneath cutting responses like, “No, ‘fraid not!” when he asks if McCain can count on a passerby’s support, and “I do not, thank you for offering,” when he asks if someone would like a McCain Palin t-shirt! Observe his heart break as an elderly gentleman says, “Well, frankly, I don’t think so,” when Geist asks if putting the t-shirt in the window a Zabar’s would get a good response! Watch as passersby smile and shake their head rather than give him a high-five for McCain, and then reveal their utter close-mindedness by being unconvinced even after he calls after them, “You’re not voting for McCain? You don’t want to put country first, huh?”
And those are just the milder examples. Some of the other things that were said, like, “You’re in the wrong neighborhood,” and “You gotta go to the east side for this one,” truly revealed something ugly in the liberal psyche. There were a few moments when, frankly, I was concerned for Willie’s safety, like when that cheerful elderly lady teased him about his t-shirt, asking, “Is that your Halloween costume? Pretty scary,” and the old guy told him, of voting for McCain, “I don’t know anyone, of any intelligence, who would vote for him.” And surely Madame DeFarge herself couldn’t be more sinister than the lady who answered his question, “You hate me?” with, “
Palin, not you. I don’t hate you. But I wish you’d change your politics.”
“That wasn’t very nice,” he said, looking sadly at the camera.
”Wow! That is
so troubling and interesting at the same time!” said Mika Brzezniski , who has apparently never before seen opinionated elderly Jewish liberals on the Upper West Side. Mike Barnicle pronounced it “an important culture piece” and added,” It proves why so many people are so ‘right’ (no pun intended) to really loathe so many on the left. I mean those people are so close-minded, that they couldn’t stop to talk to you…”
Well, actually Mr. Barnicle, some of them did, They were described by you on cable TV as loathsome for their trouble.
And then, just a few hours later, we all met Shirley Nagel…