Secret Service says Palin is a factor in death threats against Obama

[ck4829]

The Republican vice presidential candidate attracted criticism for accusing Mr Obama of "palling around with terrorists", citing his association with the sixties radical William Ayers.

The attacks provoked a near lynch mob atmosphere at her rallies, with supporters yelling "terrorist" and "kill him" until the McCain campaign ordered her to tone down the rhetoric.

But it has now emerged that her demagogic tone may have unintentionally encouraged white supremacists to go even further.

The Secret Service warned the Obama family in mid October that they had seen a dramatic increase in the number of threats against the Democratic candidate, coinciding with Mrs Palin's attacks.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/uselection2008/sarahpalin/3405336/Sarah-Palin-blamed-by-the-US-Secret-Service-for-death-threats-against-Barack-Obama.html

[Mari333]

1. why is this not in any US newspaper? oh, never mind....

I am tired of having to scrounge around the internet on foreign news to get any news about anything relevant thats going on in the US.

[Liberal Elitist]

10. It's a rehash of an old Newsweek story with a sensationalist headline

The Newsweek story hints at causality between Palin's incendiary remarks and the death threats, but doesn't actually come out and say it. My guess is the Telegraph's lawyers reckoned Palin wouldn't dare trying to sue for libel!!!

Original story http://www.newsweek.com/id/167950/page/5 was:

"She brought up William Ayers, the former Weather Underground bomber who was acquainted with Obama through Chicago politics. "I'm afraid that this is someone who sees America as imperfect enough to work with a former domestic terrorist who targeted his own people."
At the Clearwater rally, someone in the crowd used a racial epithet about a black sound man for NBC, and someone else reportedly yelled "Kill him!" in an ambiguous reference to either Ayers or Obama. By the end of the week, YouTube was showing film clips of Palin crowds shouting "Treason!", "Off with his head!" and "He is a bomb!" At a McCain-Palin rally in Strongsville, Ohio, a man called Obama a "one-man terror cell," and in one unsettling film clip a voter's young daughter exclaims about Obama, "You need gloves to touch him!"
On the weekend between the second and third debates, Congressman John Lewis—a civil-rights hero who had been beaten while staging nonviolent protests during the 1960s—issued a press release accusing McCain and Palin of "playing with fire" and seeming to compare McCain to former Alabama governor George Wallace, a segregationist infamous for stirring racial fears. McCain was stunned. He had devoted a chapter to Lewis in one of his books, "Why Courage Matters." He so admired Lewis that he had taken his children to meet him.
There was grumbling that Palin had jumped the gun by bringing up Ayers at her rallies before the campaign could properly do the groundwork with a rollout strategy and ads. (At one rally, she had talked about Obama "palling around with terrorists.")

"I'm worried," Gregory Craig said to a NEWSWEEK reporter in mid-October. He was concerned that the frenzied atmosphere at the Palin rallies would encourage someone to do something violent toward Obama. He was not the only one in the Obama campaign thinking the unthinkable. The campaign was provided with reports from the Secret Service showing a sharp and very disturbing increase in threats to Obama in September and early October. Michelle was shaken by the vituperative crowds and the hot rhetoric from the GOP candidates. "Why would they try to make people hate us?" she asked Valerie Jarrett.

Several of Obama's friends in the Senate were shocked by the GOP rabble-rousing. Dick Durbin, the U.S. senator from Illinois who pushed for early Secret Service coverage for Obama, called Lindsey Graham, who was traveling with McCain. (Graham scoffed at the call as "an orchestrated attempt to push a narrative" about McCain going negative. He said he told Durbin, "OK, buddy, but remember—that goes both ways.")

[ixion]

2. unintentionally, my arse, you betcha!

it was very much on purpose, IMO.

[POAS]

3. fershure

[KharmaTrain]

4. Cornered Animals

When Schmidt brought in Sarah Barracuda, he knew that things were in shitty shape and had to go in slash & burn mode...the campaign went from winning elections to winning news cycles. Palin supposedly would shore up the weak bonds with the fundies and the "pitbull with lipstick" was a role she was picked for...not the other way around. She was to be a complete distraction and be the launching pad for every slime that the corporate media didn't seem to be hitting enough...having a pretty face do it...well that could be another story.

At first this stunt appereared to be paying off. Palinpaloozah was a hit and she was a star...the "base" bought the her as the "new face" and Schmidt made sure to turn her into a victim...making it appear the media was out to get her. Thus as Palin was exposed as being a void, the "base" saw it as an attack and they rallied around her. The more things went south the more rabid they became as the McCain campaign cratered into parody.

While vanquished for now, these people are still very dangerous and clueless. Hopefully, they'll spend the next year or so fighting among themselves, but this election exposed the true dark side of the "base" of the repugnican party...hate and fear.

Cheers...

[CountAllVotes]

5. the Secret Service should round her up

and throw her in jail for inciting violence and perpetuating the act of murder towards the next President of the United States. She is an evil doer and cannot be tolerated on any level whatsoever.

She may pretend to be stupid, but she is in fact an evil anti-christ IMO. :mad:

:dem: :kick: :kick:

[Montauk6]

6. I think they're givin' Gurrlfrien' too much credit!

Unless their point is that her stupidity was further cinching Obama's chance, thus the motivation for the WS groups to get movin, I can't see how she was a factor. C'mon, these guys, I'M SURE, wasn't too cozy with the idea of a Black president from jump. They didn't need Palin's smears as a wake-up call.

[BoneDaddy]

7. Gee, ya think?

[fasttense]

8. Sarah is such a simpleton.

"The Secret Service warned the Obama family in mid October that they had seen a dramatic increase in the number of threats against the Democratic candidate, coinciding with Mrs Palin's attacks.

Michelle Obama, the future First Lady, was so upset that she turned to her friend and campaign adviser Valerie Jarrett and said: "Why would they try to make people hate us?"

Then this:

"Speaking as she returned to her native Alaska, Mrs Palin claimed to be baffled by what she claims was sexism on the national stage. "Here in Alaska that double standard isn't applied because these guys know that Alaskan women are pretty tough, on a par with the men in terms of being outdoors, working hard," she said."

She is inciting neo-Nazi groups to murder our duly elected President and she complains about sexism?

It's not a double standard Sarah, it applies to all stupid people.

[CountAllVotes]

11. she is far from "stupid"

she is a criminal and should be locked up and the keys tossed in the toilet and promptly flushed! :mad: :mad: :mad:

Damn bitch!

:kick:

[NNN0LHI]

9. McCain was happily going along with this crap until Rep. John Lewis called him on it

The Telegraph is full of shit ... as usual.

Don