OK, then we agree that they were booing McCain for saying 'you should not be afraid of an Obama presidency' instead of 'Obama is not an Arab'.

I agree richlevy, just forget the one idiot lady and her Arab comment - that mindset is such a minute percentage of the populus. McCain showed a lot of class - again. Blame the media for even showing it. What a total non story.

Republicans don't mob. This group was a mob.

Oh bullshit. Perhaps there is less tie dye and fewer puppets. Perhaps mob is not the effective form for the likes of George Will or Cheney/Libby (they can hire it done) but just as you note with leftist ideologues, there are enthusiastic conservative fundamentalists, culture warriors (!) who gather and threaten or enact violence against individuals or institutions with which they disagree---those acting too gay, not speaking English, exercising their right to obtain medical treatment, or perhaps daring to teach Toni Morrison to 12th graders and charismatic mouthpieces- Limbaugh, O'Reilly, Hannity to egg them on. There is plenty of hate to go around.

McCain did well ethically and strategically rebutting those ignorant Minnesotans. I also watched some footage from Ohio where the rhetoric was not countered but encouraged by the Campaign and surrogates. Who is leading here? the mob?

You can make that statement, and actually, we expect it of you. But if you were trying to describe the event in an unbiased, journalistic sort of way, would you?

(If so, a job waits for you at most major metropolitan newspapers.)

The unbiased statement is: A smattering booed his initial comment. The crowd cheered his followup.

Is there a Youtube clip.

her: he's an arab

him; no ma'am, he's a decent family man citizen


wait, since when are "Arab" and "decent family man citizen" the opposite of one another?

I see what you're saying there Monster, but I think you might be digging a little deeper than needed. If someone, in reference to any man, said - "he's a nigger/jew/other disgusting epithet", I think "decent family man citizen" would be an appropriate way of countering an insulting term by pointing out that he is not deserving of any such insult. I don't think that any insult towards arabs should be read into that statement.

no deep digging was required for that... you need to dig deeper (ostrich-style) to ignore it.

I'm glad and impressed that he "corrected" the woman and "defended" Barack, rather than ignoring the bigotry of churning out a standard speech, but that was no real defence or correction.

That was a "yes, arabs are bad, but he isn't one".

So, you think "Jew" is a disgusting epithet? ;)

maybe this is my foreignness showing, but i was waiting to hear "he's not an arab, but even if he was, so what? He's an American citizen."

L123, you yourself just equated "disgusting epithet" with both "Jew" and "Arab". Is that really what you wanted to say? :headshake

(monster beat me to it, I see.)

Wolf and I are discussing this at my blog...I forgot about this thread.

The woman said she didn't trust Obama, then gave as a reason, "He's an Arab". That's what makes it a disgusting epithet.

That's also when McCain cut her off, so we don't know if she had more reasons or not.

I wanted to see the exchange and found this on YouTube, though I can't quite make out what she's saying:



Disclaimer: I haven't watched the entire video.

The video is in the first post.

I suggest that for "disgusting" we read "derogatory".

Using a derogatory epithet - especially in that context - might reasonably be considered disgusting, but it is the use, not the epithet itself, which is disgusting.

It's disgusting to use the epithet in a derogatory manner? I'll buy that.