Saturday 11 October 2008

An excruciating look at the rotten heart of Republican America



Just thought I'd share this.

Well done to McCain for striking a difficult conciliatory note, against a soundtrack of obvious rancour amongst his supporters (though if he's serious, he should probably have a word with the people who shoot his ads).

One of his responses, however, is illuminating:

"Questioner": I can't trust Obama. I have read about him, and he's not... he's an Arab.

McCain: No ma'am. He's a decent, family-man, citizen.

Pardon? Am I the only person who finds this hideously offensive? We've all heard the "Obama's an Arab" canard before, but what about McCain's response?

If the Obama camp wanted to do something decent, they might take McCain to task on the fact that he evidently thinks the category "decent, family-man, citizen" necessarily excludes Arabs.

However, it's extremely unlikely that anyone in the Obama camp would think he should dwell on any issues of ethnicity or race anymore than he absolutely has to.

How rotten, though, that such latent racism should go unscrutinised. And how awful and primitive and exclusionary is McCain's evident vision of "citizenship".

1 comment:

USA Vicky said...

The point is well made. Though, in the increasingly confused McCain/Palin campaign, there should be no credit for McCain's placatory remarks - minutes before (and after) this clip, he stirred up his supporters with prejudicial remarks about Obama's background and associates.

Nothing has changed in GOP tactics since Bush/Cheney linked forever in the public's mind the events of 9/11 and Osama bin Laden. When persuassion fails, terrify the public by using racist smears and inuendo. That is now the basis of the Republican campaign