The Secret Service Should Investigate the McCain-Palin Campaign Incitements to Harm Obama

If the late, mercurial prize-winning novelist/journalist Norman Mailer were alive, he might very well say that Sarah Palin's political perfume has more than a whiff of fascism about it. Or, he might have said that Sarah Palin is the newest generation of hate and fear and that she loves her role as Empress of venality and slander.

He might have made either or both of these remarks, because he was a writer who loved to stroll into and out of the psyches of other people. This, of course, is entirely to be expected by a man of letters, an intellectual, a poet of the darkest of souls, and certainly a literary provocateur.

Unfortunately, the McCain-Palin ticket's only chance for electoral success this presidential campaign year is to start a street fight about Obama and ignore the economy and health care and the war in Iraq. In other words, Mailer would have been right about Palin and her surrogate McCain, but wrong about arguing with them on their turf.

Instead, I suggest the following solution to forestall the McCain-Palin lowest-common-denominator tactics. I propose changing the game and raising the ante by formally requiring the Director of the Secret Service to investigate the McCain-Palin campaign for inciting crowds at rallies to make threats against a presidential candidate.

To point out the obvious, this request for redress does not have to be done by Senator Obama himself. It could literally be done by anyone of good conscience. In fact, this editorial itself would easily serve as justification for contacting Senator McCain and Governor Palin and questioning them and their speechwriters about their incendiary remarks about Senator Obama.

I know. I know. I know. The first amendment of the U.S. Constitution protects freedom of speech for all American citizens. In addition the case law (see New York Times v. Sullivan) adds even a further layer of protected speech where public figures are involved. Nonetheless, the Secret Service is statutorily mandated to protect major presidential and vice presidential candidates and their spouses within 120 days of a general presidential election.

Let me put this particular law in perspective. Journalists in print and in broadcast have documented astounding incidents of threatening remarks directed at a presidential candidate, Senator Barack Obama. A very, very brief recounting of such phrases and epithets directed at Senator Obama by McCain-Palin supporters would include: "Kill him"; "Off with his head"; "Treason"; and "Terrorist."

Simply pause for a moment and imagine in your mind's eye either of the following two scenarios. I rise from my desk, pick up a simple black pen, find a piece of blank white typing paper, print the words, "Off with his head," and mail it to the Obama for President campaign headquarters after I have inscribed my return address on the envelope. Or, I attend a presidential rally for Senator Barack Obama or Senator John McCain, and while standing in the crowd, I yell, "Kill him." "Treason." "Off with his head." "Terrorist."

In either event, I assure you -- in fact, I would bet you a nickel -- that I would soon understandably and justifiably find myself being detained by the Secret Service for a lengthy questioning and possible felony arrest.

Governor Palin and Senator McCain individually and collectively speak of Senator Obama as someone engaged in direct or indirect acts of terror against the United States of America. To accomplish these elaborate public accusations, Governor Palin and Senator McCain must first meet with their staffs; draft the specific language of their speeches; review, edit and approve the specific language of their speeches; deliver their stump speeches repeatedly; and then witness and enjoy the effect their speeches create in the crowds.

Again, if I sat down in a room with a group of men and women tacitly sworn to a common goal that involved violently haranguing a presidential candidate, I would for a second time submit that I would be detained by the federal authorities and questioned and possibly arrested.

Every few years or decades, we are taught or re-taught that the United States of America is a nation of laws and not of men or women with power and influence. Presidents have been impeached and resigned office. A vice president pleaded nolo contendere and resigned his office. Congressmen have been fined and jailed. The laws of the United States apply to everyone all the time equally. Presidential candidates are no exception.

Year after year, the security of the President and other high officials becomes more precarious. Yet, Governor Palin and Senator McCain are now engaged in the pattern and practice of inciting hate groups of every sort. They give their political crowds the red meat of hatred and bigotry and racism. When public figures behave in such an atrocious manner, it gives others permission to ape their opinions and permission to act upon their own deepest prejudices.

No one expects the Secret Service to sit Senator McCain and Governor Palin down and read them the Riot Act about inciting acts of violence. However, it would not be out of balance in the real world for the Secret Service to point out the security risks involved in McCain and Palin daily roiling their supporting crowds to the point of their becoming a mob and thereby endangering another presidential candidate.

Lastly, it may possibly be true that technically neither Senator McCain nor Governor Palin could ever be convicted of threatening Senator Obama, a presidential candidate. But this metaphor is true. Senator McCain and Governor Palin have walked right up to the line of what is legal and illegal and have spit across it.

Comments

[JiminNC]

You will probably be investigated for writing it in this article, unless you start writing pro-McCain-Palin stuff ... hurry!

[WarriorLemming]

It appears that McCain & Co. feel the only way they can win this thing is to possibly have someone knock off their opponant so why not push the envelope. They disgust me.

[drrickett]

I did just that. You can find the Secret Service website HERE:
http://www.secretservice.gov/contact_usss.shtml

Governor Palin and Senator McCain individually and collectively speak of Senator Obama as someone engaged in direct or indirect acts of terror against the United States of America; As such under the Secret Services' satutorily mandate to protect major presidential and vice presidential candidates and their spouses within 120 days of a general presidential election, I am asking that the Secret Service investigate the McCain-Palin campaign AND IT'S WRITING STAFF for inciting crowds at rallies to make threats against a presidential candidate. The laws of the United States apply to everyone all the time equally. Presidential candidates are no exception. If I as a citizen, stood on a soapbox and incited people thru retoric to the point where vicious comments of hate, bigotry, and racism are leveled towards a sitting United States senator, much less a presidential candidate, I would find myself having quite a talk with the Secret Service. I am asking that you do your job, regardless of who it is.

do YOUR part and send them a letter.

[magen]

Another scary thing is that--

Imagine if we were in the opposite situation, and there were people in Obama's rallies yelling these things yelled at McSame rallies.

Everything that is NOT being done to stop the hatred spewed at McSame rallies WOULD be done to stop it from Obama's!!!!!!

Guaranteed.

[zendem1]

Absolutely

[peacegurl48]

So true! This is tragic for our country with her history of political assassinations. How can they risk this? Where are the Christian values?

I have never heard of anyone at an Obama rally yelling violent words toward McCain or Palin.

I actually thought that McCain had more honor than this. Sarah Palin and Cindy McCain are shameless.

[Wiserone]

No differently that if anyone would walk into an airport or even on a plane and yell out the word "BOMB", at which point anyone would be detained and questioned and especially by the local police AND FBI. Palin and McCain have been throwing their own form of bombs, but bombs no less.

[edwarvir]

This almost leaves you speechless. John and Sarah
plant the seeds at their rallies for these racist , and
now claim their hands are clean. " He's Palling around
with TERRIOTS." Sarah has been feeding that to the
people that come to her rallies over and over again
What the Hell did she think would happen? The ss
knows who has been making these statement, Inciting
these racist to riot. John McCain and Sarah Palin Something
should be done about it.

[quest44]

I agree whole heartedly ! I sent off an email to McCain about inciting these unruly crowds to make such verbal assaults on Obama . I also brought up the question in a blog after watching the video of Palin's rally and clearly hearing a man yell kill him in the crowd why the secret service who were there had not done anything to quiet the crowd or to find the man who yelled kill him? Certainly if I could have heard that man yell this in the video the secret service who were there had to have heard it also . This is a clear threat against a presidential candidate and it is against the law to make death threats against anyone let alone a presidential candidate .
Is this the new low for candidates to incite hate and violence against their opponent now ? If so then this is not the America I grew up in and its not the one I wish to live in if this kind of thing continues !

[falcon17]

When that person first shouted out "Kill Him" at Palin's rally, the Secret Service said they did not hear it. They learned about it from a Dana Milbank column in the Washington Post the next day and then investigated. The brief report I read said they found nothing aimed directly at Barack Obama, so no concern. Huh? Whom did they think it was aimed at? Bill Ayers? People don't know who he is or care about him. I have not read about any further incidents being investigated, have any of you?

[CaliTLC]

Great piece!! "Spit across [the line]" - wonderful metaphor.

[Cherlesq]

I have more concerns about the secret service's commitment to maintaining Obama and his family's safety than I do these yahoos responding to Queen Yahoo. NcCain's punishment will be that he returns to theSenate in abject disgrace and fail to win re-election for his Senate seat. Pailin will eventually be convicted for her illegal activities in office

[UtahLady]

Well said. I agree.

[NWGuy]

The outward disconnect between McCain seemingly stepping back from negative comments about Obama and the McCain campaign's continued push to incite discontent about Obama can be explained only 2 ways: 1) that McCain knows what his campaign is doing, condones it, then talks the opposite to make himself look more reasonable or 2) McCain either doesn't know what his campaign people are doing or does know and can't do anything about it. If the first, then the dishonesty and lack of integrity indicates what a poor choice for POTUS McCain would be and a sad statement about McCain himself. If the second, then McCain is not in charge of his own campaign which then begs the question, who is?

The McCain campaign's push to continue to associate Obama with a "terrorist", the emphasized use of his middle name to imply an Arab connection, the 'he is not one of us', etc., while not directly encouraging violence, implies that Obama is a threat. Sadly, there are enough borderline types out there that easily will make the connection that a threat needs to be eliminated. There is no question that the speech and campaign phrase writers know exactly what they are doing and what type of reaction they are hoping to get. This type of rhetoric has been used for centuries to do exactly what we are seeing happening, as such, the McCain campaign cannot beg ignorance or innocence of their actions.

[falcon17]

I think it was the first weekend in October that the McCain campaign said publicly that if they talk about the economy, they will lose. So instead, they would go after Obama's character. They also stated they know it's dangerous but "what else can they do..."

So, yeah, they know and they are clearly willing to take the risk of physical violence. They are willing to volunteer all of us to suffer the consequences as well of violent action against Obama and the media. At Palin's rally when she complained about Katie Couric asking the wrong questions and that's why she didn't do well in those interviews, the crowd gathered around the press there, shouting, yelling and cursing, were using thundersticks, and told a black cameraman to "Sit down, boy." Palin was smiling all the while.

Go back and look at the video at a McCain rally when he asked "Who is Obama?" and see his initial surprise when someone yelled Terrorist! and then......he smiled.

Oh yeah, they know it's dangerous and their smiles tell us this is exactly what they want.

[nunzia]

YES. YES. YES!

I think it's a safe bet the assume that the SS is mostly republican males.
If those cries of "kill him" were made about McCain, the investigation would be swift
and effective. And, the names of those unAmerican attendees would be all over
the airwaves.

Why don't the Dem. leaders demand a thorough investigation?

[Samalabear]

Dems are probably afraid they'll look biased. I believe this should be a bipartisan effort. Hey, it could happen the longer this goes on. There are Republicans running for re-election who are distancing themselves from McCain-Palin to try to save their seats.

[Wiserone]

Or, the Repugnants would reopen Guatanomo. Personally, McCain is running his campaign as how he thinks a war should be run. We should all be VERY afraid if he should win. This campaign is McCain's last chance to win the "war".....it's becomming more and more obvious, McCain has some serious "issues" and still.

[falcon17]

Good question, WHY don't the democrat leaders demand a real investigation? What IS the Secret Service doing about all this rabble rousing?

[Ackerman]

Well, if McCain's strategists are hoping to do a little good old, down home fear mongering, it's certainly working. McCain and Palin scare the hell out of me.

But I must say, that Sarah Palin really has me goin'! I mean, on one hand she seems to have a clear understanding of the power of innuendo. On the other, her neurons seem to be finding it hard to make the connection between "abuse of power" and "unethical behavior". Curious.

[Samalabear]

I was more chilled this weekend at the prospect of McCain-Palin in the White House than I was four years ago when Bush was re-elected (and that was a pretty horrifying day for a lot of people, before we settled down and said, well, it's done, how much more damage could he do, we'll get through this). Then I wasn't upset until Election Day. I've had sleepless nights over this one, as I'm sure many other Americans are having. And now, to boot, we also have to worry about Obama's safety now, into the Inauguration and beyond, because so much damage has been done.

[AgathaX]

Leave major decisions about protecting the candidates to the Secret Service. Detaining loud mouths would, in most instances, be nothing more than a waste of time and resources. That said, there is likely some value in maintaining records of who attended McCain/Palin events as the rhetorical excesses were dialed up--even if the record is nothing more than good resolution video of the crowd.

The key thing is to never have our eyes shut. And really that means everyone. I would love to see large numbers of Obama supporters attend McCain/Palin events. The key, however, would be to go and attend in friendly silence. No display of Obama buttons or t-shirts. No mention of our candidate at all. Just fill up the stands with people who will not clap, will not not react to hatemongering except by overwhelming silence and stillness. And if anyone starts believing that you are not there as a McCain/Palin supporter and starts heckling or worse--do not under any circumstances take the bait. Report serious infractions to law enforcement. Take cameras. Pan the crowds. Listen. And even make polite conversation. Many folks may have never met someone with whom they had political disagreements.

Part of what pemits excesses to occur is living in a bubble, an echo chamber. Nothing like a lot of silence to dampen that echo.

[Scoot2711]

excellent idea! the silent rebuke holds more power than the wild and inflammatory language of the McCain followers.