Hate, Fear, And Ignorance: McCain Campaign Dangerously Close to Inciting Violence

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At Sen. John McCain’s (R-AZ) rally in Wisconsin today, one woman screamed “traitor!” when McCain criticized Sen. Barack Obama’s (D-IL) tax record. Huffington Post notes that after the woman’s interruption, “both McCain and his wife Cindy appeared to look in her direction. The Arizona Senator continued with his stump speech without referencing her.” Watch it:

At another recent rally, a man yelled “Off with his head,” when McCain spoke about Obama’s tax plan. As even Fox News has noted, McCain’s rallies are becoming increasingly hostile. “In recent days, when Barack Obama’s name has been mentioned, it has gone from boos and hissing to actual chants and calls of traitor, criminal, and even terrorist,” reported Carl Cameron.

On CNN last night, David Gergen, a Republican advisor to Presidents Nixon, Ford, Reagan, and Clinton, commented on the "anger" evident at McCain/Palin rallies of late. "There is this free floating sort of whipping around anger that could really lead to some violence," Gergen said. "I think we're not far from that."

When Anderson Cooper expressed skepticism about whether violence was likely, Gergen said he "really worries" given "the kind of rhetoric" coming from the Republican ticket.

When a mainstream, Republican presidential advisor goes on national television and expresses concern that Republican voters might literally become violent in response to the Republican presidential ticket's rhetoric, it's safe to say we've reached a rather dramatic point.

This week has been unusually incendiary. The McCain campaign has deliberately been whipping the angry, far-right Republican base into a frenzy. That includes increasing frequency of "Hussein" references, but it also includes looking the other way while campaign supporters exclaim "treason!," "terrorist!," and "kill him!" during official rallies.

On Wednesday, during a McCain harangue against Obama, one man could be heard yelling, "Off with his head!" On Thursday, Republicans erupted when an unhinged McCain supporter ranted about "socialists taking over our country." Instead of calming them down, McCain said the lunatic was "right."

The Republicans want an angry mob, they need hysterical supporters, and so they've stoked the fires of hate, fear, and ignorance. It's become a surprisingly toxic cocktail.

Both the Washington Post and the Politico have good items today on the explosive, enraged emotions at this week's Republican rallies. Slate's John Dickerson described the participants' "bloodthirsty" tone.

There are, obviously, more than a few questions to consider. Will McCain/Palin push their enraged mob into committing acts of violence? (We can hope not.) Will the hysterical Republican base consider Obama/Biden legitimate if they win in November? (I doubt it.)

And then there's the practical question: will the combination of hate, fear, and ignorance actually pay off on Election Day? Polls show Obama leading now, but the truth is, most of these polls were taken before McCain turned the Rage-o'-Meter to 11. How will mainstream voters react?

Time will obviously answer that question soon enough, but I found John Weaver's perspective especially interesting.

John Weaver, McCain's former top strategist, said top Republicans have a responsibility to temper this behavior.

"People need to understand, for moral reasons and the protection of our civil society, the differences with Senator Obama are ideological, based on clear differences on policy and a lack of experience compared to Senator McCain," Weaver said. "And from a purely practical political vantage point, please find me a swing voter, an undecided independent, or a torn female voter that finds an angry mob mentality attractive."


Weaver added that the Republican Party should be "ashamed" if it allows this to continue. Given what we've seen of late, they should be ashamed anyway.

Right Wingers Make Fun of Barack Obama's Correct Pronounciation of Pakistan and Taliban

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Barack Obama pronounces "Pakistan" correctly, with a soft "a," just like a lot of people who know what they're talking about, including Gen. David Petraeus. Apparently, having completely run out of compelling policy arguments to make, some high-profile conservatives have decided to make this their latest campaign hobbyhorse.

The National Review's Mark Stein, for example, said that Obama prefers the "exotic pronunciation." He added, "[O]ne thing I like about Sarah Palin is the way she says 'Eye-raq'."

This came after the National Review's Kathryn Jean Lopez posted an email that argued, "[N]o one in flyover country says Pock-i-stahn. It's annoying."

The inanity of what the right decides to whine about never ceases to amaze me. That Obama's pronunciation is accurate is irrelevant. Mispronunciation apparently makes some conservatives feel better about themselves, and raises doubts about candidates who care to get this right. "Elites" care about country names; real Americans don't.

My friend Adam Serwer's take was spot-on:

To pronounce something correctly is to be "ostentatiously exotic," while pronouncing something incorrectly is raised to the level of something like a presidential qualification. Meanwhile, there are thousands of Americans of Pakistani descent who are themselves "ostentatiously exotic" by virtue of their names (and it would be elitist of them to expect anyone to pronounce them correctly) and ancestry.

Keep in mind that these are the same people who insist that a culture of ignorance that hold black people back while lauding Sarah Palin's vast ignorance of public policy as some kind of tremendous virtue. They demand merit from others and only mediocrity from themselves, because said mediocrity is touted as proof of authenticity.


The right's anti-intellectualism seems to be getting worse, doesn't it?

John McCain's Planetarium Problem

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I like the fact that McCain's best example of Obama's wasteful spending basically comes down to "Barack Obama tried to teach your children SCIENCE!"

As if scientists weren't having enough problems due to federal budget freezes, now they're facing flak from Republican presidential candidate John McCain because of a $3 million planetarium projector. Which was never funded.

McCain has repeatedly taken his presidential rival (and Senate colleague) Barack Obama to task for seeking the $3 million earmark for Chicago's Adler Planetarium. The 40-year-old projector currently being used by the world-class planetarium is failing, and it's so obsolete that spare parts aren't available anymore. Obama and other members of the Illinois congressional delegation sought federal funds for a replacement.

That request fell by the wayside, and the funds never came through. But McCain is still trying to beat Obama over the head with the non-existent earmark, complaining about the "overhead projector" during Tuesday night's debate.

Anyone who's been to a planetarium knows that a planetarium projector is an incredibly complex and expensive device, and not your garden-variety overhead projector. Two years ago, the Los Angeles Times reported that the Griffith Observatory's new projector cost more than $3 million. Total cost of the Griffith's renovation: $93 million.

In response to McCain's comments, the Adler Planetarium issued a truth-squad statement today. Adler President Paul Knappenberger noted that the Griffith Observatory as well as New York's Hayden Planetarium received federal funding to replace their projection systems, according to the Chicago Tribune.

Legions of science fans are leaping to Adler's defense. Here's a selection, mostly cribbed from Phil Plait's Bad Astronomy blog. I'll be glad to add more if you send them along as a comment:


As if scientists weren't having enough problems due to federal budget freezes, now they're facing flak from Republican presidential candidate John McCain because of a $3 million planetarium projector. Which was never funded.

McCain has repeatedly taken his presidential rival (and Senate colleague) Barack Obama to task for seeking the $3 million earmark for Chicago's Adler Planetarium. The 40-year-old projector currently being used by the world-class planetarium is failing, and it's so obsolete that spare parts aren't available anymore. Obama and other members of the Illinois congressional delegation sought federal funds for a replacement.

That request fell by the wayside, and the funds never came through. But McCain is still trying to beat Obama over the head with the non-existent earmark, complaining about the "overhead projector" during Tuesday night's debate.

Anyone who's been to a planetarium knows that a planetarium projector is an incredibly complex and expensive device, and not your garden-variety overhead projector. Two years ago, the Los Angeles Times reported that the Griffith Observatory's new projector cost more than $3 million. Total cost of the Griffith's renovation: $93 million.

In response to McCain's comments, the Adler Planetarium issued a truth-squad statement today. Adler President Paul Knappenberger noted that the Griffith Observatory as well as New York's Hayden Planetarium received federal funding to replace their projection systems, according to the Chicago Tribune.

Legions of science fans are leaping to Adler's defense. Here's a selection, mostly cribbed from Phil Plait's Bad Astronomy blog. I'll be glad to add more if you send them along as a comment:


Noted on Tuesday (and this morning), McCain's shares are hitting new lows on the political prediction markets. Maybe his planetarium problem was a factor.

McCain's shares are hitting new lows on the political prediction markets. Maybe his planetarium problem was a factor.

Jon Stewart Vs. Sarah Palin

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Jon Stewart's not taking sides, but...


"Neither of them is perfect, but if you, out of nowhere, are going to grab a woman out of the woods and make her your vice presidential candidate, what can I do?

"[Sarah Palin] is like Jodie Foster in the movie 'Nell,' " Stewart continued. "They just found her, and she was speaking her own special language.

"Have you noticed how [Palin's] rallies have begun to take on the characteristics of the last days of the Weimar Republic? In Florida, she asked 'Who is Barack Obama?' Hey, lady, we just met YOU five f-ing weeks ago."


Conclusive proof that Jon Stewart is not a Republican: He cares about his country more than his paycheck.

Report: Voter purges in 6 states may violate Federal Election Laws

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via the Associated Press

NEW YORK - Tens of thousands of eligible voters have been removed from rolls or blocked from registering in at least six swing states, and the voters' exclusion appears to violate federal law, according to a published report.

The New York Times based its findings on reviews of state records and Social Security data.

The Times said voters appear to have been purged by mistake and not because of any intentional violations by election officials or coordinated efforts by any party.

States have been trying to follow the Help America Vote Act of 2002 by removing the names of voters who should no longer be listed. But for every voter added to the rolls in the past two months in some states, election officials have removed two, a review of the records shows.

The newspaper said it identified apparent problems in Colorado, Indiana, Ohio, Michigan, Nevada and North Carolina. It says some states are improperly using Social Security data to verify new voters' registration applications, and others may have broken rules that govern removing voters from the rolls within 90 days of a federal election.

Democrats have been more aggressive at registering new voters this year, according to state election officials, so any closer screening of new applications may affect their party's supporters disproportionately, the Times said.

The result is that on Election Day, voters who have been removed from the rolls could show up and be challenged by political party officials or election workers.

The six states seem to have violated federal law in two ways. Some are removing voters from the rolls within 90 days of a federal election, which is not allowed except when voters die, notify the authorities that they have moved out of state, or have been declared unfit to vote.

And some of the states are improperly using Social Security data to verify registration applications for new voters, the newspaper reported.

"Just as voting machines were the major issue that came out of the 2000 presidential election and provisional ballots were the big issue from 2004, voter registration and these statewide lists will be the top concern this year," said Daniel P. Tokaji, a law professor at Ohio State University.

McCain: I'm Not Raising Taxes. I'm Cutting Medicare!

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Barack Obama says John McCain would raise people's taxes by changing the way the IRS looks at health insurance. McCain says he wouldn't.

Who's right?

Quite possibly McCain. But only because he's decided to slash Medicare and Medicaid instead.

Laura Meckler, who is one of the sharpest and most reliable policy reporters around, has the full story in today's Wall Street Journal.

To review: The essence of McCain's health care plan is to change the tax treatment of health benefits they get from employers. Instead of having people deduct the cost of group insurance premiums from their taxes, as they do now, McCain would offer everybody a tax credit--worth $2,500 to indivdiuals and $5,000 to families--that they could apply towards the purchase of health insurance. The credit would be valid whether people buy insurance through their employers or on their own.

It sounds simple enough. But you have to pay attention to the math.

Giving everybody that big new tax credit costs a lot of money. To pay for it, you'd have to get rid of the entire deduction as it now exists. That means people could no longer write off the cost of health insurance from their personal income taxes or from their payroll taxes. As Meckler explains:

If Sen. McCain were to apply both of these [deductions] to the value of health benefits, he could fully pay for his new tax credits. That is what aides have in the past suggested he would do.In April, when Sen. McCain gave a major speech about his health plan, Mr. Holtz-Eakin, the senior policy adviser, said the tax provisions alone were budget neutral -- meaning that health benefits would have to be subject to both income and payroll taxes.

In my inteviews with McCain staff, I got the same impression.

But the trouble with making this shift is that it would substantially alter people's tax liabilities. Some people would see taxes fall, while others would see taxes rise. And that last part is the opening Obama has seized recently, claiming that McCain wants to raise people's taxes.

As I've written, Obama's attacks aren't ideal from a policy standpoint; properly done, as part of a broader reform package, the kind of change McCain has described might work. But, strictly speaking, Obama's argument is correct.

Or, at least, it was. A few months ago, the McCain campaign began telling people that it wouldn't get rid of both deductions after all. It would eliminate the deduction on income taxes but it would keep the deduction on payroll taxes.

That meant only a few people would see their taxes go up. The rest would see their taxes decline--since, after all, they were keeping part of their old deduction and getting McCain's new credit.

But that also changed the math. Instead of being revenue neutral, the McCain health plan would cost the government money. A lot of money. According to the non-partisan Tax Policy Center, it would add $1.3 trillion to the deficit over ten years.

Last week, though, a new wrinkle appeared. During the vice presidential debate, Sarah Palin announced that McCain's health plan was "revenue neutral."

I wrote that this was dishonest, but apparently I was wrong. The McCain campaign has now decided to introduce one more change. They're going to help pay for the new tax credit with cuts to Medicare and Medicaid. Again, here's Meckler, explaining this latest sequence:

Mr. Holtz-Eakin said the campaign never intended to apply the payroll tax to health benefits. That means that most people would see a net tax cut, contrary to Sen. Obama's assertions. Only those with very rich benefits packages are likely to see a net increase in taxes. But it also means that Sen. McCain must fill a huge budget hole -- which the campaign says will come from cuts to Medicare and Medicaid.

...Mr. Holtz-Eakin said the plan is accurately described as budget neutral because it assumes enough savings in Medicare and Medicaid spending to make up the difference. He said the savings would come from eliminating Medicare fraud and by reforming payment policies to lower the overall cost of care. He said the new tax credits will help some low-income people avoid joining Medicaid. The campaign also proposes increasing Medicare premiums for wealthier seniors.


So, just to review...

First McCain said he would elimine the entire tax deduction for health insurance, in order to pay for his new tax credit. This would have paid for itself, but it would have done so by raising taxes on a lot of people.

Then McCain decided he was keeping part of the deduction after all. While he would be raising taxes on a very few people, he'd be lowering them for most. Of course, that would also have meant running much bigger deficits.

Now McCain is saying, no, no, he's not going to increase the deficit with his health care plan. Instead, he's going to pay for it by cutting Medicare and Medicaid--which, at the levels he's discussing, might seriously weaken the program.

I can't wait to see what they come up with next.