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A Red Flag for the Secret Service?

Posted by TONY CAMPBELL, Columnist in At TMV, Politics.
Oct 7th, 2008 | Comments

A disturbing trend may be on the rise at Republican rallies. It is one thing to state that your opponent may have character issues or may not be the best choice to serve as President of the United States. It is something else entirely to stoke a fire that may incite violence against a sitting United States Senator who is the other party’s nominee for President.

Today, in a rally in Clearwater, FL., at a speech given by Governor Palin a man reportedly said “Kill Him” in reference to Barack Obama. We have a little less than a month to go and we are well past the point of civility in this campaign. Perhaps we all need to step back and take a collective breath. I would hope that neither Governor Palin nor Senator McCain would welcome support from people who would espouse such hateful views.

Political speech is part of the 1st Amendment protection of free speech. However, free speech does not include yelling fire in a public place or speech designed to incite people to take violent action. Rhetoric such as the type heard today in Florida may be the catalyst that can fan the smoldering coals of hate and race in our country. It is the responsibility of the Secret Service to protect the nominees from threats to their person and their families. When does political speech cross the line between motivating activists and provoking individual action that can cause personal injury?

Just a thought…

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RevDave

Hopefully mainstream Republicans are seeing clearing what the top of their ticket is pulling here - wink wink, nod nod - let's demonize everyone who disagrees with us - Obama, the media, east coasters, urbanites, the media.

What a disgusting campaign McCain is running.

chasinfremont

The mind rotting effects of years and years of provocative conservative talk radio is showing. When the airwaves have dozens of broadcasters competing for the unsavory underbelly of the American pyche, these types of reports should not surprise. It is, I must admit, quite shocking. That Gov. Palin did not go put of her way to repudiate that comment from the crowd speaks reams about their new-found scorched earth policy. They apparently have no clue how bad this looks.

JSpencer

I think they need to lower the boom on this sort of crap pronto. Agree with chas, this is related to conservative talk (hate) radio.

onleyone

i find it disturbing that we have no reasonable republicans here at the ModVox denouncing this.

didn't sen. mcCain also pass over cries of "terrorist!" after questioning obama's patriotism?

this veers awful close into "inciting violence" territory.

The Pajama Pundit

onleyone - I hear you. I cannot find any Republicans who will at least agree that this type of rhetoric ('Kill him' and 'Terrorist') is simply unacceptable in civil political discourse. Oh, and it's also completely unnecessary.

http://thepajamapundit.com/

PJBFan

OK, I am a Republican who finds this sort of absolute and utter crap calling Barack Obama a terrorist, and urging people to kill him absolutely disgusting.

That being said, I do believe that there are very reasonable doubts about Obama's character, and plenty of reasons to believe he is as corrupt as Ted Stevens or Richard Nixon was.

acspark

For the record, the writer of the article is a moderate Republican.
TC

Jim_Satterfield

"...plenty of reasons to believe he is as corrupt as Ted Stevens or Richard Nixon was."

Proof of such claims is usually a good idea.

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