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"Kill him"

Posted at 3:50 PM on October 14, 2008 by Bob Collins (9 Comments)
Filed under: Politics

Mary Katharine Ham, a contributor at The Weekly Standard's blog tried mightily today to make the "kill him" controversy go away. Last week, a man yelled "Kill him" at a Sarah Palin rally in Florida. The media suggested the man was referring to Barack Obama. Ham, however, parsed the Palin speech and determined the man was referring to William Ayers:

If someone had wanted to yell "kill him" about Obama, he would likely have yelled it in response to Palin's preceding sentence:

At least then, there would have been a chance it could have been directed at Obama, as both Obama and Ayers are present in Palin's sentence.

But the liberal media, which has at times ignored and at times applauded as high art the assassination fetishism of the last eight years on the Left, is now projecting it onto all McCain-Palin supporters, using several outbursts and one decidedly misinterpreted "kill him" as their hook.

Meanwhile, this live blog of a rally Sarah Palin had in Scranton, Pennsylvania today might be more difficult to dismiss:

1:25 p.m.

Chris Hackett addressed the increasingly feisty crowd as they await the arrival of Gov. Palin.

Each time the Republican candidate for the seat in the 10th Congressional District mentioned Barack Obama the crowd booed loudly.

One man screamed "kill him!"

Comments (9)

Okay. The link to the live blog has been updated with the article about the event. It contained this interesting statement:

"There were no incendiary outbursts from the crowd about Mr. Obama during Mrs. Palin's speech, as there have been during other recent McCain-Palin rallies.

However, someone did shout out, "Kill him!" during Republican congressional candidate Chris Hackett's remarks before Mrs. Palin took the stage.

The outburst came during a round of booing from the crowd after Mr. Hackett said Mr. Obama should come to Pennsylvania and learn what the state's values are."

How is that not incendiary?

Posted by Jennifer B. | October 14, 2008 4:45 PM

I am really struggling with this character assasination and inciting anger etc. based on inuendo and lies. Just "short of inciting a riot" which I am surprised hasn't caused a bigger backlash, but then again I am honestly amazed at how easily those who need to believe in their party or their candidates or???? can be sucked into such a negative void. What drops my jaw further is these are the candidates who are "supposedly" Christian based and committed to the word of The Holy Bible.
case in point: I went to a Cub store this weekend for the groceries and approached a woman handing out samples of whole wheat pita and Homos-Tahini from the Holy land deli... Made fresh daily right here in Minnesota. Keep in mind she is being paid to sell a product. Her first words to me were: "Would you like to try some of this? Most people are afraid to eat it because of the brand name." Say what???? She had no clue it was a local business, how healthy it was and OH MY GOSH IT HAS THE LABEL>>>HOLYLAND DELI,
I told her it was very healthy food and I would be glad to sample it as I use it often. she then asked if I could tell her if she put enough Homos-Tahini on the pita because she had no idea how much, etc. and wouldn't try it. My oh my, someone didn't give her much training and my guess is she and so many others are feeding on this fear and ignorance...
Is there anyone who can reassure me that the voting public really isn't that "un-informed"? that is the most diplomatic term I could come up with for now

Posted by Minn Whaler | October 14, 2008 7:59 PM

What drops my jaw further is these are the candidates who are "supposedly" Christian based and committed to the word of The Holy Bible

Excuse me Mr. Whaler, but everyone here has access to web and nothing surprises us. "Kill him" is mild compared to what one reads hourly on The Daily Kos.

Before you point the finger at "Christians", perhaps it is time to lament what has happened to the tolerance of Liberals, who like Christians are suppose to seek humanity in those people society marginalizes - even if these people are "Christians".

Posted by GregS | October 14, 2008 8:15 PM

How is that not incendiary?

It is incendiary, but it is also indicative of the double standard that we have all come to expect from public broadcasting.

The person who shouted it was a guy in the crowd, not a well-connected radical like Mr Ayers who, if he had more competence, would have killed hundreds.

It is one thing to have a nut in the crowd, it is another to show up for a "meet the candidate" session in the livingroom of a man who not only shouted "Kill them" repeatedly, but planted bombs to accomplish that goal.

Posted by GregS | October 14, 2008 8:21 PM

The chief prosecutor of The Weathermen seems to make the distinction.

The obvious response to someone CURRENTLY advocating violence is repudiation, regardless of what party is involved. It's not that far removed from repudiating a pastor who says "God damn America," actually.

Posted by Bob Collins | October 15, 2008 8:03 AM

We all know that if Senator McCain or ANY candidate was in any way linked to an abortion clinic bomber, no matter how repentant or reformed they were, that the press outrage would be both loud and continuous.

As for Mr. Ibershof's statement, I note that he carefully framed the association of Mr. Ayers and Mr. Obama as service on the board of a charity and neglected to mention Mr. Obama presence at fund-raisers in Mr. Ayer's living room.

I simply cannot understand the last paragraph.

From what I gather, Mr. McCain is not being accused of attending church services where rhetoric like "Kill him" was shouted repeatedly from the pulpit over a twenty year period.

Posted by GregS | October 15, 2008 11:14 AM

From this article, it is obvious that Barak Obama launched his political career in the Ayers living room.

“I can remember being one of a small group of people who came to Bill Ayers’ house to learn that Alice Palmer was stepping down from the senate and running for Congress,” said Dr. Quentin Young, a prominent Chicago physician and advocate for single-payer health care, of the informal gathering at the home of Ayers and his wife, Dohrn. “[Palmer] identified [Obama] as her successor.”

Posted by GregS | October 15, 2008 11:28 AM

GregS, you keep mentioning what appears to be an inherent fairness in the media not reporting on Obama's association with Ayers, and then you cite media reports to further present that association.

What's interesting to me is the major media reported on the Ayers-Obama "link" last winter and spring. And yet it only became a campaign issue when McCain-Palin chose to use it.

It wasn't McCain-Palin that dug up the connection, it was the major media (repeating an item in a London tabloid), and yet only in the last few weeks has McCain-Palin -- and supporters such as yourself -- started going public with the "why isn't the media reporting on Obama-Ayers?

In fact, it was Hillary Clinton, not Sarah Palin, nor John McCain, who first criticized Obama.

Posted by Bob Collins | October 15, 2008 11:44 AM

No, Bob, the issue is not the lack of thorough coverage of the Obama/Ayers link, it is the co-ordinated parroting of planted stories. I have seen newscasts of three incidents in as many days where a single person voiced a single angry offensive line at a McCain rally and each was picked up by national news.

In a world where the media suppressed the Abu Gharib story for months and until Mary Mapes could co-ordinate the timing of the story with the DNC for political affect - one begins to wonder.

The lastest press gaggle of "angry McCain supporters" should anger stockholders of the media outlets. It is nothing more than Obama campaign commercials for which no one is being charged.

Posted by GregS | October 15, 2008 7:47 PM