MN-06: Shades of McCarthyism

So last Friday on Hardball, Congresswoman Michele Bachmann (R), representing Minnesota's 6th congressional district, made some disgusting comments implying that Barack Obama holds "anti-American views", and accused certain members in Congress of being anti-American, even calling for an investigation into where their allegiances really were. Just like Joseph McCarthy.



Well.

That video went up on YouTube before the show was even over, and quickly became viral. And just like that, people started taking action, donating to Bachmann's Democratic opponent, Elwyn Tinklenberg, former mayor of Blaine and Transportation Secretary of Minnesota under Jesse Ventura. And boy, did they donate! Tinklenberg came to DailyKos to inform everyone that in just 24 hours since Bachmann's appearance, he had raised over $488,000. By Monday that figure had gone up to over $810,000.

You may recall Bachmann was the woman who kissed Bush after his 2007 State of the Union address and held on to him in a very creepy manner, but this is hardly the first embarrassing incident involving Bachmann. Populista has a rundown of all the batshit crazy stuff she's been involved in. The blog Dump Bachmann has much more.

Since her comments on Friday, her Republican primary challenger, college professor Aubrey Immelman, has announced he's going to mount a write-in challenge, specifically targeting "disillusioned Republicans" who can't bring themselves to vote for a Democrat. Even Colin Powell called her comments "nonsense" after he endorsed Obama. An online petition is calling for her censure, and there's already a song parody of a classic Bachman-Turner Overdrive tune about her. And when even Sarah Palin is repudiating your comments, that's a sign this media hound may have finally gone too far. And smelling the blood in the water, the DCCC is dropping $1 million into this race.

For her comments, Bachmann found herself the target of both Keith Olbermann and Jon Stewart on Monday.

Palling around with terrorists

So by now you've probably heard that Sarah Palin has played the Ayers card, accusing Obama of "palling around with terrorists". This, as McCain's own ad also invokes Ayers. As a result, Obama has taken the gloves off on McCain's own involvement in the biggest scandal of the 1980s, the savings & loan scandal, of which McCain was intimately involved. McCain was one of the "Keating Five". Obama's people have set up a new website, Keating Economics, where you can see just how involved McCain was in helping out the super-rich at the expense of us regular Americans. Quite apropos in this time of economic crisis, no? Here's the full video explaining just what McCain did.

But it's much more than that. If McCain and Palin want to play the terrorist card, then let's look at who has the REAL terrorism problem. Who was really "palling around" with secessionists who despise America? Sarah Palin.



And who tried to provide cover for domestic terrorists that would MURDER abortion doctors and volunteers? John McCain.



But by going down this dark path, the Washington Post reports that at Palin rallies, you now have overt cases of racism and even assassination threats.

Worse, Palin's routine attacks on the media have begun to spill into ugliness. In Clearwater, arriving reporters were greeted with shouts and taunts by the crowd of about 3,000. Palin then went on to blame Katie Couric's questions for her "less-than-successful interview with kinda mainstream media." At that, Palin supporters turned on reporters in the press area, waving thunder sticks and shouting abuse. Others hurled obscenities at a camera crew. One Palin supporter shouted a racial epithet at an African American sound man for a network and told him, "Sit down, boy."

....

The reception had been better in Clearwater, where Palin, speaking to a sea of "Palin Power" and "Sarahcuda" T-shirts, tried to link Obama to the 1960s Weather Underground. "One of his earliest supporters is a man named Bill Ayers," she said. ("Boooo!" said the crowd.) "And, according to the New York Times, he was a domestic terrorist and part of a group that, quote, 'launched a campaign of bombings that would target the Pentagon and our U.S. Capitol,' " she continued. ("Boooo!" the crowd repeated.)

"Kill him!" proposed one man in the audience.

Palin also told those gathered that Obama doesn't like American soldiers. "He said that our troops in Afghanistan are just, quote, 'air-raiding villages and killing civilians,' " she said, drawing boos from a crowd that had not been told Obama was actually appealing for more troops in Afghanistan.

And at a McCain rally, when he asks who is the "real" Obama, you have an audience member yell out "a terrorist!" It almost looks like McCain suddenly realizes the Pandora's Box of hatred that he's opened up, but it's too late.



All this led to Keith Olbermann's latest Special Comment on Palin's remarks.



Get ready for more of this, Bruin Dems. Digby warned us last year of the coming deluge of right-wing violence if Obama wins.

I predict that we are going to see a remarkable resurgence of rightwing violence if the Democrats take full control of the government. These people are always surprisingly cooperative when the government is run by Republicans and then rediscover their "anti-government" beliefs when Democrats share or dominate the government. I can't imagine why that would be.

The Tennessee church murders and the murder of the Arkansas Democratic Party Chairman were just the first two salvos.

Update: And now from London comes a story of a black man getting shot simply for wearing an Obama t-shirt.

SNL does the VP debate

Tina Fey just gets better and better at playing Sarah Palin.

What was Lowry doing?

From all the reactions to the VP debate, the most... um... interesting... one may have come from the National Review's Rich Lowry.

A very wise TV executive once told me that the key to TV is projecting through the screen. It's one of the keys to the success of, say, a Bill O'Reilly, who comes through the screen and grabs you by the throat. Palin too projects through the screen like crazy. I'm sure I'm not the only male in America who, when Palin dropped her first wink, sat up a little straighter on the couch and said, "Hey, I think she just winked at me." And her smile. By the end, when she clearly knew she was doing well, it was so sparkling it was almost mesmerizing. It sent little starbursts through the screen and ricocheting around the living rooms of America. This is a quality that can't be learned; it's either something you have or you don't, and man, she's got it.

As James Wolcott wrote, "Good thing Palin didn't blow a kiss at the camera or Lowry might have fucking fainted. I'm not a licensed psychotherapist but when you think the people on TV are addressing you personally and directly it's often a sign of incipient dementia."

Keith Olbermann went a different route, in a Worst Person in the World segment that is not meant for tender ears. Watch at your own risk.



Needless to say, I think it should be obvious now why Palin did better among men than women.


And now for something completely random, a train analogy.

Video roundup

Did you know that on Tuesday, September 30, 6 of the top 8 YouTube videos were mocking Sarah Palin? Ever since "macaca" took down George Allen (who disgraced our campus by attending UCLA for a year before transferring to Virginia), viral videos have become a part of the political process. Here are some pretty good videos being put out there on the Intertubes.

Signs of Hope & Change



"Hey Sarah Palin" (parody of "Hey There Delilah")



CNN's Campbell Brown: Free Sarah Palin!



Sarah Palin's greatest hits



Exposing the lies in McCain's ads



Thank John McCain (user-generated TV ad)



Tina Fey parody was a direct quote of Palin!



5 Friends



Keative Five scandal in 97 seconds



Homer Simpson wants Obama!



Les Misbarack



And this is almost 10 minutes long, but here is the video of Palin's pastor, who directed a literal witchhunt, praying that Palin herself be protected from witches. Cuz you know that Alaska is just crawling with witches.