Friedman: Rightwing Putting Obama's Life in Danger

I hate to write about this, but I have actually been to this play before and it is really disturbing.

I was in Israel interviewing Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin just before he was assassinated in 1995. We had a beer in his office. He needed one. I remember the ugly mood in Israel then — a mood in which extreme right-wing settlers and politicians were doing all they could to delegitimize Rabin, who was committed to trading land for peace as part of the Oslo accords. They questioned his authority. They accused him of treason. They created pictures depicting him as a Nazi SS officer, and they shouted death threats at rallies. His political opponents winked at it all.

And in so doing they created a poisonous political environment that was interpreted by one right-wing Jewish settler as a license to kill Rabin — he must have heard, “God will be on your side” — and so he did.

Others have already remarked on this analogy, but I want to add my voice because the parallels to Israel then and America today turn my stomach: I have no problem with any of the substantive criticism of President Obama from the right or left. But something very dangerous is happening. Criticism from the far right has begun tipping over into delegitimation and creating the same kind of climate here that existed in Israel on the eve of the Rabin assassination.
....
And Mr. Obama is now having his legitimacy attacked by a concerted campaign from the right fringe. They are using everything from smears that he is a closet “socialist” to calling him a “liar” in the middle of a joint session of Congress to fabricating doubts about his birth in America and whether he is even a citizen. And these attacks are not just coming from the fringe. Now they come from Lou Dobbs on CNN and from members of the House of Representatives.

Again, hack away at the man’s policies and even his character all you want. I know politics is a tough business. But if we destroy the legitimacy of another president to lead or to pull the country together for what most Americans want most right now — nation-building at home — we are in serious trouble. We can’t go 24 years without a legitimate president — not without being swamped by the problems that we will end up postponing because we can’t address them rationally. NYT

Obama Smear Alert

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McCain's Camp is Outraged at Democrats

Outraged they are.
McCain spokeswoman Nicolle Wallace was on all the morning "news" shows responding to the rumors that spurred the announcement that Sarah Palin's daughter is five months pregnant with the help of, and we may as well call out Levi Johnston, the father.

Wallace blamed the liberal and democratic blogs. She called the rumors "lewd" and the most disgusting ever, "the ugliest of politics as usual." I admit I read the rumor but knew better than to repeat it here, but the republicans have no room to talk. There are wingnuts out there who are still trying to prove that:

1)Obama is a secret terrorist Muslim
2)Obama wasn't born in the US
3)Obama was an "illegitimate" child
4)That he's a drug addict.

The smears against Obama are the ugliest of politics as usual. Despicable. I haven't seen the McCain camp come out against these smears. There has been an all out campaign to smear Obama. Meanwhile, Obama told the media to back off the Palin story. He reminded them that his mother was 18 when she had him. He said families are off limits.

So for the McCain camp to throw the blame at the democrats for outing Sarah Palin, when the McCain camp should've let the public know up front, is an outrage. Their excuse is they couldn't let the public know upfront, Palin was introduced on Friday and she couldn't announce it in her speech.

Well, if they hadn't been so intent on politicking and announcing the day after the democratic convention, they could've allowed time to let the public know.

Here's why it matters: If a poor teen of color gets pregnant it's a scurrilous event but when it's a rich white family, it's the best thing since sliced bread. Sarah Palin is practically a hero at this point.

Here's another reason why it matters:
Palin and McCain believe in abstinence-only education. While she may be able to support her daughter's child, there are poor teens who aren't able to do that. So what's good for her family isn't necessarily what's good for America.

It's hypocrisy at its ugliest.

NoBamas at Convention: Obama Went to Muslim School

An Obama supporter tries reason.

Here's Why Obama Needs Boatloads of Money

There are some seriously ignorant people out there and these are people who should know better. But they are extreme and hateful and they're on the move. 

Here's the latest email I got from humanevents.com, which has stepped up its smearing efforts. It's hard for me to believe that people actually think like this and as we've seen in the primaries there are plenty of people who are susceptible to this kind of smear marketing. They're called "low information voters."

It seems like a joke but these people at humanevents are serious:

Keep Reading For A Sneak Preview Of Our Latest Expose Obama Commercial Which Poses the Question: "Was Barack Hussein Obama a Muslim. He says 'no,' but the Associated Press found records...."

But before we go any further... let's make one thing perfectly clear. It doesn't really matter whether Barack Hussein Obama WAS a Muslim or not!

What DOES matter is -- Can Barack Hussein Obama be trusted?

Is Barack Hussein Obama side-stepping questions about his Muslim childhood?

And if so... WHY?

Pivotal questions come to mind:

is there more information -- as of yet undisclosed -- that Obama thinks the American people would find repugnant?

if he is side-stepping questions, is it because he REALLY believes that the patriotic people of America are all GUN-TOTIN', BIBLE-THUMPIN' bigots and thus incapable of understanding the full-and-complete TRUTH?

and perhaps the most important question is, WHY DO the liberal media and other assorted Obamaniacs, scramble about and circle the wagons around Barack Hussein Obama EVERY SINGLE TIME QUESTIONS ABOUT HIM ARE RAISED?

That last question is already becoming the most important.

When we released this commercial to the media on Thursday morning, the liberal 'blogosphere' went crazy. Within hours, liberals had already put their smear-machine into overdrive. And within hours we received scores of profane (and in some cases outright menacing) calls on our answering machine.

What's the bottom line?

Simply put, LIBERALS DO NOT WANT THE AMERICAN PEOPLE TO SEE THIS COMMERCIAL!

THEY KNOW THIS COMMERCIAL WILL DO MAJOR DAMAGE TO BARACK HUSSEIN OBAMA!

Please understand, the fact that you are reading this letter is an indication that, as a conservative and a patriot, you already know that BARACK HUSSEIN OBAMA IS THE MOST DANGEROUS MAN IN AMERICA!

But the VAST MAJORITY of Americans are still spoon-fed news from the liberal media... a media which still holds a virtual monopoly on what most Americans read, see and hear... a media which has already shown itself to clearly be in Barack Hussein Obama's camp!

Their new commercial

Attacks on Michelle

Salon: You'd think that would be enough to get some basic facts about the guy lodged in voters' heads. But you'd be wrong. In recent focus groups in key battleground states, participants told Democratic pollsters matter-of-factly that Obama, if elected, would refuse to be sworn in on the Bible. In one group conducted on behalf of the University of Pennsylvania's Annenberg Public Policy Center, seven out of 12 independent Virginia voters taking part said they thought Obama was a Muslim (he isn't), and some questioned his patriotism, saying he needs to prove he's "for America." That particular clump of "low information" voters was probably an outlier, but a survey in March found 13 percent of voters -- up 5 points from the previous poll -- shared their belief that Obama was Muslim. Another 44 percent weren't sure what his faith was. And e-mails are flying around the Internet with winking implications that Obama isn't really American (and, worse than that, he's African, if you know what the writer means).

As you can see, Obama has a lot of work to do and if he needs to spend oodles of money to shut McCain down, so be it.
Fight the rumors.