John McCain thinks ‘Arab’ is an insult…
I really do fail to see how McCain can still insist he’s not a racist demagogue when he keeps doing and saying racist demagoguey things. From Politico:
Crowd boos after McCain says Obama not ‘an Arab’By JONATHAN MARTIN & AMIE PARNES | 10/10/08 9:19 PM EDT
Fearing the raw and at times angry emotions of his supporters may damage his campaign, John McCain on Friday urged them to tone down their increasingly personal denunciations of Barack Obama, including one woman who said she had heard that the Democrat was “an Arab.”
Each time he tried to cool the crowd, he was rewarded with a round of boos.
“I have to tell you. Sen. Obama is a decent person and a person you don’t have to be scared of as president of the United States,” McCain told a supporter at a town hall meeting in Minnesota who said he was “scared” of the prospect of an Obama presidency and of who the Democrat would appoint to the Supreme Court.
“Come on, John!” one audience member yelled out as the Republicans crowd expressed their dismay at their nominee. Others yelled “liar,” and “terrorist,” referring to Barack Obama.
McCain passed his wireless microphone to one woman who said, “I can’t trust Obama. I have read about him and he’s not he’s not uh—he’s an Arab. He’s not—” before McCain retook the microphone and replied:
“No, ma’am,” the Arizona senator assured. “He’s a decent family man [and] citizen that I just happen to have disagreements with on fundamental issues and that’s what this campaign’s all about. He’s not [an Arab].”
What he should have added was “…not that there’s anything wrong with that”. But he didn’t.
And since when has the the description ‘Arab’ been an accusation? Surely McCain must think there’s something wrong with being an Arab in the first place if he thinks it’s a deadly insult.
That won’t go down well with a number of his own party – or the Saudis… or the Iraqis or the Palestinians or the Kuwaitis, or anyone else for that matter. This isn’t just McCain demonstrating his own nasty brand of petty racism against Obama; this kind of ingrained bigotry has international, strategic implications.
Not only has this presidential candidate insulted a whole 1.2 million-strong ethnic group at home and untold millions abroad, by showing that he sees the mere description ‘Arab’ as a deadly insult – but by also clearly implying that Arabs are not decent family men and citizens, he’s just killed any possibility of a future McCain presidential middle-east peace deal. People tend not to want to negotiate with someone who demonstrates such open contempt for them.
But then again, did McCain ever want a middle-east peace deal in the first place? His selection of the dominionist and end-times believer and rabble rouser Sarah Palin as running mate emphatically says not (and also raises the spectre of a future religiously-motivated nuclear war).
So there’s a lot more to McCain’s public acts of petty racism and intolerance than is initially apparent. If he’s elected and his administration’s acts are motivated by that same ingrained bigotry, then McCain’s scarlet ‘a’ could stand for ‘apocalypse’.
