Say It Aint So, Joe! Will Scarborough “Savage” McCain’s Ties to Terrorists?

Joe Scarborough has a good point about being able to criticize Obama without charges of racism. He also has the opportunity to prove his point right now.

Joe Scarborough has a point.

This week Joe has been on a rant suggesting that the media’s focus on the angry mobs at McCain-Palin rallies raises race in way that, to him, appears to set up a double standard for judging Barack Obama.  His theory, if Obama were white, the allegations about Ayers would stick (regardless of those pesky Annenburg facts), and if running against a white opponent with even the most remotest ties to Ayers, Scarborough says he would "savage" him.

It’s a fair point, and Scarborough can prove it tomorrow by "savaging" a white candidate with ties to white terrorists, and encouraging the candidate to distance himself immediately.

As Amie pointed out last week, as recently as last year John McCain was palling around with Paul Schenck, who "began his career as a militant anti-abortion activist, for
which he was repeatedly arrested, often targeting Dr. Barnett Slepian
who was assassinated by an anti-abortion activist in 1998 by a man who,
according to another pro-life activist, was probably known to both
Schenck and his brother."

As I wrote, also just last week, Keith Olberman pointed out that McCain attended an Oregon fundraiser with a woman who praised another woman for shooting a physician that performs legal abortions. McCain had been warned about the extremists at the fundraiser but went anyway. Harassment, vandalism and violence at women’s clinics are well known throughout the country, and McCain’s crowds did not grow large until the extremists in the anti-choice movement were inspired by Sarah Palin. The crowds did not grow angry until their lead slipped away.

Scarborough is right to suggest Obama must be able to be criticized fairly, without charges of racism. I suspect Obama agrees based on the way he has run his campaign. Scarborough is also right that the left is just as obnoxious as the right in the ways the extremists on both sides say vile things about the other side.

So instead of talking about political extremes, let’s talk about women.

Women and physicians should be able to make private reproductive health decisions without harassment, threat, vandalism, violence — or even criticism — for their decisions are not political, but personal. 

The link between the anger witnessed at recent rallies, and people attending, like Paul Schenck with a VIP pass to a recent McCain rally, is too close for comfort for too many women and should be repudiated.

In the 1960’s there was a moment when most Americans began seeing hippies less as peace loving curiosities, but as something more menacing and violent. The conservative backlash was born.  This week, many Americans are starting to understand that the most extreme parts of the anti-choice movement are not simply pro-life and "all about the babies" but in fact have a darker, angrier and more dangerous base.

Joe, you may begin your "savaging" any time now to prove your point on racism. We’ll be watching.