The Cruelty of Desperation

Pennsylvania seems to be the lightning rod for racism in this presidential campaign. First, Hillary Clinton began to effect a hillbilly accent while campaigning there during the primaries. Then John Murtha insulted his own constituents by calling them racist, and John McCain got tongue-tied trying to use the Murtha insult to ingratiate himself with another crowd of Pennsylvanians.

Then Friday rolls along and a young, unhinged McCain campaign worker self-mutilates herself with a backwards "B" and the McCain campaign shows its true colors.

Peter Feldman is the McCain Pennsylvania communications director who went to two television stations with the story that the worker had been mugged and mutilated by a vengeful Obama supporter, who just so happened to be black. Click here for the talkingpointsmemo.com story.

The McCain campaign pushed back and claimed the hoax story was spread by bad reporting, and could not be linked to the campaign. However, Keith Olbermann found to the contrary.

Now this same Peter Feldman appears to be connected to an outrageous email distributed to 75,000 Jewish voters in Pennsylvania. The email suggests that a vote for Obama is a vote for a second Holocaust.

Although the GOP tried once again to distance itself from the email blast, the consultant responsible for creating it, says otherwise, and the "otherwise" includes reference to the same Peter Feldman.

This is why I adore talkingpointsmemo.com: Josh Marshall is a determined journalist working through the medium of the Internet.

Which leads me to conclude that the cruelty inherent to feeling desperate is another one of those human traits that make self-rule and participatory democracy very difficult, indeed. Using fear to persuade, the legacy of Lee Atwater, who regretted these very tactics on his deathbed, has been kept very alive by Karl Rove and his protegees. It's a dreadful way to campaign and rule. The Democrats under Obama's leadership have resisted this streak this time. We have to figure out a way to return politics to a less devisive tone, so that it isn't about vanquishing the enemy, it isn't about pro-America and anti-America. It's about making a better and sustainable future for ourselves, as one nation on a very crowded and stressed planet. It's about balancing individual and community, and enlarging the definition of community to encompass the world.