An ad from the PAC "Our Country Deserves Better" is currently available on youtube.
It "throws the kitchen sink at Obama," in terms of lies and half truths about "radical associations," but it is the first image that is most arresting. A roving circle, which clearly looks like the crosshairs of a rifle sight, passes over Hillary Clinton and Bill Richardson before resting on Obama as the announcer says "Barack Obama seems to have different values from most Americans."
The image is bad enough, but watching the video only underscores the effect of seeming like a rifle scope. The entire, disgusting video can be seen here:
With shouts of "he's a terrorist," and "Obama Bin Lyin'," and "Kill Him!" ringing in the air, it's pretty clear what the subtext of this ad is.
My friends, it's getting out of hand. Just yesterday a pro-McCain blogger posted this image on his website:
After successive days in which McCain supporters have been stoked to the point of calling for the death of Barack Obama, this is beyond the pale. The Republican meltdown is turning into a collective death fantasy for Obama, and we need to speak out against it.
In some ways it's not that surprising, especially given the fact that Palin quoted Westbrook Pegler in her acceptance speech, he who said this of Bobby Kennedy:
some white patriot of the Southern tier will spatter his spoonful of brains in public premises before the snow flies
At the time some of us thought the Pegler quote was just a really unfortunate mistake. Since then we've learned just how close the McCain/Palin ticket is willing to come to that sort of explicit endorsement of assassination. We need to underscore that McCain has lost it, and that he and Palin are encouraging the right-wing fringe in this.
Every day they say nothing is another day they are complicit in the assassination fantasy.