I'm unsure if anyone talked about this, but a search for lawsuits in the recent updates didn't reveal it. If it has been talked about, my apologies.
Anyway, the long and short of it is that a 66-year-old grandmother is suing the McCain/Palin campaign for promoting hate speech. Mary Kay Green, a civil attorney, is spending her own money in launching a lawsuit against McCain and Palin. She states that the $350 she spent out-of-pocket is worth every penny.
According to the news article,
Her lawsuit claims McCain's campaign "intentionally, recklessly and irresponsibly portrayed presidential candidate Barack Obama as un-American, a terrorist by association, and "not like us," a non-white individual.
It also accuses Palin of working a crowd at a rally into a frenzy "causing them to make death threats against presidential candidate and U.S. Senator Barack Obama with her audiences shouting "kill him," "off with his head," "terrorist," "Muslim terrorist."
Lest the McCain campaign claim this is an isolated incident, I want to draw your attention to this disturbing little invocation given at a McCain rally at Davenport, Iowa, on October 11, 2008.
At the 54 second mark, the following was stated by an evangelical preacher:
I would also add, Lord, that your reputation is involved in everything that happens between now and November. Because there are millions of people around this world praying to their god, whether it's Hinda, Bhudda, Allah, that his opponent wins, for a variety of reasons. And Lord, I pray that you would guard your own reputation because they are going to think that their god is bigger than you if that happens. So I pray that you would step forward and honor your own name in all that happens between now and election day.
Never mind the fact that this is heresy in the Christian mythos (seeing that Christianity states there are no other Gods besides the Christian God), these people are praying to God to stop Obama because other religious groups will think themselves better than Christianity if Obama wins. This is another form of hate speech, and it was accepted and encouraged by the McCain campaign.
These incidents are worrying to Mrs. Green. The news article went on to say the following:
It also brings back bad memories. Green says her father James F. Green managed campaigns for Robert Kennedy and President John F. Kennedy in Nebraska in the 60's. He is pictured here with JFK.
When assasins killed the Kennedys, it shattered her family. Green says eight days after Robert Kennedy's death, her father dropped dead because of grief.
"The same bullet killed my father," Green said. "It was profoundly tragic for my family."
Green views Obama as a modern-day JFK and so she fears for Obama's safety.
"I think John McCain and Sarah Palin have no understanding of what we went through as a nation," Green said.
The article went on to mention that privately, the Obama campaign would prefer if Mrs. Green dropped her lawsuit. Green was quoted as saying:
"It will be dismissed as soon as I hear these public statements from these two candidates that they abhor these death threats and they will not tolerate these intruders in their audiences."
I hope that Mrs. Green's demands are met. Further, I would further state that John McCain and Sarah Palin should, publicly and on national television, apologize for these comments and for encouraging them through their words and actions. They should then reject and denounce the hate-speech of their supporters and demand that their supporters do not use this dialogue in campaign rallies again.
(Of course, this would have the effect of driving away the last of McCain's supporters, but I personally feel that personal honor and dignity is far more important than winning an election through hate and fear. Let's only hope the "old" John McCain returns... the one who, while he didn't believe in what he was saying, still spoke words against hate and lies so to look good.)
Robert A. Howard, Tangents Reviews