Obama, Arab Family Man

The tenor of John McCain's campaign continues to fuel hate:

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 Republican crowd expressed dismay at their nominee. Others yelled "liar," and "terrorist," referring to 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. 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]."

As I've recently written, the tone at these rallies of late can be directly attributed to the rhetoric of McCain and Sarah Palin; let's face it, when you repeatedly make the accusation that your opponent "pals around" with terrorists in a post-9/11 world people don't think former 60's radicals they think Al Qaeda, something McCain is well aware of. And when your opponent is a black man with a nontraditional, African name you shouldn't be surprised when your attempts to paint him as less than American cause your conservative supporters to get caught up in an atmosphere of ideological, jingoistic blood lust. Props to McCain for defending Obama and finally attempting to arrest this ugliness but his response to this woman's comments still begs the obvious question: does John McCain truly believe that being an Arab means that one can not be a decent family man and citizen?