When Mudslinging becomes Hate Speech

Here is the frightening truth of what mudslinging from the right can mean: it might be more than just words.

I've blogged before about the impact of hate speech on TV, radio, and in books written by TV personalities such as Rush Limbaugh, Bill O'Reilly, Sean Hannity, and Ann Coulter. These people speak about murder, rape, and other violent acts as hyperbole--as a means of expressing the size of their outrage.

Besides being crass, crude, and inappropriate for anyone on TV (the same TV that fears Janet Jackson's nipple), these statements are dangerous if we are to see even the slightest truth in them. When one talks about wanting to drag someone into the street and having them shot, isn't the impression that you actually do wish bodily harm on that person? Even if you aren't making a suggestion to anybody in particular, aren't you at the very least suggesting that "it would be nice if it happened"?

Now, I'm a fan of Keith Olbermann's special comments, and this one from Monday night was excellent:



Olbermann describes Gov. Sarah Palin, not just as someone living in a glass house, but pointing out that her own criteria for damning Sen. Barack Obama as a terrorist actually makes her one. In fact, it makes her more of one.

Olbermann further goes after the very fabric of her mudslinging. I almost wish that he had waited and read this article by Jeffrey Feldman about what Gov. Palin appears to actually being saying: that she wants a United States Senator to be brought up on treason and terrorism charges or that a civilian mob should kill him. Take your pick.

The truth is that there is really only one avenue for the way the McCain/Palin campaign is going. The nature of the rhetoric, the very substance of their attacks is to charge Obama as a dangerous enemy. The strategy appears to imply that they think that they can get on a transcontinental train, get off at some spot in the middle of the country and that the train won't keep going--and that they aren't responsible for its travel. Or, like the movie Speed, they've strapped a (figurative) bomb to a bus, set the trip at 45 mph and let someone else get in the driver's seat.

The violent rhetoric spoken with both a visceral and (attempted) authentic disdain for Obama and then later with a wink, a smile, and "You betcha", seem to be heard as marching orders. The recent shouts at rallies of "treason", "terrorist", and "kill him" are the obvious and natural outgrowth of the nasty, hate-filled stump speeches by McCain and Palin.

So what does this mean? What are we going to do about hate-speech masquerading as campaigning? What are we going to do that will prevent a future examination of the present that doesn't say "Didn't they see it? What's wrong with those people?" What are we going to do to prevent such terrible violence from becoming a reality?