AMDG

BARRACUDAS

The barracuda is a small shark known for its fearsome appearance found in only some regions of the world. They are elongated creatures with large powerful mouths and strong, cutting teeth. They are voracious predators and hunt using a strategy of “lie-in-wait and ambush” The larger adult barracudas are more or less solitary in their habits and often do not stick around to care for their young. The only difference between barracudas and “hockey moms” is lipstick.

This rather strained definition of “barracudas” is loosely paraphrased from Wikipedia, the internet bible for surfers. It is also the self-proclaimed “aka” of Governor Sarah Palin, the Republican candidate for Vice President. This is the candidate who potentially sits only a ventricular hearbeat away from the Presidency. For a long time she only roamed the environs of a region once called “Seward’s Folly”. But recently, she was given a passport to the mainland and empowered by John McCain, who lost his judgment along with his campaign for the Presidency in 2000.

Of course, she has been the butt of the humor of every comedian in the media with the possibe exceptions of Dennis Miller and Sean Hannity. And what liberal did not double over with laughter at the satirical lifelike imitation of her by the clever, talented comedy actress and writer, Tina Fey.

The problem with all of this fun and laughter is that barracudas are not funny. They are dangerous creatures. So is Sarah Palin. Her recent vicious, calumnous attacks on Barack Obama are designed to rile up the the paranoid base of the Republican Party. The Washington Post and other media have reported the random utterances from her audience like “treason” and “kill him” that leaked into the TV audio receivers. It has also been reported that the Secret Service has seen fit to investigate the origins of these threats. The same kind of threatening audience responses were also overheard at a McCain rally, apparently startling even the Senator. Perhaps it is one of the reasons that McCain didn’t have the courage to face his rival with these ad hominem attacks during their second debate in Tennessee. Listen for the “kill him” in this video :http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yIxRKjcbbBY

Scary stuff!!

What is even more “scary” is the very large number of American citizens that are attracted to Palin events and agree with her characterization of Obama as a dangerous terrorist. Then you begin to wonder how many potential assassins may arm themselves and lie in wait somewhere for the candidate from Illinois. This is a dangerous time in this country. Fear is the prominent emotion in the nation right now. After 911, it was the fear of terrorist attacks. I have a personal first hand sense memory of the fear engendered by that event. Now it is fear of a complete breakdown of our economic system and maybe even a Depression. Echoes of “Buddy Can You Spare a Dime” haunt our psyches. Americans don’t do well when they are afraid. They are not use to it like the Israeli’s and the Iraqi’s.

Now this kind of fear mongering and smear campaigning is not new to political campaigns in this country, even in Presidential contests. Huey Long made an art out of it in Louisiana. Few people today can recall the Richard Nixon smear campaign against Helen Gahagan Douglas, in which he accused her of being a Communist sympathizer. And who can forget that cute little girl picking daisies, who was destined to be nuked by Barry Goldwater in 1964. This was a Democratic smear job. More recently, there was the George H. W. Bush ad accusing Michael Dukakis of releasing African-American rapists from prison to strike again in the famous “Willy Horton” ad. But this is different. The climate of the nation is Post 911 and the target of the smears is an African-American male.

Now, imagine, if you will, a scenario that is not all that improbable, i.e. one of those volatile angrophiles successfully puts a bullet into the first serious African-American candidate for the Presidency in US history. The Secret Service are highly competent, well trained POTUS guardians but you can’t protect threatened political figures all the time in an open country like ours. Think of the addle-brained assassins who managed to get to JFK, RFK, MLK, Gerald Ford, George Wallace and Ronald Reagan, to name a few. If you think that this country is unsettled and chaotic by this economic tsunami, try to imagine what the aftermath of the assassination of this charismatic figure would look like.

John McCain appeared in the second debate as if he wanted nothing to do with this character assassination of his rival but he cannot wash his hands and walk away from his ultimate responsibility for all of this. Why isn’t the rational wing of the Conservative and Republican Party speaking out against this. Where is Richard Lugar, Colin Powell, Olympia Snow, Arnold Schwarzenegger and their like in all of this. Does anyone have the courage to speak out? It doesn’t take much courage in this country. It just takes integrity.

JVP