G. Frink's

Named by John McCain as one of the three wise men from whom he would welcome advice if he were president, Civil Rights Movement veteran and Georgia congressman John Lewis warned Saturday that John McCain and Sarah Palin are stoking the fires of hate.

In a statement alluding to angry crowds at McCain-Palin rallies last week where shouts of "off with his head" and other imprecations were directed at Senator Barack Obama, Lewis said:

As one who was a victim of violence and hate during the height of the Civil Rights Movement, I am deeply disturbed by the negative tone of the McCain-Palin campaign. What I am seeing reminds me too much of another destructive period in American history. Sen. McCain and Gov. Palin are sowing the seeds of hatred and division, and there is no need for this hostility in our political discourse.

Lewis used the example of the late Alabama Governor George Wallace to illustrate his concerns and, referring to the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing, said:

As public figures with the power to influence and persuade, Sen. McCain and Gov. Palin are playing with fire, and if they are not careful, that fire will consume us all. They are playing a very dangerous game that disregards the value of the political process and cheapens our entire democracy. We can do better. The American people deserve better.

McCain, who has made an effort to turn down the heat but whose running mate has continued without pause to inspire extreme behavior, was unrepentant in response:

I call on Senator Obama to immediately and personally repudiate these outrageous and divisive comments that are so clearly designed to shut down debate 24 days before the election. Our country must return to the important debate about the path forward for America.

Kathleen Hall Jamieson, director of the Annenberg Public Policy Center at the University of Pennsylvania and author of 15 books on politics, explained to the Boston Globe that the vitriol is being encouraged by inflammatory McCain campaign rhetoric in ads and from the stage:

Red-meat rhetoric elicits emotional responses in those already disposed by ads using words such as "dangerous," "dishonorable" and "risky" to believe that the country would be endangered by election of the opposing candidate.

Obama spokesman Bill Burton addressed the issue less bluntly in his response to Lewis:

Sen. Obama does not believe that John McCain or his policy criticism is in any way comparable to George Wallace or his segregationist policies.
But John Lewis was right to condemn some of the hateful rhetoric that John McCain himself personally rebuked just last night, as well as the baseless and profoundly irresponsible charges from his own running mate that the Democratic nominee for president of the United States "pals around with terrorists."
As Barack Obama has said himself, the last thing we need from either party is the kind of angry, divisive rhetoric that tears us apart at a time of crisis when we desperately need to come together. That is the kind of campaign Sen. Obama will continue to run in the weeks ahead.

With the McCain campaign failing to take a clear, united stand against the extreme rhetoric and some frustrated party leaders arguing for further attacks, the fire against which Lewis warned may in fact grow hotter and more dangerous.

              

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