Sarah Palin’s attacks on Barack Obama’s patriotism provoked a spike in death threats against the future president, Secret Service agents revealed during the final weeks of the campaign.
The Republican vice presidential candidate attracted criticism for accusing Mr Obama of “palling around with terrorists”, citing his association with the sixties radical William Ayers.
The attacks provoked a near lynch mob atmosphere at her rallies, with supporters yelling “terrorist” and “kill him” until the McCain campaign ordered her to tone down the rhetoric. But it has now emerged that her demagogic tone may have unintentionally encouraged white supremacists to go even further. The Secret Service warned the Obama family in mid October that they had seen a dramatic increase in the number of threats against the Democratic candidate, coinciding with Mrs Palin’s attacks. Michelle Obama, the future First Lady, was so upset that she turned to her friend and campaign adviser Valerie Jarrett and said: “Why would they try to make people hate us?”
The revelations, contained in a Newsweek history of the campaign, are likely to further damage Mrs Palin’s credentials as a future presidential candidate. She is already a frontrunner, with Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal, to take on Mr Obama in four years time. Details of the spike in threats to Mr Obama come as a report last week by security and intelligence analysts Stratfor, warned that he is a high risk target for racist gunmen. It concluded: “Two plots to assassinate Obama were broken up during the campaign season, and several more remain under investigation. We would expect federal authorities to uncover many more plots to attack the president that have been hatched by white supremacist ideologues.” Irate John McCain aides, who blame Mrs Palin for losing the election, claim Mrs Palin took it upon herself to question Mr Obama’s patriotism, before the line of attack had been cleared by Mr McCain.
Is this just more piling on? It doesn’t sound right to me that the Secret Service would make a public statement like this.
Did the Secret Service release this info to the public or just tell the Obama family, and thus the campaign? I learned today that there was at least one national news correspondent “embedded” in the Obama campaign. The understanding was nothing could be reported by the correspondent until after the election. This is my theory of how this claim became public, because I doubt the Secret Service would ever public comment on anything like this.
Well it would be grounds for being fired but then the FBI does stuff like that all the time. They’ve lost in court and had to pay but so for nobody has been fired.
On the other hand the odds are good the claim is BS.
Even if they said it how do you check out what these people were actually thinking at the time the made the threat? The Feds can try to guess but they sure don’t know.
I rather suspect both sides were getting death threats. Most likely the threats spiked near the ends of the campaigns.
>The revelations, contained in a Newsweek history of the campaign, are likely to further damage Mrs Palin’s credentials as a future presidential candidate. She is already a frontrunner, with Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal, to take on Mr Obama in four years time.
2 Predictions:
1) As long as Palin is considered a future presidential candidate, we’ll hear this kind of stuff from the ‘totally unbiased media’; and
2) Bobby Jindal’s confidential records are now, or soon will be, rifled through by political operatives.
I agree with all the right-wing geniuses above.
How on earth could anybody think that calling “Hussein” Obama a friend of terrorists — eliciting cries of “kill him”! from the crowd — could *possibly* have anything to do with encouraging racist nutjobs to want to “kill him”?
Except for the few hours of the day when the TV was *not* hashing over Ayers and Wright, the media is so obviously liberal!
So far she’s the only potentially nationalist candidate to come out of this rigged election. I predict the the Republicrates and Demoncrats will speed alot of time eliminating her. If it doesn’t work then she’ll have a little accident back in Alaska or she’ll be investigated and found guilty of something, you know writing like the whole Yahoo e-mail thing, just something to get rid of a nationalist candidate, the Globalist/Commies aren’t going to let anyone stand in their way now, they’re too close to getting rid of us and our Constitution.
Traaxx
Here is the Telegraph news story.
#7 – Tracks
>>I predict the the Republicrates and
>>Demoncrats will speed alot of time
>>eliminating her.
If she is a viable candidate in ANYONE’S mind after the performances she put on, the terrorists have truly won.
If she doesn’t run, who’s her backup? Bozo the Clown?
The Newsweek article also claims she did much of this stuff without clearance from the campaign management staff. …McCain hates that shit…he didn’t want to run a smear campaign, he didn’t want to talk about Ayers, and Palin kept going in that direction anyway.
Maybe some former McCain staff want her to pay for failing to be a part of the team.
BOO!
Man, some people are scarred of Sarah Palin.
Mustard, so you’re considering running on the GOP ticket in 2012?
“# 12 GF said, on November 8th, 2008 at 6:41 pm
BOO!
Man, some people are scarred of Sarah Palin.”
Yeah – just like we’re scared of 6 year olds holding loaded firearms. Not because we lack courage, but we fear for those who know not what they know not. We had one of them as president for the past eight years, hopefully the Republican party will not hitch their fortunes to the Palin/Wurzelbacher ticket in 2012.
Or maybe the typo was intentional and you meant we were actually scarred by her, which I would admit that psychologically, it is very difficult to imagine Sarah Palin running anything larger than the city of Wasilla. So the prospect of her being that close to being president is quite scarring indeed.
Candid moments tell more about a person then ANY OTHER TIME…
I would rather a HUMAN BEING, to become president then a person with a false persona..
This is such BS. It was proven that no one shouted “kill him”. The Secret Service investigated this and found that it was a lie. This alone proves the story is BS.
Also, if there were threats to Obama because of his palling around with terrorists, they weren’t because Palin mentioned it, but because Obama did pall around with them. It is not Palin’s fault for MENTIONING it – it is Obama’s fault for DOING it. It is just like the liberals to blame someone else for telling the truth and not take responsability for their own actions.
#8 – QB – Here is the Telegraph news story.
Hopefully McCullough takes notice… 😀
[Why, it’s the same link I made in the first sentence of the post????]
For Palin fans:
http://tinyurl.com/5f9g5h
She will poll as a front runner for at least the next 2 years until the real canidates announce after the mid term elections. She is just the only game in town for now.
She would better serve herself by running for the Senate and spending some more time on the national stage instead of just hiding out in Juneau for the next 2 years.
Don
#7 Traxx:
How can you be a “nationalist” when you have no clue about what’s outside your national borders?
Wait… never mind… I guess that’s what *defines* a nationalist.
Ah nationalism… Has any concept brought more bloodshed and waste to human history?
#16 – Thermo
>>This is such BS. It was proven that no one
>>shouted “kill him”.
Uh huh. Riiiiiiiiiight.
From the October 6, 2008 Palin rally in Clearwater FL:
““Boooo!” the crowd repeated.
“Kill him!” proposed one man in the audience.
http://tinyurl.com/3trnmh
She’s heading towards problems in Alaska. She raised tariffs on oil companies and got a windfall. They are currently holding a surplus but oil prices have halved (less oil and gas revenue) and the state budget has increased by 31% (ironically, mostly from earmarks). Finally, high federal funding for Alaska (among the highest in the nation) will drop as the Federal budget gets hacked.
We’ll see how she really acts as an executive then.
Stick a fork in her. She’s done.
Maybe she can put together a ticket with Dan Quayle. The revival of the “Know-Nothing” party!
Hey, it fits with the current lack of education displayed by many posters in this forum.
The Secret Service has nothing to do with the timing of the release of this “news”. This story is a tiny part of a massive “living history” of the election campaign recorded in-person by embedded Newsweek reporters during the campaign and kept under embargo until the election was over. Newsweek released the reports as soon as they could – one day after the election. http://www.newsweek.com/id/167581
Other items in that ‘history’ included the hacking of computers at both campaigns, the $20K+ of clothes for Todd Palin above the previously-reported $150K for Sarah, & Sarah Palin meeting staff wearing just a towel.
#3: It appeaers that biased librul media is sooooo insidious they manage to make up stories about Sarah Palin that Sarah Palin herself verifies, like the $150,000 wardrobe shopping spre (turns out it was much more) and Sarah not knowing Africa is a continent. For the Africa one she complained about the staffers blabbing it to the librul media, not that it wasn’t true.
#24 – Crank
>>Sarah Palin meeting staff wearing
>>just a towel.
Whoa! I’d like to have been embedded for THAT briefing!!!
Palin never “sold” like the party hoped she would. Her lack of experience with big media, and with a national political campaign, were pretty obvious.
When the big TV interviews went badly, it took the wind out of her sails. No serious money would get behind her candidacy at this point.
Watch for her to get a nice contract with FOX News, though – she’s perfect for that venue.
Well, you can’t say you weren’t warned. That pesky first amendment is getting in the way again…even in a Presidential Campaign. The Democrats have an answer, it’s called the Fairness Doctrine. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fairness_Doctrine
#16-
Ah yes, Thermo, that’s right.
“Palled around with terrorists.”
As did Walter Annenberg, who appointed Ayers to the board, and thus, RONALD REAGAN APPOINTED A TERRORIST SYMPATHIZER TO BE AN AMBASSADOR.
#18 – Special Ed
LMAO
http://www.reuters.com/article/newsOne/idUSTRE4A71LQ20081108
#29
The Fairness Doctorine – Pure FUD. Ain’t gonna happen.
#16, Thermo,
This is such BS. It was proven that no one shouted “kill him”. The Secret Service investigated this and found that it was a lie. This alone proves the story is BS.
Keep the lie alive, that way the right wing nuts have something they can believe in.
Also, if there were threats to Obama because of his palling around with terrorists, they weren’t because Palin mentioned it, but because Obama did pall around with them.
Please name the terrorist Obama “palled” around with.
*
Yes, Palin’s speeches promoted hate and threats against Obama. If she has a future it will be with the “Where are they now” histories.