Foreign Press Rejects McCain Campaign's Racism and Bigotry

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October 14 2008

McCain in crisis: Foreign media reject campaign's ugly tactics

Flash back to September 2001: A day after the terrorist attacks on the United States, France's sober, left-of-center daily, Le Monde, famously declared in an editorial, expressing its shock at what had just taken place and the world's sense of solidarity with the American people at a time of inestimable loss, panic and alarm: "In this tragic moment, when words seem so inadequate to express the shock people feel, the first thing that comes to mind is this: We are all Americans!" (English translation in World Press)

Fumbling and inconsistent, U.S. Republican presidential candidate John McCain has turned his campaign into what some foreign media have noticed has become a "smear machine" against his opponent instead of a debate about urgent, timely issues

In its editorial, headlined "Dangerous America," Le Monde expresses special concern about the ugly race-baiting that has characterized the campaign of Senator John McCain, the fumbling Bush clone who has become the Republicans' presidential candidate, and his sidekick, Alaska Governor Sarah Palin.

Noting that Democratic candidate Barack Obama has presented himself as "the candidate of a generation and of a new era that are in tune with the globalization trend that is coursing through, shaking up and energizing America just as it is the rest of the world," the newspaper observes that Obama, a senator from Illinois, wants to "get past the divisions that American society has inherited from the era of slavery...and from the segregation that persisted until the 1960s." "The bad news," however, Le Monde adds, "is that, for the Republicans, who have been disarmed by Bush's unpopularity and by economic stagnation, the color of Obama's skin has become the only argument they've been able to present in opposition to the Democrat's candidacy. They're attacking him not only because he is black but also because his father was Kenyan, because he had lived in Indonesia, and because his middle name, inherited from his paternal grandmother, is 'Hussein.'" By contrast, the French daily points out, so far the Republicans have "spoken little" about Obama's proposals in such areas as energy or finance. Instead, they are "tolerating and often encouraging racist slander, xenophobic hate and venomous rumors" of the kind that feed the "bigoted and 'suprematist' extreme right." If McCain should win the contest for the presidency "in such conditions," Le Monde cautions, "violence will threaten America."

Canada's Globe and Mail notes in an editorial today: "Mean or desperate. It is difficult to find any other adjectives to describe...McCain's decision to turn much of his campaign into a smear machine...More important is what the McCain campaign's late-game turn toward the outright demonization of a genuinely popular and thoughtful opponent could mean for the Republican Party and the United States as a whole... McCain]should also consider the role of angry mobs at McCain-Palin rallies, particularly those angry at black men, in America's tortured political history. In continuing his current tactics,...McCain risks creating an enraged constituency of hard-core Obama opponents, convinced that their co-nationals are in the process of handing the keys to the White House over to a dangerous 'other.'...McCain is opening Pandora's box. For the sake of his country, he should close it tightly and fight out the remainder of the campaign on policy."


more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/sfgate/detail?blogid=15&entry_id=31500

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