The GOP ticket is inciting supporters to violence against Barack Obama

by Keith Olbermann

And this is where the satire ends and the Special Comment begins. Because this is not even remotely funny.

1:25 p.m. Eastern Time, today, in Scranton, Pennsylvania. During the warm-up act by a red meat Congressional candidate aptly named Chris Hackett, Hackett mentions Obama and a Palin audience member shouts, "Kill Him."

And Gov. Palin, as usual, does nothing about it; says nothing to these thugs and psychos. She may not have heard this one. It is impossible to believe that by now she has not heard about the other ones. Her silence is deafening. Just as, Senator McCain, you have done nothing when violence has been asserted. Correction.  You have done one thing.

Asked why, in real time, you do not repudiate this hatefulness, you act as if you are the victim. Speaking today to our NBC Station in Washington:

Disgraceful?

Obviously, Senator, you haven't heard your own speeches, and Gov. Palin's, and what people shout during them. And you haven't heard your state GOP Chair in Virginia, Jeffrey Frederick, giving talking points to 30 of your field-operatives heading out to canvass voters in Gainesville, Virginia, with a reporter present, telling them to try to forge a connection between Barack Obama and Osama bin Laden to emphasize bombings and terrorism. And you haven't heard those volunteers, your volunteers Sen. McCain, shout back, "And he won't salute the flag" and "We don't even know where Sen. Obama was really born."

Sen. McCain, these people are speaking for you! And how dare you try to claim Congressman Lewis was linking you to Gov. George Wallace's segregation? He was linking you, aptly, to Gov. George Wallace's lynch-mob mentality.

"As public figures with the power to influence and persuade," said Congressman Lewis, "Sen. McCain and Gov. Palin are playing with fire, and if they are not careful, that fire will consume us all."

Sen. McCain, your supporters, at your events, are calling Obama a terrorist and traitor and are calling for him to be killed. And yet you keep bringing back these same rabid Right Wing nuts to deliberately stir these crowds into frenzies. And then you take offense when somebody who remembers the violence in our political past, calls you on it.  You, sir, are responsible for a phalanx of individuals who are shouting fire in a crowded theater.

There are some things to respect and honor about you, Sen. McCain, but on this you're not only a fraud, Senator, but you are tacitly inciting lunatics to violence. If you want to again grand-stand and suspend your campaign here's your big chance. Suspend your campaign now, until you, or somebody else, gets some control over it and it ceases to be a clear and present danger to the peace of this nation.