Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

We continue this series with the next subject matter Sen. John McCain Interview: Public sentiment:

STAR: Can you talk a little bit about inflamed rhetoric that sort of rose out of the health-care debate and continued? I think it's dying down a little bit. But it was really people calling each other baby killers and ugly names and (inaudible) Democrats, crosshairs. [Sarah Palin reference]

McCAIN: Well, I think it came from extremes on both sides. And there may be some disagreement. But I saw a lot of inflammatory things said and done about President Bush, murderer, war criminal. The CODEPINK people living outside his ranch.

During the 2008 campaign, Congressman John Lewis, a guy who I admired all of my adult life, that I wrote a chapter in one of my books about, issued a statement saying that my campaign was so racist that it reminded him of the Birmingham church bombing where three children were killed. I thought that was kind of inflammatory, to tell you the truth. Actually I thought it was worse than inflammatory.

So we saw a lot of this back and forth. So all of us regret it. All of us tried to tell people, as I did at the town hall meeting about President Obama during the campaign, as you recall.

At the same time perhaps with not total objectivity, I believe that the liberal media as a specialty is not reporting both sides of the story. I mean, I have CODEPINK people that jumped out in front of our car, that call me a murderer and a baby killer all the time. It's just their standard yelling and screaming. But whenever I'm on a Sunday talk show, they are usually out there and yell and scream that I'm a killer and a murderer.

STAR: In conjunction with what?

McCAIN: The war in Iraq, the war in Afghanistan.

The question was about the current political environment – McCain dodges the editor's direct reference to Sarah Palin's web site putting "targeted" Democratic members of Congress in gunsight "crosshairs." He didn't want to answer this question. So McCain says what every immature five year old boy says: "they did it too!" Apparently McCain has a jones on for CODEPINK. They are hardly representative of public opinion on the left. Hell, I think they are annoying and counterproductive.

You can read Rep. John Lewis' statement here (something the Daily Star should have linked) Rep. John Lewis Responds to Increasing Hostility of McCain-Palin Campaign (10/11/2008). The McCain-Palin Campaign rebuked Rep. Lewis and called upon Barack Obama to rebuke the Congressman. John Lewis Warns McCain: You're "Sowing The Seeds Of Hatred And Division" The Obama Campaign responded:

Senator 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 Senator Obama will continue to run in the weeks ahead.

Let's not forget that the racist images seen at HCRA Town Halls and Tea Parties over the past year first appeared during the McCain-Palin campaign, as Frank Rich detailed in The Terrorist Barack Hussein Obama – NYTimes.com:

At McCain-Palin rallies, the raucous and insistent cries of “Treason!” and “Terrorist!” and “Kill him!” and “Off with his head!” as well as the uninhibited slinging of racial epithets, are actually something new in a campaign that has seen almost every conceivable twist. They are alarms. Doing nothing is not an option.

* * *

What makes them different, and what has pumped up the Weimar-like rage at McCain-Palin rallies, is the violent escalation in rhetoric, especially (though not exclusively) by Palin. Obama “launched his political career in the living room of a domestic terrorist.” He is “palling around with terrorists” (note the plural noun). Obama is “not a man who sees America the way you and I see America.” Wielding a wildly out-of-context Obama quote, Palin slurs him as an enemy of American troops.

By the time McCain asks the crowd “Who is the real Barack Obama?” it’s no surprise that someone cries out “Terrorist!” The rhetorical conflation of Obama with terrorism is complete.

McCain takes no personal responsibility for this. Instead, he trots out the conservative bogeyman of the "librul media" several times during the interview – I'm surprised he didn't use Sarah Palin's line about the "lamestream media" (now that's really lame).

The McMedia are John McCain's "base." The media is only as liberal as the people who own it, and in this country the vast majority of media is owned by political conservatives. Including the major print publications in Arizona.