Palin and her pals

I got another viral e-mail about Barak Obama last night and although it doubtless will affect my social standing in the community I told off the person who forwarded it to me for being a gullible and detestable bigot. I simply can't stand it any more. The text, pretending to be from someone genuinely concerned that Obama was being financed since childhood by Islamic terrorists, raised questions about how he took a trip overseas, attended Columbia and Harvard with only the financial resources appropriate to a black person. Of course no mention was made of the scholarships appropriate to a black person who is a brilliant student or the student loans he had to take out.

No one ever owns up to writing this crap. Rarely is it mentioned that interfering with the democratic process through slander and libel and character assassination is remarkably similar to an act of physical terrorism. We're not likely to see a headline proclaiming that Sarah Palin is an enemy of America - but she is.

Of course, now that McCain has let her loose to hose down the opposition with slime, we don't have to look hard for the smelliest source of this contagion. Even Jiving John McCain would balk at calling Obama a terrorist, but Palin won't. We've seen how lies spring to her smiling painted lips - ya betcha - and how for her, reality is whatever lie suits her purpose and her purpose is to set the stage for the destruction of the world and to make some money in the process.

I wish it were possible to tell Sarah Palin that she is an enemy of freedom and democracy and most of all an enemy of truth, justice and everything else I hold dear as an American.Prideful peity notwithstanding, bearing false witness is the core of her pathetic campaign. As you know she's been touring the backwoods looking for closet bigots who are dishonest enough with themselves to believe that Barak Obama has been palling around "with terrorists who targeted their own country. " She finds no lack of racists too smugly lazy to bother to look for the truth.

Indeed most of the mainstream media including those normally biased in favor of Republicans regularly refute the barrage of lies being told by Palin and the McCain campaign, but most of his supporters cherish the slime too much to let go of it. Without it they'd have to admit they hate him because he's black and successful and smarter than they are and they hate him for it.

Of course the violent anti-war actions of Bernardine Dohrn and Bill Ayers occurred when Obama was 8 years old and living thousands of miles away, and the "palling around" he's accused of consists of living in the same neighborhood and serving on the board of the same charitable foundation raising money for Chicago schools.

The fact that so many people hold on to these transparent attacks and diversions makes me more ashamed to be an American than I have been in many years. Being confronted with the immense implacable power of evil, of lies, of racism, of snobbery; being confronted with a major political party whose campaigns are based mostly on these things is rapidly eroding any vestigial affection I may have had for this miserable collection of stupid, ignorant and vile citizens called the USA, and I soon may begin to hope for some rude and malicious god to destroy it all as long as Palin and the Republicans are the first to burn.