Forget the media; I imagine a phonecall from the Secret Service did the trick.

lampwick beat me to it, so what-lampwick-said.

(Beaten by previous poster!)

Is it not also possible that the Secret Service "suggested" that the rhetoric be toned down?

I thought the same, either that are some prominent republicans called him privately to tell him to stop. But then I realized it was crazy to think there were republicans out their decent enough to do that and figured it was the secret service.

I love the exchange, "He's a, he's an Arab."
"No, Ma'am. No, Ma'am. He's a decent family man."
Yeah, that's right. Let's stop focusing on hating Obama and get back to hating those Arabs.
Keep polishing that turd, McCain!

My impression is that, not being a complete doofus, McCain knows his chances of winning this election are now firmly lodged between slim and none. That leaves, "What's next?" If the Palin/McCain ticket were to ride this rhetoric all the way to Nov, the answer would be, NOTHING.

His choices are to walk away from the election, having given it his best shot, or crawl away in utter disgrace.

I think McCain decided it himself, probably as a first step to capitulation. Time will tell.

Put yourself in the position of one of these authoritrian followers. Your leader is telling you Obama is a terrorist sympathizer with woefully poor judgment and he's driven by nothing but ambition. Now he tells you Obama is a decent man, a family man, and you have nothing to fear if he becomes President. It seems to me you have two choices. Either be pissed that he was selling you this line of crap for so long, or be pissed because that he suddenly is no longer willing to face the danger head on. Expect these boneheads to start looking for other reasons to distrust McCain.

He was in Minnesota. Let's see him say the same things in FL, AZ, or TX.

The anger and hatred from the Republican base is religious zealotry. They proudly proclaim, "There is no belief but Conservatism and Ronald Reagan is its prophet" with the same fervor that Muslims declare "There is no God but Allah and Mohammed is his prophet."

Democrats aren't just political opponents, they're infidels. Liberals aren't just people who disagree, they're blasphemers. And Republicans who endorse Obama aren't just traitors, they're heretics.

McCain has never drunk the Republican Koolaide, but he was willing to pretend he had. Now that he's backing away from the rhetoric of the One True Church of Conservatism, expect another backlash against him.

The thing about religious zealots, is once they are roused they can turn to violence.

Yesterday afternoon over 1000 people gathered in the streets of Pittsburgh to protest the fact that Sarah Palin was coming to a downtown hotel for a $1000 plate fund-raiser. It was pretty clear her handlers didn't anticipate the protest because they pulled the "Straight Talk Express" right in front of a 1000 booing people-- as well as 6 people dressed up as polar bears.

It was remarkable. This is Pittsburgh(!) and it was 4 in the afternoon on a Friday. This kind of thing doesn't happen in Pittsburgh. There is change in the air...

I say give McCain credit for feeling at least uncomfortable with the hateful reactions. McCain is a bully and that leads him to say and do some incredibly stupid things, but it got too ugly for him. He saw a reflection in those faces and didn't like what he saw. He did something he hasn't done enough of when he defended Obama, he showed personal courage. But make no mistake about it, his poor judgment and temperment got him in that situation in the first place.

McCain's mistake was burning his bridges with his media groupies before he started to slime Obama. McCain and Palin insisted on repeating trivial lies, and then they rubbed the media's nose in it. Now he's lost any good will he had, and is going down in flames.

Palin's speaking now and said, I kid you not, "John McCain will stop the abuses of power in Washington and Wall Street..."

Stop it, Girl! You're fucking killin' me.

Please. Even as McCain made these public statements, he began running the most irresponsible, dishonest TV ads yet.

The man is running the most dishonest campaign in modern history--a demagogic campaign for the ages. (In 1999 and 2000, the lies about Gore mainly came from the press corps. The Bush campaign played a very minor role.) I have no idea why it's so hard to say this--why we have to ask if a few public statements somehow balance the scale. (Obviously, McCain couldn't stand there saying nothing while a woman, roughly three feet away, was calling Obama an "Arab.")

I think it's also the looming debate. He REALLY doesn't want to confront Obama in person, and he's been called on for not doing so, so he's trying to cram the genie back in the bottle, fast.

"Soon after, a woman said she's 'read about' Obama and concluded that he's 'an Arab'.
"McCain took the microphone from her and said, 'No, Ma'am. No, Ma'am. He's a decent family man, citizen, that I just happen to have disagreements with on fundamental issues.'"

Is McCain saying that Arabs CAN'T be decent family men, citizens, or be someone that he just happens to disagree with?

Not buying what he's selling. At this incredibly late stage of the game, he's "correcting" with a hypocrite's facility, a wink and a nod.

AI also noticed that he changed the subject from scary Arab to nice family man, thereby leaving both assumptions - one explicit - scary Arab- and one implied - Obama is a terrorist - on the table. This isn't making nice. It's playing stealth dirtball.

It's fomenting a civil war.

It's domestic terrorism with words as IEDs at the moment.

It's neocon Republican.

It needs to be stopped and the participants charged with inciting a riot.

I like to think it wasn't just the Secret Service call...I have a feeling McCain and his people got a LOT of calls, from some influential constituents, telling them to walk it back.

Sweet.

His campaign had just released inflammatory comments before McCain's epiphany. There' no doubt in my mind his campaign had a visit from Secret Service, and McCain had no choice in the matter but to throw some cold water on his rabble. He didn't look happy or sincere about it. He looked like "oh shit!"

Somerby's right. Hold the musing over whether McCain's words yesterday were a sign of a newly discovered decency. His back was against the wall yesterday and he did what he had to.

The McCain ads about Ayers and Obama's "otherness" stay up, the 527s continue to spew the smears, Palin continues to whip the crowds into xenophobic ecstasy. In a day or two McCain'll be right back at it.

Well, that was the John McCain I voted for in the 2000 California primary. Haven't seen him for awhile. We probably won't see him again. It'd be nice if McCain could lose this election with dignity and class instead of rolling in the mud with the bigots and xenophobes.

Since when is it appropriate to refute a charge that someone is an Arab with the rejoinder that he is "a decent family man", as if the two were mutually exclusive?
I guess the MSM is a little more insensitive to slurs against Arabs.

I suspect it was a combination of things: That it hasn't been working; that the press has been very critical; that the Secret Service got pissed (this I assume was the point they were making when they announced an investigation of the threats heard on tape); that even some Republicans had started criticizing it (e.g., Congressman LaHood).

One thing that came to my mind was, where was Joe Lieberman in all this? Jews are very sensitive to this kind of lynch mob atmosphere (look up Leo Frank). It reminds us of pogroms. And I for one couldn't help noting, on top of the racism and xenophobia, McCain's attack on Barney Frank and Chris Dodd. To me Dodd felt like an attempt at camouflage -- the target was clearly Congressman Frank, who is a two-fer for the pitchfork brigade.

So I would not be surprised if Lieberman had registered some concern with his friend over this rhetoric.

What danp said.

If I were one of those fired-up RW true believers, what I would find truly intolerable is McCain's saying that we have nothing to fear from an Obama presidency. Nothing to fear from a socialist, a traitor, a terrorist, a fake American, a secret agent of the Islamic push for world conquest? That goes beyond flip-flopping, that's apostasy, and it's a flat-out contradiction of those fearmongering ads.

McCain has two choices now: continue to fire up the base, or reach out to swing voters. Neither is effective anymore.

All the Republicans have left, I think, is to go straight for the election, either by massive vote suppression or by declaring martial law. I hope to God that neither of these will happen.

And I'm not as conciliatory as McCain: I believe we have plenty to fear from a McCain or Palin presidency.

Honorable actions by McCain only IF he discontinues the related innuendo ads AND the related attacks by Palin and the surrogates are discontinued. Otherwise, it's a disingenuous stunt calculated for political effect.

Meanwhile, as both Josh Marshall and "Anonymous Liberal" have reported, the McCain Campaign -- which, remember, John McCain does not necessarily speak for -- has broadened the Ayers attack to include Michelle.

On what grounds? "Bernardine Dohrn, Ayers' wife and fellow former Weatherman, went to work in 1984 for the major Chicago-based national law firm of Sidley & Austin, and three years later, Michelle joined the mega-firm as well."

And, as "The Weatherman bombed my father" Murtagh said, they might have known each other. (No argument that they did, just that they might have.)

To quote the piece:
"If it is true" that the two women knew each other, Murtagh said, "the relationship is almost a decade older than Senator Obama has acknowledged. And that can very easily be resolved by Senator Obama, by Mrs. Obama, by Mr. Ayers and by Ms. Dohrn."

"And incidentally, I would emphasize that we've all been focusing on Senator Obama," said Murtagh. "I think we need to speak to his wife."

Sometimes I wonder if I ever woke up from the anesthesia I had during a foot operation in 2002 -- but my wife insists even my warped subconscious couldn't invent Sarah Palin.

(I'm linking to the Anonymous Liberal piece because he points out a few other 'possible terrorists.')

http://www.anonymousliberal.com/2008/10/were-all-terrorists-now.html

Looks like the Jerry Springer of politics.

I think that (a) the McCain campaign's internal polling was showing signs of significant and perhaps severe public blowback for the unhinged nature of the week's public comments and events, abd (b) John McCain himself got a good old-fashioned "talking to" in private by several high-ranking Republicans for whom he has respect, who probably demanded in no uncertain terms that he dial things back.

After all, GOP consultant Michelle Laxalt had already offered some pretty scathing public remarks about the McCain campaign on Larry King the other night, noting that they "should be ashamed of themselves" for allowing Sarah Palin to bait and incite the mob. And there's good reason to believe that was only the tip of the iceberg of "friendly" criticism McCain has received.

I think his wife was getting a bit scared backing him up at the angry mob scenes and told him she was too afraid to go to any more, ha.

"So I would not be surprised if Lieberman had registered some concern with his friend over this rhetoric."

Me either -- I'd be flat-out shocked, and I'll predict that this kind of bare-ass speculation is is close as anyone will ever come to demonstrating Lieberman's "concern".

Why would he care? It's. not. aimed. at. Joe.

Complaints that McCain should have defended Arabs in general miss the point. He had to say something quick, direct, and helpful.

Saying Obama is a decent man goes directly to the perception in that ladies mind. (And saying "Arabs are good people too" would still leave the smear in the mind too.)

Keeping the 'once a terrorist always a terrorist and if you meet one more than once you are a terrorist, too' theme in the national McCain TV ads and cooling it at the rallies is just keeping the loony haters off of the local news. That hate rally stuff worries the people who invest/contribute in the down ticket races. George Will is a good indicator of the thinking of Republican big money and he had a scathing critique of the hate rallies on Thursday. I think St. John of Hanoi got some calls that night.

On Friday, John McCain got a little taste of "street justice." He discovered how it feels to be trapped in a burning building---with no way out, and no hope of surviving the flames---as the arsonist who set the fire in the first place.

He has now discovered that by bringing a religious zealot onto the ticket---so as to lock in the RR vote---he has surrounded himself with zealotry of a most dangerous sort; a zealotry that can only be compared to the ultra-fundamentalist evil that, for some amongst the neocon subset of humanity, is known as "Islamofascism."

He has sold his political aspirations, his honor, and his very soul to a devil---and that devil is from Alaska.

He has participated---perhaps grudgingly, perhaps willingly, but participated nonetheless---in the transformation of his select followers into a political version of Ubermenschen, with those unwilling to follow the glorious banner of his campaign relegated to the caste of Untermenschen.

And if we look back through the historical documentations of every dictatorship, both political and religious, we find that this ideological nonsense has, more often than not (with very, very few of the instances being "not") led to war.

War---with guns, and bullets, and bombs, and carnage unleashed each time to a more heinous degree than the time-in-history before, because it is fed by the fires of fanaticism.

And we've now seen this fanaticism brought into our homes and businesses and lives.

Such a specter brought to the shores of this Republic has now cost McCain his opportunity to right the ship of his campaign and leave the field in honor. All that remains now is to witness how badly he will be beaten, and whether the fires of his fanaticism can be extinguished before they lead to the now-very-real possibility of civil disobedience, violent insurrection, and a Second Civil War....

If only your title for this piece would be the HEADLINE and "Breaking News" flyer we'd see all over the MSM...but, that will NOT be the spin...it will be the "return of the honorable McShame"...MY GOD, and we wonder WHY we're so fu**ed up...

McCain just threw in the towel - what else does he have?

Perhaps when the Secret Service announced they were going to investigate those heard shouting the threats from the McCain/Palin crowd, McCain realized that it would be discovered that either these people were planted by his campaign with his knowledge and approval, or his campaign staffers were themselves in the crowd whipping up the frenzy of the locals with his approval.

An investigation could show, with evidence and without doubt, that this did not happen as a natural course of events.

It could be. Perhaps.

I think McCain had two major reasons for backing down. First and foremost, the tactic of firing up the hate wasn't working. It was driving poll numbers down. Second, seeing that the tactic wasn't working, he decided to salvage whatever little integrity and honor he had left before his reputation was completely shot to hell.

We'll see how sincere his turnaround was if he pulls the plug on Palin's rants and stops running all his nasty commercials. Hard to do since ugly is all they have left. Rovian politics has, at last, shown its true face. All the McCain-Palin crowds need now are white sheets.

McCain just realized what kind of genie he released from the bottle - and he can't get it back in.

I know exactly why he did it. With the crowds shouting garbage, he could claim he didn't hear any of that. But these people were right in front of him. ON CAMERA. IN FRAME. He finally couldn't avoid it.

I'd love to think his long-dormant sense of decency finally won out, but it's far too little, too late. I'd love to think he finally realized people are literally terrified of Obama as his ads have painted him and how over the top it's all become. But it's not enough.

If he's serious about it, he'd pull all the Ayers ads and get his little Caribou Barbie doll to stop saying things like "he doesn't see our country the way WE do."

I won't hold my breath.

Even if McCain IS pulling back, can he rein in Palin?

Pat Buchanan is STILL railing about Wright/Rezko/Ayers and Palin's saying Barack supports *unlimited abortions*?? So McCain tones it down (which seemed to me to be his most sincere moment yet) but his surrogates continue the crucifixion?

This really smacks of the shitstorm they brought down on John Lennon. They assassinated his character, loathed his wife, and slammed him down with the entire wrath of our government's dark side.

What they're doing, in spite of what they're saying, is inciting unspeakable acts of terror.

Expose these hideous thugs!

I'd say the latter too. Obama's unfavorables (see graph) have remained stable for the last 3 weeks, while McCain's (see graph) have gone up.

The incomparable Bob Somerby wrote: "Obviously, McCain couldn't stand there saying nothing while a woman, roughly three feet away, was calling Obama an Arab."

I watched the clip. When the woman says that Obama is an "Arab" and McCain shakes his head, the thought that I see going through McCain's mind is, "Oh shit, that's going to look REALLY bad on TV."

As others have pointed out, while McCain is saying that there is nothing to fear from an Obama presidency, the McCain campaign is running an attack ad entitled "DANGEROUS" and trotting out spokespeople to insinuate that not only Barack Obama but Michelle Obama is a terrorist sympathizer, if not an actual terrorist.

I will say this about McCain:

Part of what I see in McCain's reactions -- his speaking tone, facial expressions and body language -- in the video clips is that he, himself, is disturbed by Sarah Palin's followers who are now dominating the audience at Palin-McCain campaign rallies.

McCain gave up on his preferred running mates, Lieberman or Ridge, and cynically went along with the Rove gang's selection of Sarah Palin to appeal to the right-wing extremist, dittohead cult of hatred that is her "base". And he went along with the campaign of fear-and-hate-mongering character assassination against Obama that was crafted to get Palin's base "energized".

And now he is seeing, close up and personal, just exactly what he has unleashed. And McCain is a little frightened by it. That's part of what I see in McCain in these clips: fear of that crowd. McCain may be a cynical, manipulative, dishonest, ambitious politician, but he's experiencing a normal human reaction to a hateful, menacing mob: fear and loathing.

What's scary about Sarah Palin is that she shows no fear whatsoever. On the contrary, she looks like she revels in the waves of hate and fear that emanate from her crowds. She doesn't appear troubled, as does McCain. She appears gleeful to be both feeding, and feeding on, their hate. Hers is not the reaction of a normal human being. It is the reaction of a psychopath.

It didn't seem sincere-it was a wishy washy comment if I ever heard one. While it was 'better than nothing', it sure sounded lame...and I do think it's too little too late. He had to say something with the cameras rolling and the questioners right in his face and the criticisms mounting.

The calls to violence and exploitation of fears have been going on for weeks now, all ignited and unchecked and even endorsed by McCain.

Note all the boos from the crowd--they are ready willing and able to keep going now--they will likely just brush off his lackluster comments as necessary politics.

I'm waiting for the rally in which John McCain says "Now folks, Barack Obama is a decent Christian family man and we must respect him" ... and the booing, screaming, enraged mob rushes the stage, piling on top of him and beating him senseless while chanting "SARAH! SARAH! U-S-A!"

So I would not be surprised if Lieberman had registered some concern with his friend over this rhetoric.
Posted by: larry birnbaum

I would. There is no evidence whatsoever that Lieberman considers anti-Arab bigotry unjustified or in any way equivalent to anti-Semitism.

He's a hack whose foreign policy consists of supporting whichever position kills the most Arabs.

I don't even need him to tell the people he's a decent man. That's opinion.

Just straighten the facts out, I'll be happy.

He's a native American born in Hawaii who attended a Christian church for the past 25 years. He sat on a public school reform panel with, among others, a college professor named William Ayers who had served time 40 years ago for setting off a bomb in a Congressional building that ended up hurting nobody. Ayers was granted a slot on this board with the consent of its coordinator, a John McCain supporter.

He's proposed tax increases for those making over $250,000 a year. No one else. His proposals can't possibly be paid for with so little revenue, but then neither can McCain's. They're both lying.

One thing that came to my mind was, where was Joe Lieberman in all this? Jews are very sensitive to this kind of lynch mob atmosphere (look up Leo Frank). It reminds us of pogroms...So I would not be surprised if Lieberman had registered some concern with his friend over this rhetoric.

I really think you're giving Lieberman much too much credit here. This is a man who's yet to speak out against a single anti-Arab slur. He's also a guy who gladly consorts with end-times Christians whose vision of the rapture includes him and all other Jews burning in hell. He is quite a clearly an ends-justify-the-means kind of fellow. I don't think a little McCain- and Palin-incited anti-Muslim sentiment fazes Lieberman in the least.

What I see is McCain trying to appear respectful, and then he will turn over the microphone to Palin who will spit blood and thunder into the crowd, stoking the fires of hate.

So I guess I am going for the third option: McCain will pretend to be above it all, but he will order Palin to continue the attacks.

McCain is trying to have things both ways. His attacks are backfiring but negative attacks are all he has left in his arsenal so he'll continue to attack AND continue to praise Obama as a decent family man, and brag about the one or the other, depending on the audience, comfortable in the knowledge that low information voters will not realize he talking out of both sides of his mouth.

toowearyforoutrage wrote: "... a college professor named William Ayers who had served time 40 years ago ..."

Just as a point of fact, I don't think Ayers ever "served time" nor was he ever convicted of a crime, although he has acknowledged his role in the activities of the Weatherman organization opposing the Vietnam war, some of which can certainly be legitimately characterized as terrorism.

Ayers and his wife went underground and were fugitives for a time. He eventually surfaced and was prosecuted. The Federal prosecution against him was thrown out because the government had used illegal wiretaps to obtain its evidence.

Supposedly the woman who put McCain in a bind actually said "he's an Arab Terrorist" - though if so the latter word absolutely cannot be heard on the clip.

If this is the case, McCain's reply is marginally less awful than I first took it to be, though he clearly should have squarely and directly made clear that not only was the woman factually wrong, but also bigoted. He looked so shell-shocked he may have missed this point, but I have to think he either has such a tin ear to ethnic slurs that he did recognise it for what it was - or perhaps given the mood of his crowd, defending the "Ay-rabs" on top of defending Obama would have been a challenge too far for him.

It is probably just as well he already has punted Michigan with its many good Arab family men and women.

I see no evidence that McCain is being decent. He seems to be trying to gain all the benefits of burning down a competitor's business, while simultaneously winning a medal for raising the alarm and 'helping' to fight the fire.

You write, "Then there's the other possible explanation: inciting rage was a political loser."

Another possibility, as noted at the beginning of this thread: the Secret Service. What if the Secret Service told him they were going to have to start arresting people at his rallies for making threats? A bit, uh, embarrassing.

Now that Caribou Barbie has hit full stride, how long will it take to reprogram her with a more appropriate message? Is there enough time?

I sort of want to give Senator McCain the benefit of the doubt. I think he made a huge mistake in picking Palin and he can't extricate himself from that but he can and did tone down the hateful rhetoric that Palin has brought into the campaign. She is much more of an "us versus them" candidate with her holier than thou religious beliefs. She will say anything to get people riled up and if someone were to try to hurt Obama or his followers because of that rhetoric I think she would be overtly happy about it. She is a narcissist with delusions of power dancing in her head.

"She is a narcissist with delusions of power dancing in her head."

How does this make her any different from McCain?

I think McCain has probably been losing friends over this, and perhaps that also matters to him. In any case, and whatever his reasons, I find it really DOES matter to me that he did this. It's too easy to sit by the sidelines and imagine that the only consequences of what was going on was what we'd already seen. But in a few weeks we could have seen more and more people turning out for McCain rallies for the pure joy of hatred, whatever impact that might have had on the vote, and I think the risk to Obama's life could have increased exponentially. So McCain's words DO matter. And I'm grateful.

Two friends tonight independently said they suspected the people booing McCain were plants intended to make McCain appear more sympathetic.

bob somerby: In 1999 and 2000, the lies about Gore mainly came from the press corps. The Bush campaign played a very minor role.

I was under the impression Republican faxed press releases were the original sources in many cases, for instance of the tweaked quotes.

If you are indeed the Bob Somerby of Daily Howler, does this not accord with your own reporting?