Fascism, Flags & Crosses

Sinclair Lewis: "When facism comes to America it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying a cross."

Sarah Palin has denounced Obama for "palling around with terrorists. She and her campaign, along with hard-right "MSM haters," have also denounced the AP for calling the attack "racially tinged." They're seeking to have it both ways, ridiculing Obama as being not as American as Middle America, while deriding those who would call the attack what it is.

Here are some salient passages from the AP article:

Palin's words avoid repulsing voters with overt racism. But is there another subtext for creating the false image of a black presidential nominee "palling around" with terrorists while assuring a predominantly white audience that he doesn't see their America?

a post-Sept. 11 America, terrorists are envisioned as dark-skinned radical Muslims, not the homegrown anarchists of Ayers' day 40 years ago. With Obama a relative unknown when he began his campaign, the Internet hummed with false e-mails about ties to radical Islam of a foreign-born candidate.

Whether intended or not by the McCain campaign, portraying Obama as "not like us" is another potential appeal to racism. It suggests that the Hawaiian-born Christian is, at heart, un-American.

The fact is that when racism creeps into the discussion, it serves a purpose for McCain. As the fallout from Wright's sermons showed earlier this year, forcing Obama to abandon issues to talk about race leads to unresolved arguments about America's promise to treat all people equally.

That sounds like a "fair and balanced" analysis to me.

As much as I mock Republicans, you'd be surprised to know that I am a registered Republican. ["I'm just a MAV-er-ICK, like John and Sarah..."]

I believe in limited government and personal responsibility, and I believe that many leftist formulas do not work well in practice. But unlike the right wing of the GOP, I admire liberals -- those who represent the idealistic spirit of Atticus Finch, those who fight for the oppressed when such a cause is unpopular. I think a society needs to respect its mix of heritage-loving conservatives and forward-thinking progressives. We are in a load of manure precisely because we lack that ability at a crucial hour.

And frankly, that is why the Palin attacks on Obama sicken me. It reveals that the GOP machinery is more bankrupt than the Wall Street tycoons they sought to prop up. Yes, Sinclair Lewis was right. And frankly, if the word fascism went over well in focus groups, the GOP strategists, with their toy mavericks, would throw out the cross and the flag middlemen and brand themselves with large F's, while condemning the "commies" on the other side.