'THAT ONE': Did 'McNasty' Remark Boost Obama?

GET POLITICAL w/ VIC LIVINGSTON

• Are John McCain and Sarah Palin speaking in code?

"That one."

With two little words during Tuesday night's second of three presidential debates, John McCain 2008 buried John McCain 2000, and his hopes of ever reaching the White House -- honorably, at least.

The climax to what seemed to be a well-rehearsed body blow, "that one" suddenly became the president-in-waiting, the only potential presidential visage left standing.

The comment was mean, contemptuous, and, it could be argued, racially insensitive. It immediately conjured up thoughts of the Old South, a world where white men referred to blacks as "boy" or "that boy," a world where white men couldn't bear to look a black man in the eye, lest he be viewed as worthy of such common social courtesy.  At least when Bill Clinton referred to Monica Lewinsky as "that woman," he quickly added the words, Ms. Lewinsky."

McCain's "that one" comment may explain why he seemed so incapable of anything more than a quick glance at Obama during the previous debate.

"That one" wasn't the only one. McCain blurted out a couple other pearls of persnickedyness during last night's otherwise dull proceedings. He condescendingly suggested to a young adult who happened to be black that prior to the financial crisis, "you probably never heard of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac."

Even moderator Tom Brokaw fell victim to McNasty, who was asked who he might choose as his treasury secretary. "Not you," McCain incongruously snapped back, calling to mind the phrase, "Angry old man shouting at cloud."

But do McCain's displays of pique signal something more troubling, more menacing, than the mere rantings of a crabby senior senator? His deprecating demeanor comes on the high heels of Sarah Palin's McCarthyistic slanders against Barack Obama -- who, in her view, has been "palling around" with a "known domestic terrorist."

Nor does it seem an accident that at the very moment of Palin's invective, someone in the crowd, well within the range of the podium microphones, yelled out "Terrorist!" And another voice in the crowd could be heard shouting, "Kill him!"

Whether the shouter was referring to the supposed terrorist Bill Ayers or Barack Obama is irrelevant. The point is that someone in the McCain campaign hears these responses to their candidates' invectives. Their response? Mostly, deafening silence.

Is it the silence of an insidious, premeditated evil? At what point does McCain campaign rhetoric cross the line from hyperbole to an incitement to violence? In the case of Sarah Barracuda, that line already may have been crossed.

And it wasn't just the cries of an angry crowd that got ugly. At a recent Sarah Palin rally, a uniformed police officer who was doing an introduction referred to "Barack HUSSEIN Obama" (the emphasis was his). The crowd roared its approval; but was the remark something of a coded message by an authority figure that it's now open season on the Democratic nominee?

To invoke a much-worn phrase, "Words matter" -- especially when those words may have been sanctioned, or at the very least, countenanced, by the officials of America's ruling political party.

These are troubled times; the true causes of the current economic tumult are yet to be discerned. Could there be a connection between the economic chaos and provocative political rhetoric? Are combatants in this battle for power searching for scapegoats to blame for the downturn? Is reckless political rhetoric intended to spark a class war, or a race war, easing the way for an ugly victory of one ideology over another?

Such questions may seem far-fetched. But the notion of a global economic meltdown seemed far-fetched just a few months ago. Better to ask these questions and search for answers now, before voters finally decide which side they should be on.

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