House of Burgess

About two minutes after I arrived for work on Wednesday our News Assisant Chris McCartney handed me a white envelope with no return address on it.
I held it up to the light to see if there was something truly horrible inside like a bomb or anthrax or an album by the band Creed.
What I found inside was even more disturbing.
The entirety of the contents of the envelope were three neatly folded sheets of paper with two stories from the right wing Web site Newsmax.com printed on them, one of which was titled “Obama Attended Hate America Sermon.” (To their credit, at least they were environmentally conscious in their hate mail--they did print both sides of each page.)
According to the Wikipedia Web page on the author of both the articles that were sent to me, Ronald Kessler, the “Obama Attended Hate America Sermon” article incorrectly reported that Sen. Barack Obama attended a service at Chicago's Trinity United Church of Christ on July 22. It was later discovered by other, less terrible reporters that Sen. Obama was in transit to Miami on that day. (On a funny side note, shortly after the controversy broke, Kessler attempted to remove information documenting it from his Wikipedia biography, which apparently didn’t work since I just read it.)
The stamp on the upper right hand corner of the envelope had been canceled by the post office with a printed quote from John Adams that read “Let us dare to read, think, speak and write.” I found this extra ironic since the person who sent it to me had apparently done none of these things before dropping it in the mailbox. (Call me when you’ve found the courage to scribble down your own ideas and name, anonymous pen pal.)
As the letter was addressed to “House of Burgess” (as if the this was an actual building you could send mail to) I assumed it was in response to a recent column I wrote questioning the qualifications of Sen. John McCain’s running mate Gov. Sarah Palin.
As I’ve gradually grown an ever-thicker skin in response to this kind of correspondence, the letter itself didn’t really bother me, but the growing trend it represents does.
As Obama’s lead in the polls has grown during the last few days, so has the anger from a certain subset of Republicans.
“At a rally in Minnesota on Friday, a woman told McCain: ‘I don't trust Obama. I have read about him and he's an Arab,’” stated an article titled “Rage Rising on McCain Campaign Trail” on the Web site CNN.com.
At McCain/Palin campaign rallies during the last few days, some supporters have yelled out “treason,” “kill him” and “terrorist” at the mention of the Illinois senator.
“‘Obama Osama!’ one woman called out,” stated a portion of an article entitled “Panic attacks: Voters unload at GOP rallies” that was posted on the Web site Politico.com.
My editor, K.C. Meadows, has even encountered this frightening phenomenon on a local level.
“A local reader stopped by the office to show me something he had just purchased at the North State Street Republican Party Headquarters: a ‘$3 bill’ made to look like real US currency with Barack Obama's face on the front in Arabic headdress,” she wrote on her “Inside UDJ” blog.
The people who perpetuate this kind of garbage won’t say what they are, so I will: they are racists. They know they can’t come out and say they don’t want a black president so they have to make things up because it’s all they have to cling to.
Where's the proof that Obama is an extremist Muslim? Besides his partial African heritage there's no basis in reality for this claim. Obama is a devout Christian. And even if he was a Muslim, which he's not, so what? Just like there are extremist Christians who would gladly take sniper rifle to abortion doctors or a pipe bomb to gay bar there are extremist Muslims who do equally horrible things in the name of their God. It's unfair to paint everyone with that brush simply because of the actions of a few.
Keep in mind that I don’t think it’s wrong to question a candidate for their positions, nor I think all McCain’s supporters are like this. Indeed, to his credit, McCain has stymied such talk at his rallies.
“I want to be president of the United States, and I don't want Obama to be,” said McCain in response to one such attack. “But I have to tell you, I have to tell you, he is a decent person, and a person that you do not have to be scared as President of the United States.”
Unfortunately, McCain’s words will always on deaf ears.
“You won't be able to convince some people on Obama no matter how hard you try,” wrote my friend from back home Nick in an e-mail he sent me recently. “They believe he is a Muslim Manchurian Candidate. It's sad. I think most people use that as a front to the real truth about their biases.”
Given the prospect of facing The Great Depression: The Sequel just three years after leaving college, the fact that Obama has been surging in the polls has been the only piece of good news I’ve been hanging on to lately.
But after reading about how low these wing nuts are willing to go to I’m almost hoping he doesn’t win by such a large margin. At this point I hope it’s a squeaker for the sake of Obama and his family. There’s no telling what these people will do once they get even more desperate.
One of my favorite movies is 2001 film “Donnie Darko.” I won’t even try to explain the entire plot here, but there’s a scene where Patrick Swayze’s character is explaining that every decision people make is motivated either by fear or love.
And that’s all these people are clinging to with white knuckles: fear.