Tom "Broken" Brokaw

JUST Another example of a non-journalist hard at work doing NOTHING on Meet the Press today.

MR. BROKAW: Congressman Portman, has this gone too far in terms of the attacks on Senator Obama and his association with Bill Ayers in Chicago? Governor Palin has gone so far as to say he's palling around with a terrorist. Is that a really fair characterization in your
judgment?

FMR. REP. PORTMAN: Well, I think what they've focused on is two things, one is Senator Obama's judgment and second is his truthfulness. I, I saw yesterday there had been nine
different explanations about his relationship with Bill Ayers and, and when he met him and who he thought he was and so on. And so that's the issue, is his judgment and his truthfulness. In terms of this campaign, as we get toward, you know, the last few weeks here, it's heated up, there's no question, on both sides. And Senator Obama's rallies are, you know, he also inspires the crowd, and they can get pretty rowdy as well. Having viewed a few of those, those, those rallies, and been at some of the McCain rallies, they are inspiring people, you know, to support their policies and their approach. That's what rallies are all about. They cannot control every single individual in that, in that rally and what that person might say. But no, I, I think if you look at these campaigns.

This comment of course amounts to the assertion that McCain and Palin cannot be blamed for people believing that Obama is a terrorist, or might be a terrorist if in fact McCain and Palin were indeed (and they were) implying that Obama might be a terrorist - that their supporters might not know anything about the real terrorist activities of Barack Obama.

So if by chance Obama were shot and injured/killed by a Bush or Palin supporter, such reasoning based on "how were McCain and Palin to know that their supporters would take their campaign rhetoric seriously" and that such rhetoric would somehow not be McCain/Palin's fault is preposterous in the extreme. If indeed harm were to occur to Barack Obama than I would fully expect McCain and Palin to spend some time in a federal penitentiary and I'm certain that all African Americans would demand nothing less.

When Dan Balz admitted, finally, that McCain/Palin had crossed-the-line, AND that line, we should note, is a legal differentiated line - that McCain/Palin, with intend to do so, incited a mob to believe that Obama was a terrorist and that is the FACT in issue that we would be dealing with should any harm came to Barack Obama.