Her remarks may have contributed to a few, or not so few, idiots thinking it would be a great idea to threaten his life, but she wasn't the source. It's hardly fair to blame Palin for the threats when she can't control anyone but herself. And really, if the Secret Service told Obama and the news outlets that they couldn't corroborate the reports of people yelling "kill him", then Obama most certainly shouldn't have called attention to it. That in itself probably gave a few people the idea to plan or threaten it. I'm sure there were some racist idiots who watched him speak at least once just to be able to yell at him through the TV screen.


Edit to clarify:

Those who have threatened his life need to be found and charged with assault (that's the threat part of assault and battery). And no, I don't condone anyone's life being threatened for any reason. Just covering my bases here.

[edit on 9-11-2008 by Jenna]

During the last weeks of the campaign,when she was standing before crowds citing terrorist ,and the crowd was like a lynch mob,I was shocked. I couldn't believe that they would even be allowed to say such things ,or get away with it . Isn't there something called inciting to riot? My husband pointed out that they looked more like KKK rallies than political rallies. She was definitely feeding the frenzy,and she should be held accountable for the level of violence she was exciting in her crowds ,and McCain can back peddle all he wants but she did that for the whole rest of the campaign, while he was standing right there with her so it's no good saying after it's all over that he didn't endorse her statements. They did yell kill him I heard it on my TV and Sarah just lapped it up. That's what was so amazing to me that yelling a death threat like that went completely unaddressed by any law enforcement or by the McCain camp,shamefull

Guess they knew they couldn't win on their ideas and were hoping that some mushbrained lose cannon among their supporters would kill him ,and then they would just go "Oh well that's what happens in politics"

Originally posted by invisiblewoman
They did yell kill him I heard it on my TV and Sarah just lapped it up. That's what was so amazing to me that yelling a death threat like that went completely unaddressed by any law enforcement or by the McCain camp,shamefull

I didn't watch any of the speeches except the ones on election night. I would think that it would be on youtube though, so I may have to head over there and see if I can find it. If that was indeed what was said and they had it on tape I don't know why the Secret Service would say they couldn't corroborate it though... And if it was said and Palin did hear it she should have said something to them about it and not just let it slide. Again, she can't control what anyone says or does besides herself, but if she heard it she should have said something.

A common test applied to cases ranging from inciting a riot to conspiracy to commit murder, etc is whether or not a reasonable person would expect a violent act to be provoked by their speech and actions.

So the question is, would a reasonable person expect that if you go in front of a crowd of rednecks who cling to guns and religion and tell them that Obama is a non-citizen muslim terrorist sympathizer whose friends are trying to rig the election for him (and hell, for good measure let's accuse him of being a closet cigarette smoker) that maybe one of the afforementioned rednecks might do something illegal about it?
Personally I don't find that to be much of a stretch.

As far as I'm concerned, if anything happens to Obama- if he should be struck by a bolt of lightning- the potential role of Palin's comments should be investigated and she should be prosecuted to the full extent that the facts dictate and the law allows.

I watched everyone of her speeches because I'm newsy like that,and they were yelling kill him and her answer to it was to say even more inflammatory things ,it was a big hate fest. And she fed off of these responses without so much as a oh now calm down you're going to far, nothing. I'll try finding some on the u tube ,trouble is without the spontaneity of the moment you not be able to hear the background so well but some of the news commentators mentioned it as well. Like Chris Matthews

She's super evil,my take is they aren't saying it didn't happen they're saying they can't know who said it,indeed it was so many people and chanting it hoe could find a person ,which points right back to her cheerleading it