Obama Supporters Get Tires Slashed

Stories about anti-Obama hostility keep piling up and I noted this one today in the Charlotte Observer:  30 people attending an Obama rally in Fayetteville, NC had their tires slashed on Sunday.  I've been upset, but not surprised, by the growing intensity of angry rhetoric surfacing among Obama opponents.  But thus far, there has been relatively limited physical action.  These tire slashings are a signal that people are beginning to cross lines into clearly criminal conduct.  The closer we get to having an African-American president, the more dramatic the backlash we can expect.   I know that many people think that, given where America is today, an Obama election wouldn't be all that momentous.  The terrified tired slashers know better. 

Comments

[Adam]

I'm a bit at a loss for this blog posting, as there's been well-documented violence and vandalism committed by all sides of the political spectrum over the past 8 years. In 2004, Republican campaign offices were shot at and vandalized. Democrats were having their tires slashed in 2004, too. This was reported on by the media, and so the reporting on it now as if this is some sort of special phenomena that marks either some unusal anger in the McCain campaign or racism against Obama, or both, is just unbelievable.

Here's a nice report on vandalism being directed at the home of Republican Senator Norm Coleman in Minnesota just this week: http://www.wxow.com/Global/story.asp?S=9219326. There are lots of examples of this on both the Angry Left and the Angry Right.

I'm a bit bemused by the sudden interest in this as allegedly some new phenomena. As if the Angry Left hasn't been engaging in well-documented assassination fantasies (in Broadway shows of all places!) for the past 8 years.