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"Kill Him"

Some of the McCain rallies are becoming heated affairs. Palin is certainly stoking a lot of the heat, as she (rightly, but possibly irresponsibly) notes that Obama has palled around with terrorists for much of his political career.

The conventional wisdom is springing up that someone at one of the McCain rallies cried "Kill Him" in reference to Obama.

Any time you hear someone say that this occurred, you should immediately consider suspect everything else they say.

1. First, at the rally in question, at the time in question, Palin mentioned Ayers and Obama's relationship. Even if someone shouted "kill him," it would be impossible to know whether the person were referring to Ayers (someone who might rationally deserve the death penalty for murder and attempted murder), and Obama, the Presidential candidate.

2. There's no video or audio of the statement, which is pretty surprising given that there's video or audio of *everything* at these rallies, including last week's incident where a supporter probably yelled out "terrorist" when McCain asked "who is the real Barack Obama?"

3. None of the Secret Service agents at the rally heard the statement.

4. The Secret Service launched a probe into the claim, and found nothing.

Now, these things don't mean that the statement wasn't actually made. But it seems very unlikely that the Secret Service wouldn't hear it, that there'd be no audio or video of it, and that a probe turned up nothing, if it actually happened.

It also doesn't mean similar things haven't been said. Apparently someone said "off with his head," which is quite bad, but not the same as "kill him," since there's no real threat of a guillotine execution and the shouter could have been drawing up French Revolution images. Again, though, "off with his head" is still really bad.

But specifically, it doesn't look like there's much evidence that "kill him" was ever uttered at a rally, and anyone who says otherwise should not be trusted to communicate unbiased and truthful information.

Full post as published by Expressio Unius on October 13, 2008 (boomark / email).