<em>This is a cross-post from Daily Kos, where it is getting some attention, which is good.  My ego aside, this needs to become part of our national discussion about what has gone on this week.  Those who grew up with November 22 so part of our lives do not want to see that happen again and live in fear that it will.</em>

There is much discussion this morning about what caused Senator McCain to step in and correct the many screwballs who seem to be attracted to his rallies whose support for his candidacy is based on hatred:  of those who do not share their political views, of those whose personal history is different from theirs, of those who religious or ethnic background is different, or simply of Senator Obama.

As said before, it matters not why he has apparently decided to address these crazies.  I am sure there are many reasons.  It is a welcome change and about time.

When your teenage daughter tells you she "hates" you, and you know better, the word does not seem to have much impact.  When people say it in a political context, it is quite a different thing:  that means, you, too, by the way, who has said "I hate Bush," "I hate McCain," "I hate the Republicans" or, even in supposedly progressive pages, "I hate Hillary."  (Being something of a dreamer <a href="http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/6/7/9528/28800/311/531582">I had hoped</a> for better in this campaign, but alas, that was not to be in this troubled land of ours.)

Still, I expect that most people who say those things don't mean it.  Many, however, do, and when they hear that term being used, even by people who don't mean it, they feel that "hate" is allowed.

All week, listening to these "kill him" or "terrorist" comments, directed at candidates for President or Vice president who don't answer them, and tell us later that they didn't hear them, my mind has wandered back to my childhood and that horrible day in November, 1963.

I have <a href="http://edsbarth.blogspot.com/2008/10/this-has-got-to-stop.html">linked elsewhere </a> to the segments in the Warren Commission Report about the handbill distributed in Dallas that week which had a wanted poster appearance and "charged" President Kennedy with treason, but somewhere in the back of my mind were comments I heard when, in 1993, A & E rebroadcast the NBC News coverage of November 22, 1963.  

Now I found them.  They are from Chet Huntley, about midway through the Huntley-Brinkley Report of that night.  Here he is, talking from way back then, but to exactly the issue of today (and, by the way, the magazine he is referring to is the National Review):

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