Are Republicans Encouraging Political Violence Against Obama?

Air America's blog has a good story on the increased hostility seen at recent political demonstrations against President Obama's reform proposals. In "Are republicans encouraging political violence" Dorsey Shaw writes about the response from Republican Senators after Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi made her emotional plea to Republican leaders to help quell the "hateful and intentionally violent political rhetoric that the conservative base is currently relying on." The fear is that political rhetoric coming from some Republican policy makers may fall on "unbalanced ears" and lead to violence against President Obama. Dorsey Shaw writes:

Minority Leader John Boehner, in an attempt to justify the vitriolic political environment, said that the American people are "scared to death that the country they grew up in is not going to be the same country their kids and grandkids get to grow up in." The fact is that, with a black family in the White House, America already seems like a different country in a bad way to too many people. Perhaps the GOP leadership needs to take a minute and ponder our country's history of political violence and assassination and its underpinnings in hate speech not repudiated by political leaders. Should anything tragic happen, those politicians who sat back and allowed this anger boil over will be viewed as accomplices to any political violence.

You can read "Are Republicans Encouraging Political Violence" on the Air America blog. Images via flickr: Amphis d'@illeurs