UPDATED Ana Marie Cox heard “Arab terrorist.” Josh Marshall is reserving judgment now hears only “Arab.” And The Uptake offers a post-game interview with the speaker herself. But one way to judge whether the woman at the Oct. 10 rally in Lakeville, Minn., told Sen. John McCain that Sen. Barack Obama is (merely) “an Arab” or (alternatively) “an Arab terrorist” is to watch video clips from the event for the reactions of people in the crowd who could see her speaking.
See for yourself in videos after the jump, including The Uptake’s subtitled interview with McCain’s interlocutor (campaign volunteer Gayle Quinnell of Shakopee, Minn.) in which she cites the source of her Obama information: an inflammatory flyer circulating at McCain’s local HQ.
Zapruder-like analysis of videos shot from a couple angles reveals a short span of time after the word “Arab” is uttered in which no more is audible but no one yet reacts — a moment long enough for the word “terrorist” to have been mouthed, even if it wasn’t picked up on-mic. The world seems to wait a beat … and then at least two women in the audience visibly react to what they just heard (or saw) being said — whatever it was. (Then McCain offers his “No, he’s a decent man” non-sequiter, but that’s another story.)
The Uptake’s video clip from event and later interview:
The Uptake video, with subtitles (transcript here):
TPM’s clip montage:
TPM’s new clip showing speaker’s face:
Ana Marie Cox has updated her original post to say that after seeing the video (that shows the speaker from behind), she has concluded it doesn’t bear out what she thought she heard the speaker say at the scene: “Arab terrorist.” She notes, however, that the interview video suggests that “terrorist” is indeed on the lips of this McCain backer.














9 Comments »
Comment posted October 12, 2008 @ 12:36 pm
No surprise here, the republican base (95%) is mostly comprised of uneducated God-fearing rednecks, easily manipulated by the top 5% very rich educated republicans who control the party and interests of big oil, big-drug, big contractors, etc. The McCain townmeetings reminds me of Hitler’s campaign, were people were scared of jews and hatred was spread among the people.
Comment posted October 12, 2008 @ 12:57 pm
This does represent the community of Lakeville. We have a community that has two great public schools and a wonderful array of opportunities for students and families alike to succeed and live satisfying lives. Why she would make such an outlandish comment, I have no clue. She stated she is from shakopee, so that relegates Lakeville from the brunt of criticism.
Comment posted October 12, 2008 @ 1:00 pm
What is with people like this who claim to have this “bad news” about Obama, cannot repeat it to an interviewer on camera? Is this the lies nutjob Jerome Corsi has in his book? I think they realize that if they say it to a number of people who actually might be intelligent, their lies will be blown and they will be embarrassed for having believed in or spread such horrible gossip.
But I know there are a lot of people like this woman are so fearful about what the country “might become” they cannot even see with their own eyes what is has become over the last eight years. I had a dinner with some people in my church a few years ago who expressed to me the fear that Muslims were going to take over the country. These were mature people with college degrees. It’s incredible and unbelievable to me that educated grownups can fall for such twaddle.
On the other hand, I suppose if these individuals find what has gone on in the past eight years acceptable, their minds are so totally twisted and warped that they will fall for anything. This is dangerous.
Comment posted October 12, 2008 @ 1:30 pm
AMR1987, thanks for the comment. I have changed the headline to clarify that it’s what folks said at a rally that happened to take place in Lakeville — not “folks in Lakeville,” as in residents there.
Comment posted October 12, 2008 @ 2:19 pm
This woman is hysterially funny! I hope we have many more interviews like this at the McSame rallies so that America can see what kind of nut jobs truly support McSame. They are doing more good in showing the racism and false fears that they have adopted over the past 8 years of the Bush regieme.
McSame seemed totally shocked to have this nut case make these rediculous statements. You could almost see his brain saying “OH Shit!” why is this happening now. Oh well another nose dive in his support numbers will do all of us some good.
Comment posted October 13, 2008 @ 9:58 am
I am from Lakeville, Minnesota. I can tell you from the video she didn’t say terrorist. Around the 2:57 minute mark, the unintelligent comment, “they didn’t go the the library to get that information.” The unintelligible comment around 5:00 minutes, she said, “I didn’t think McCain wanted to call him an arab.”
Comment posted October 14, 2008 @ 4:56 am
When the bigoted ignorant old woman, Quinnell, told McCain she had heard Obama was an Arab whom she did not trust, McCain said, “No ma’am, he’s a decent family man.” While McCain is correct in this assessment of Obama, is McCain inadvertantly implying that Arab’s are not decent or family-oriented people? Because this would seem to be the case. If this is so, then McCain has mistakenly and clearly shown his own bigotry at the same time disrespecting thousands upon thousands of fellow American Arab citizens (of whom I’m sure McCain or the old fool Quinnell would not consider American). Why isn’t the media shedding more light on McCain’s response?
Comment posted October 17, 2008 @ 6:04 pm
Did this incredibly misinformed women ever provide the information she’s been receiving and passing around? She couldn’t seem to tell anyone what was in the written information, but she’s willing to pass it on as fact.
Comment posted October 22, 2008 @ 1:45 am
I am not really happy with the way the McCain campaign has been run, it’s been an utter disgrace and I hope that this draws enough attention that the Republican party really takes a look at what they’ve become. Pandering to religious radicals politically leads to regimes like that of the Taliban in Afghanistan.
But as to how he responded, quite honestly, he seemed appalled and didn’t have a clue how to tactfully tell a supporter that she was a whack job. He was not terribly thoughtful in his phrasing but I do think his intent was pure and not to bash all Arab’s or Muslims especially as he does have probably a rather large following of them.
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