Award-winning columnist Tom Archdeacon — an old-school storyteller in a brand-new venue — writes about sports, the city, southwest Ohio and anything else that catches his fancy… or yours.Home > Blogs > Through the Arch > Archives > 2008 > October > 11 > Entry
blog: Tapped by the stupid stick in Minnesota
Has Minnesota just been tapped with the stupid stick or what?
On Friday, Republican presidential nominee John McCain has to take the microphone away from one of his supporters at a town hall meeting in Lakeville, Minnesota — where other people already had yelled out that his Democratic rival, Barack Obama, was a “terrorist” and a “liar” — when the woman stood and started saying:
“I can’t trust Obama. I have read about him and he’s not, he’s not uh — he’s an Arab. He’s not — “
Taking the microphone from a woman — who later identified herself as 75-year-old Gayle Quinnell, a McCain volunteer from Shakopee, Minn. — the Republican candidate did a really decent thing and stopped her in her tracks:
“No, ma’am. He’s a decent family man [and] citizen that I just happen to have disagreements with….”
Later a podcaster for something called The UpTake caught up with Quinnell and she told him on camera how she’s done volunteer work for McCain there and had sent out 400 letters to people making the same Arab claim and a lot of other “bad things” about him. She said other volunteers are doing the same thing.
Others were saying distorted things this week in Minnesota, but the target wasn’t Obama, it was NBA legend Magic Johnson.
A pair of babble heads on KTLK-FM in Minneapolis — Chris Baker and Langdon Perry — accused Johnson of faking AIDS.
According to a partial transcript on mediamatters.org, a media-watchdog site, the claims were made during Baker’s conservative radio show Wednesday.
During a discussion of illnesses treatable with drugs, Perry said “Like Magic with his faked AIDS. Magic faked AIDS.”
Baker responded” “You think Magic faked AIDS for sympathy?”
Perry replied, “I’m convinced that Magic faked AIDS.”
“Me, too,” Baker said.
The 49-year-old Johnson — who was diagnosed with HIV in 1991 and retired from basketball at age 32 — told the Associated Press:
“We can’t have people out here making false statements and putting out bad information, because this battle is too big when it comes to HIV and AIDS.”
The same could be said with the presidential race.
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Comments
By Dave
October 15, 2008 6:06 PM | Link to this
Raoul, what is your source telling you that the folks yelling “terrorist” at the McCain rallies are Democratic operatives?By Raoul
October 12, 2008 12:29 PM | Link to this
Kind of reminds me of some of the stupid stuff being said about Sarah Palin right here at the DDN. Some of those yelling things like “terrorist” at the McCain rallies are Democrat operatives, so I would take it with a grain of salt. But I agree that there is a lot of stupid out there in Minnesota. There are people actually supporting Al Franken for the Senate.