"Sit down, boy!"

McCain-Palin's War Against The Media Echoes Failed Strategy Of Bush Sr.

Where have I seen this before -- the crowd taunts of reporters traveling with Sarah Palin, the rage drummed up by the GOP ticket against the news media, the "kill them" attitude typified by the man in the Palin crowd in Clearwater, Fla., who yelled at an African-American TV sound technician: "Sit down, boy!"
It's getting so ugly out there that it's only a matter of moments before "press-bashing" can be taken literally.
I'll tell you where I've seen this "beat the press" tactic before: In the waning days of the flailing 1992 re-election campaign of President George H. W. Bush. In a flashing signal of desperation that could have been read from the next galaxy, Bush and his surrogates spent so much time attacking the media, giving out buttons and bumper stickers saying "Annoy the Media -- Re-Elect Bush," that Republican audiences on the campaign trail were ravening at the sight of the journalists accompanying the patrician-raised Bush 41 to campaign rallies.
One day in Oregon, as I recall, a network crew was set upon and assaulted. Other journalists were shoved. We all were hollered at: "Tell the truth! Tell the truth!" One hothead in Vineland, N.J., seemed within a couple of seconds of taking a swing at me as I walked by, laden down with a computer and other shoulder-mounted gear. A red-faced young man walked into our filing tent in the Pacific Northwest and ranted, glossolalia-like, at the top of his lungs, the spit flying.
The vibes got nastier by the day. Finally, one evening on the road, one journalist made his way to Bush as the president was dining with staffers and beseeched him to tone down the rhetoric before hate led to tragedy.
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