Days after a Secret Service investigation refuted the urban myth that someone at a McCain-Palin rally called for Barack Obama’s assassination (allegedly shouting, “Kill him!”), Washington Post columnist Colbert King continues to treat the discredited allegation as fact in his column, “A Rage No One Should Be Stoking.”

Earlier in the week, the uncorroborated story – based on an article by Scranton Times Tribune reporter David Singleton – was repeated by ABC News, The Associated Press and The Washington Monthly, among others without further attempts to verify the allegation, which was enough to get  Washington Post columnist Susan Jacoby hyperventilating:

I am absolutely terrified - I tremble for my country - by the rage that has been expressed at Republican campaign rallies during the past two weeks. It is a rage that partakes of the worst forces in American history--xenophobia, racism, anti-intellectualism, religious fanaticism, envy, and utter contempt for truth and reason.   

Meanwhile, MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann was foaming at the mouth (video) as usual:

Sen. McCain, your supporters, at your events, are calling Obama a terrorist and traitor and are calling for him to be killed. And yet you keep bringing back these same rabid Right Wing nuts to deliberately stir these crowds into frenzies. And then you take offense when somebody who remembers the violence in our political past, calls you on it. You, sir, are responsible for a phalanx of individuals who are shouting fire in a crowded theatre.

Calumnies such as these moved John McCain to defend the folks who come to his and Sarah Palin’s rallies during last week’s final presidential debate at Long Island’s Hofstra University:  

Let me just say categorically I'm proud of the people that come to our rallies. Whenever you get a large rally of 10,000, 15,000, 20,000 people, you're going to have some fringe peoples. …

But to somehow say that group of young women who said "Military wives for McCain" are somehow saying anything derogatory about you, but anything - and those veterans that wear those hats that say "World War II, Vietnam, Korea, Iraq," I'm not going to stand for people saying that the people that come to my rallies are anything but the most dedicated, patriotic men and women that are in this nation and they're great citizens.

Wanna talk death threats? Prominent black elected officials who backed Hillary Clinton in the primaries reported death threats from Obama supporters, and now PUMAs and other Hillary supporters who are campaigning for the McCain-Palin ticket are getting death threats.

And on Pajamas Media, blogger and graphic artist Oleg Atbashian, details the case of a middle-aged McCain volunteer who was assaulted by an Obama supporter while handing out leaflets at 51^st Street and Lexington Avenue in New York City:

While the Democrat-leaning media continues to scare undecided voters with bedtime stories about some mythical angry McCain supporter whom [1] nobody has seen, here is a real district attorney’s complaint documenting an unprovoked assault by an enraged Democrat against a McCain volunteer in midtown Manhattan: “Defendant grabbed the sign [informant] was holding, broke the wood stick that was attached to it, and then struck informant in informant’s face thereby causing informant to sustain redness, swelling, and bruising to informant’s face and further causing informant to sustain substantial pain.”  

The Stiletto won’t hold her breath waiting for Jacoby’s neuresthenia to flare up again over the rage expressed – physically and verbally - by a burly Obama supporter against a bespectacled, middle-aged Repub woman, seeing as how she hasn’t objected to – and probably tacitly approves of -  the violent and dehumanizing attacks on Sarah Palin. Nor will Olbermann acknowledge that Obama doesn’t need to whip his supporters into a rage-fueled frenzy as altogether too many of them are unhinged to begin with.

Where Is McCain’s Outrage?

During the final debate between John McCain and Barack Obama, moderator Bob Schieffer asked about the abased tone of the campaign, and the GOP contender made this cryptic, inside baseball reference: “In fact, some T-shirts that are very... unacceptable.”

What T-shirts? McCain never says. And unless you watch FOX News or regularly read political Web sites, you would not know what the heck he's taking about.

Unacceptable? The Stiletto is perplexed and dismayed that McCain has never defended the honor of his running mate, who has been called a whore, a c**t - and worse. He should have turned to Obama and said: “As a son, a brother, a husband, a father, an officer and a gentleman I demand, Senator, that you look straight into the camera and apologize directly to Sarah Palin for supporters of yours using the vile epithet ‘c**t’ to refer to her.”

McCain probably would have gotten bleeped by the censors, but Obama – who has accused Palin of being “racist” when she says he doesn’t pal around with people who hold in the same regard as most of us – would have been knocked back on his heels. And the press -  busy destroying the reputation of workaday citizen Joe the Plumber - would have been silenced. That could have been the game-changer McCain has been seeking all along.

Too bad McCain didn’t have the guts to do it.

Editorial Note: This item was first posted on The New Agenda blog. The Stiletto would like to direct your attention to another post on that blog, “Kitty Genovese and Sarah Palin: The ‘Bystander Effect’ and Women of the Democratic Party,” written by New Agenda co-founder Amy Siskind. Here’s an excerpt:

Witnessing the horrific treatment of Senator Clinton during the 2008 Presidential Primary, many women of this country joined forces and said: “Never again!”

The sexist treatment of Senator Clinton has been credited by some for the reawakening of feminism in our country. …

But whatever the opinion of Governor Palin, some of us vowed that we would not let the sexism that was directed at Hilary creep into the political landscape again. Women’s groups like Women Count, The New Agenda and Women’s Media Center spoke out about the early attacks on Governor Palin. Within 48 hours of the announcement of Governor Palin’s selection, The New Agenda issued a press release denouncing the use of the term “MILF” and some other early statements. Those early comments were offensive, but they hardly compare to today’s vitriol.

There are two differences between the attacks on Hillary Clinton and Sarah Palin. First, the attacks on Governor Palin have intensified, becoming more graphic, disturbing and violent with time. Second, this time women are part of the attack machine - to be specific: women of the Democratic Party are actually attacking Governor Palin in a sexist, personal and/or demeaning way. Many others are standing by and either cheering on those spewing the vitriol, or remaining silent - not speaking out against it.

Consider What - Not Whom - You Are Voting For

Editorial Note: If you live in, or plan to visit NYC between now and December 31^st, check out the exhibit “Catholics In New York” at the Museum of the City of New York at Fifth Avenue, between 103^rd and 104^th Streets. The Stiletto was shocked at the level of virulent hatred and prejudice to which white ethnic Catholics from Germany, Ireland and elsewhere were subjected, and can never look at a Thomas Nast cartoon the same way again. BTW, did you know that during the Civil War tens of thousands of Catholic men who immigrated to the Northern states were conscripted and went down South to join the fight to free the slaves? Bet Rev. Jeremiah Wright doesn't.