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FL Sheriff Plays the Hussein Card

7 October 2008 3 Comments

Acallidryas and I are from (and I still live in) Fort Myers, Florida. Our county (Lee) has been deemed an important one this election cycle. Michelle Obama was here a couple of months ago for a fundraiser breakfast that I attended. Joe Biden is appearing at an event tomorrow. And Sarah Palin appeared at an event yesterday, which gave our county an opportunity to appear in the national news for the only reason it ever makes national news- someone being a bigoted idiot: 

Lee County Sheriff Mike Scott took the stage moments ago as one of the introductory speakers at a rally here for Sarah Palin. After delivering brief remarks in support of Palin, Sheriff Scott flipped the switch and used Barack Obama’s middle name in order to incite the crowd of thousands of people who have already gathered here. 

“On Nov. 4, let’s leave Barack Hussein Obama wondering what happened,” the law enforcement officer said. 

Yes, Hussein is Obama’s middle name and there theoretically shouldn’t be a problem with someone mentioning it. But in this area of the country in a room full of Republicans there’s only one reason that it would be mentioned- and that isn’t to remind people of what’s monogrammed in Obama’s suits. 

In the “hilarious if it weren’t true” column, the following quote from the Sheriff appears on his office’s official site: 

“People could say running for sheriff took either courage, ignorance, or a combination of both,” says Scott. 

He’s now achieved his goal of being courageously ignorant.

Written by: Brandy Betz on October 7, 2008.

3 Comments »

  • acallidryas said:

    Ah, good for him, getting out in the public eye like that. Mike Scott still has a ways to go to beat his former boss, Sheriff John McDougall, though. After all, who could forget this:

    But last December, Sheriff McDougall’s outspokenness struck an even more sensitive chord. Responding to a doctor who had asked for protection from protesters at his abortion clinic here in this southern Gulf Coast city of 46,000 people, the sheriff wrote in a letter with official letterhead: ”Tell me doctor, did those tiny defenseless babies feel threatened when you ripped them out of their mother’s womb? Were they fighting for their lives when you began your slaughter?”

    Or this:

    In late September Americans United received a number of complaints about the activities of Sheriff John J. McDougall of Fort Myers. On the sheriff’s office website, McDougall posted a lengthy message title “Wake Up America! Before It’s Too Late!” that blasted legal abortion and the Supreme Court’s rulings banning mandatory prayer in public schools….

    Elsewhere McDougall warned of “the diabolical forces of moral corruption working feverishly, behind closed doors.” These include, he wrote, “Gay and Lesbian coalitions, rabid feminist groups, United Nations one-world government radicals, and the American Civil Liberties Union.” These “parasitic groups,” he wrote, “force us under the protection of law to tolerate and accept their despicable conduct and agenda.”

    Good old Lee County. Come for the weather, stay for the crazy, bigoted, religious fundamentalism.

    # 7 October 2008 at 8:01 am
  • Brandy Betz (author) said:

    Yeah, I didn’t have the heart to address McDougall that early in the morning.

    Good old Lee County. Come for the weather, stay for the crazy, bigoted, religious fundamentalism.
    I’m surprised that isn’t written on our city limits signs.

    # 7 October 2008 at 9:39 am
  • Moue Magazine »“Hussein” Sheriff Under Fed Investigation said:

    [...] posted earlier this week about the comments made by the sheriff of Lee County, Florida during a speech at a Sarah Palin [...]

    # 9 October 2008 at 3:20 am