the citizen-viewer

McCain winces, ever so slightly, as a crowd member shouts of Obama, “Kill him!”

During the third debate, Obama gave McCain the opportunity to respond. McCain sidestepped. Here’s the official transcript:

OBAMA: I mean, look, if we want to talk about Congressman Lewis, who is an American hero, he, unprompted by my campaign, without my campaign’s awareness, made a statement that he was troubled with what he was hearing at some of the rallies that your running mate was holding, in which all the Republican reports indicated were shouting, when my name came up, things like “terrorist” and “kill him,” and that you’re running mate didn’t mention, didn’t stop, didn’t say “Hold on a second, that’s kind of out of line.”

And I think Congressman Lewis’ point was that we have to be careful about how we deal with our supporters.

Now…

MCCAIN: You’ve got to read what he said…

(CROSSTALK)

OBAMA: Let — let — let… MCCAIN: You’ve got to read what he said.

OBAMA: Let me — let me complete…

SCHIEFFER: Go ahead.

OBAMA: … my response. I do think that he inappropriately drew a comparison between what was happening there and what had happened during the civil rights movement, and we immediately put out a statement saying that we don’t think that comparison is appropriate.

And, in fact, afterwards, Congressman Lewis put out a similar statement, saying that he had probably gone over the line.

The important point here is, though, the American people have become so cynical about our politics, because all they see is a tit- for-tat and back-and-forth. And what they want is the ability to just focus on some really big challenges that we face right now, and that’s what I have been trying to focus on this entire campaign.

MCCAIN: I cannot…

OBAMA: We can have serious differences about our health care policy, for example, John, because we do have a difference on health care policy, but we…

MCCAIN: We do and I hope…

OBAMA: … talking about it this evening.

MCCAIN: Sure.

OBAMA: But when people suggest that I pal around with terrorists, then we’re not talking about issues. What we’re talking about…

MCCAIN: Well, let me just say I would…

SCHIEFFER: (inaudible)

MCCAIN: 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. You know that. And I’ve — and we’ve always said that that’s not appropriate.

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.

And I’m not going to stand for somebody saying that because someone yelled something at a rally — there’s a lot of things that have been yelled at your rallies, Senator Obama, that I’m not happy about either.

In fact, some T-shirts that are very…

OBAMA: John, I…

MCCAIN: … unacceptable. So the point is — the point is that I have repudiated every time someone’s been out of line, whether they’ve been part of my campaign or not, and I will continue to do that.