Georgia newspaper sets Obama in its gunsights

Sigh. The Roswell Beacon (serving an area of North Fulton that's full of white Republicans) has a cover that's putting Obama in the crosshairs.

I'm not offended by this as much as this potential occurrence scares the ever-loving shit out of me. The Daily Kos-evars (whom I really can't stand not for their liberalism, but their shrillness), are all over it, esp. in re of Fuckabee's comments at an NRA event.

Via AJC:

A Roswell newspaper is defending a controversial cover illustration that placed Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama in a rifle's cross hairs.

An influential liberal blog featured a post Tuesday on the provocative cover art, triggering a flood of complaints to the Roswell Beacon, a nascent free weekly distributed to about 65,000 north Fulton residents. The article was published May 15th.

A diarist named "sprialstairs" wrote on Daily Kos, "The article itself is not offensive, but the cover is beyond the pale. As indicated by the article, there are some serious racists in the area, and Obama's candidacy has brought out the worst in a lot of people. The last thing we need is a newspaper to suggest assassination with an incendiary cover such as this."

Readers — Kos receives more than 1.3 million visits a day, according to sitemeter.com — were encouraged to contact the newspaper and its advertisers. By day's end, Holiday Inn announced it would no longer do business with the Beacon, though the paper's publisher, John Fredericks, said editorial decisions would not be influenced by "liberal blogger thuggery."

"Good, bad or ugly, we tell the truth," he said.

There have been repercussions, as Holiday Inn now refuses to do business with the Beacon.

The blowback may be due to the unfortunate co-incidence of the Fuckabee comments about Obama needing to duck:

And poorly timed, though The Beacon can't be held accountable on that front. The article's publication coincided with an ill-advised quip by former Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee after a loud noise interrupted his speech to the National Rifle Association.

The article in question seems to have been taken off The Beacon's servers or wasn't put there in a first place, which is a shame, because I want to read it to form my own opinion. If the editors stand by the story, why take it down so we can't read it?

BUT: I found it... yuck... at some white supremacist Web sites, mainly discussion boards. It's a shame I had to pick the article up there, instead of the Roswell Beacon having the balls to keep it up on their site. I will post it here... separately. if I get a C&D, it might have to be taken down. I hope y'all appreciate the sludge and UTTER BULLSHIT I had to trudge through to get this article.