The Roswell Georgia Beacon ran this picture on May 15th, 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 “spiralstairs” 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.

Fredericks and senior editor Tim Altork said there was little internal debate over the appropriateness of the imagery, though they were aware it was likely to create a stir.

“We knew we were on the provocative edge,” Altork said. “But it’s a very fair piece, a smart piece.”

More at AJC.com

I don’t know what Clinton’s intention was when she made reference to Bobby Kennedy’s assassination. She has stated she said it because the Kennedy’s were on her mind, due to Ted’s recent hospitilization and cancer diagnoses. But that’s not true, as she made the same statement prior to Ted Kennedy having the seizure. What I do know is there are alot of nuts out there. There is more racism in the country than we care to admit to….. and we don’t need Clinton’s comments or shit like this. I have to assume Roswell is a bed of racist rednecks who, for the most part, are A-OK with this picture.