You know, I believe people when they say there’s a shit-ton of racism in this country. But every once in a while, I see something that makes me realize that as much as I might think I know how bad it is, I’ve got no fucking clue.
And here we are. This person was the Republican candidate for Vice-President of the United States last time.
I’ve tried a couple of times to formulate a coherent response to this, or to find a sarcastic rejoinder, or anything. But there is a point at which words fail. Oh, and thank you for ruining my day.
Sorry. I, too, didn’t really know what to say about it. I’m honestly waiting for someone to just come out and say “But he’s black. Can’t you see that he’s black? How can he be president?”
One does take note of the number of Favorites and Retweets.
Perhaps someone can explain to me the alleged profound significance of the intelligence failures around the Benghazi incident that left four people dead. I think I can recall a time not so long ago that criticizing the president for an intelligence failure that left, oh let’s just call it 3,000 people dead in New York City was considered something just this side of treasonous.
As they say, “just sayin’.”
I wonder if there really was an intelligence failure in Benghazi, or if Ambassador Stevens, being an old school, feet on the ground diplomat, took a calculated risk on the anniversary of 9/11 by leaving the fortified embassy and going to the consulate, and it just turned out to be a profoundly bad decision.
But Andy, it’s not the President they’re criticizing. As B points out, he can’t be president, really, because … you know.
Yeah. Stealth Muslim. Al-salaam aleikam. Like that excuses all of this waving of the bloody shirt.
This morning Ben Shapiro of the not-so-Bright-bart brigade said on the Twitter machine, “Let me be clearer. Colin Powell supports Barack Obama because Barack Obama is black. Powell didn’t support Clinton, Gore, or Kerry.” Shapiro felt the need to be “more clear” because he feared people might not understand his point when he Tweeted 2 seconds earlier, “Colin Powell was an affirmative action general. No surprise he’s supporting an affirmative action president.”
So the next time some right wing whiny butt demands we all have “civil discourse,” let’s remember what passes for civil discourse on the right. Oh, and Ann Coulter calling the President a retard. And Donald Trump demanding the President show his papers. And on … and on …
With this much stoking of the outrage machine from the right, a cynic might say it’s all being coordinated. Toward what end, I can’t imagine. Is this supposed to fire up the far right base? Are they worried people are losing interest? What’s the point of this? I don’t get it.
I think they are afraid their base is losing interest. I also think that there’s a segment of folk who is just really shocked and disconcerted to have a black president and they literally cannot believe that other people aren’t. Shapiro, for example, seems to think that people must just not understand that Obama does not deserve to be president simply because being black makes him unqualified. He seems baffled that others don’t see this.
I don’t think this is about the base, or rather I don’t think it’s about the base taking political action. All the people SB names are in it for the money, and have been taking in less money lately. Except for Trump, who’s in it for the attention, and has found that flagging.
No matter how hard you blow a dog whistle, only those attuned to hear it are going to hear it. I think they’re trying desperately to follow the Atwater Formulation, but at some point, they just sound like that old codger in Blazing Saddles who reports, each time louder than the last, that “the sheriff is [near].”
I don’t know that all of the dead-enders in the base ground their decision-making process based on race, but
you’d figure that anyone in the base that is going to vote based on race came to their decision long ago.
Sorry but I just don’t feel that way. I’m a liberal. After watching so many “Democrats” damn people who didn’t support Obama in the last presidential campaign, I’ve no sympathy for concerns about references to Obama’s race. He ran a race based campaign. He went before crowds of tens of thousands of people and he itemized their personal concerns and people felt, ‘He knows because he lived those concerns, in spades.’ He called Clinton’s win in New Hampshire a “Bradley Effect” win where his win in Iowa could just as easily have been called a wife beater effect where the women had to defy their husbands if they wanted to sit someplace else and support another candidate (like Clinton). His campaign implied that Bill Clinton’s comment on the South Carolina primary win as not an upset for Obama was racist, where it was highly unlikely that any of the candidates other than Obama would win there, including John Edwards.
Geez, MJ Rosenberg at TPM described how “proud” a person should feel for supporting the first viable African American candidate for president, of course ignoring the implication of shame if you didn’t support Obama. That same clown ‘kvelled’ on Obama shooting one on one hoops in the White House with some pro. That after already establishing a precedent of ignoring his campaign promises and basically going Republican.
How is Alan Simpson not a national joke? How is it that we are concerned about some “grand bargain” in the lame duck session? How is it that we’re supposed to be so proud of a Romneycare health policy that’s been renamed Obamacare? Geez again, if Obama had pushed for single payer, we’d have easily had the public option for health care. Never happened and though Obama supposedly pushed for the public option in a speech before a joint session of Congress, he’d already promised the major corps involved that the public option would not be included in any health care plan.
When I saw the messianic “Hope” posters and only heard about “post-partisanship” and how Obama loved him some Republicans, my only thought was ‘hope-a-dope.’ Oh, second thought ‘hope dreams.’ Third thought, ‘great Black hope.’
Don’t run as the Black savior for the common American and then leave them, literally and figuratively, locked in a tunnel.
What happens four years from now (assuming Obama wins), with four more years of pseudo Republican policies, when Democrats face a possible non-clown candidate from the opposition and don’t have the power of incumbency and a forgotten former massive failure Republican president to blame the problems on?
Listen. I’m going to say this as politely as possible, because I get that you’re upset and may not be thinking things through as thoroughly as you would if you really considered that you had come into a home that was not yours and said this stuff to a room full of strangers.
But if your anger at Obama leads you not only to feel like “Well, then, tough shit if people are racist against him. It’s his own fault.” or to think that reciting the weird racially charged crap the “Hope” posters made you feel is going to be met with a lot of sympathy here, you’re completely wrong.
You want to be pissed at Obama? Fine. He’s certainly done a lot of stuff people more liberal than him would be disappointed in.
If you think that means racism against him is fine or something he deserves or has brought on himself or not something you can be bothered to be concerned about or that his race is something you can make weird jokes about–and again, I don’t say this lightly and I mean it as politely, but as firmly as I can–you should not make those comments here.
They are not welcome.
Wow, B. I think you may have garnered your official first puma/firebagger. And so late in the season!