Idiotic, borderline racist comparisons, they’re not just for HuffPost anymore! (via)
And for all the heated rhetoric being thrown at him [President Obama] these days — soc**list, sellout, soporific, yadda yadda yadda — I don’t think anyone has accused him of a racial approach to politics. People want to know what he’s doing about unemployment and health care and climate change. In a very real sense, he seems to have transcended race.
(I was going to make a Tiger Woods analogy here, but at the moment that seems like a decidedly bad idea.)
It’s probably mostly just that Tiger is too shiny of an object for Kurtz to resist, but still.
John Cole
It isn’t just Kurtz. Hell, even Frank Rich is in on the tiger comparisons.
Emma
It’s what passes for political commentary in the Post these days.
DougJ
Hell, even Frank Rich is in on the tiger comparisons.
Where?
GReynoldsCT00
@DougJ:
the weekends’ column, referring to fallen idols and all that
4tehlulz
I was going to say Kurtz is a dipshit, but at the moment that seems like a decidedly bad idea.
jibeaux
I’m guessing the threat of a Tiger analogy was vis a vis “transcending race” (vomit) rather than Obama himself, but note to Howie: those in search of wit are not going to be looking to you.
mistersnrub
Jon Stewart needs to end this guy’s career.
spudvol
Have you forgotten all the times Bush was compared to Phil Mickelson?
jeffreyw
@jibeaux: To be fair, they will find half of what they seek.
The Ace Tomato Company
Oh c’mon Doug! Everybody knows that every non-white American is the equivalent of the Borg, in that they share one consciousness and are completely indistinguishable from one-another.
In fact, I base my entire opinion about how the U.S. should handle the rise of eastern Asia based entirely on the opinions of the eccentric Korean grocer down the street from me.
Mike E
Reminds me of some McCain campaign-event where a local pol (read: pecker) referred to Obama as “their Tiger Woods.” I thought, huh? Tiger Woods, billionaire golfer, tax-cut craver and probable GOPer — Oh, wait, he’s brown! Good analogy there, sparky!
John Cole
@DougJ: Here. Last paragraph second page.
DougJ
Last paragraph second page.
That was dumb. But he compared nearly everyone else in the world to Tiger Woods in the piece too, so it is different, IHMO.
DougJ
Reminds me of some McCain campaign-event where a local pol (read: pecker) referred to Obama as “their Tiger Woods.” I thought, huh? Tiger Woods, billionaire golfer, tax-cut craver and probable GOPer— Oh, wait, he’s brown! Good analogy there, sparky!
That was a Congressional candidate for NY-26.
Brick Oven Bill
Accenture has not yet got its friend Google to take down the Tiger ads, so enjoy them while you still can. Hey Tiger, it is probably a good standard practice to not send erotic messages in electronic format to Porn Stars.
Porn Stars can save them.
It is also bad form to read teleprompters in front of Greek columns, unless you know, or at least can place in your short-term memory, that these Greek columns are of the Doric Order.
The Olympic Committee may ask you about them. This can result in temper tantrums in the White House (‘They Hate Me’) and Michelle crying.
cervantes
Well, obviously, his intention was to suggest that TW has transcended race — not true of either individual, of course, but not obviously offensive as an analogy. Just kind of dumb, basically.
JR
Not just tasteless, but wrong (see, e.g.: Glenn “Reparations” Beck).
Ben
Kurtz is the biggest cornhole of all… can’t believe the post let Froomkin go and kept that douche nozzle.
Martin
I see they’re still trying to disprove Poe’s Law with the C-SPAN prayer caller. I approve of the effort.
slag
You don’t yadda yadda sex!
Oh wait. This isn’t the Seinfeld thread?
Zifnab
Hey this black guy over here reminds me of that black guy over there.
Why do we never get to hear about how Obama is just like [insert random white person]? At least every now and again someone brings up the fact that Tiger Woods is half asian.
Irrelevant,YetPoignant
@slag: I mentioned the bisque.
Zifnab
@slag:
“But you just yadda-yadda’d over the best part”
“Oh, I mentioned the Lobster Bisque”
slag
@Irrelevant,YetPoignant: If only Tiger Woods had stopped at the lobster bisque. If only.
asiangrrlMN
@Zifnab: Damn right! And I used to get scoffed at for saying that. I understand that in our society, anyone who looks like Tiger is taken for black, but DAMN IT! His mother is Thai. He’s half-Asian! That is his predominant heritage.
Ohhhhhkay. I need to back away from the coffee.
Um. Yeah. Ok. Lazy analogy. Plus, offensive with the whole transcends race thing, as if it’s ideal to become color-less (if you are not white).
jibeaux
@cervantes:
Yeah, I agree with that.
jibeaux
Back when Tiger was still becoming a household name and was on the way up, he happened to be on CNN or something on a teevee in a Thai restaurant we were in. The waiters excitedly shared with us how he was half Thai and 100% awesome, they obviously claimed him as one of their own. If Dave Chappelle resurrected his racial draft now, I don’t think he’d fare so well. Definitely picked after the Wu-Tang Clan.
BR
@asiangrrlMN:
Exactly.
I’ve often thought about this little question: what if Michelle Obama were white? Most of the media would describe Barack and Michelle’s relationship in that situation as “inter-racial marriage”, and I’m sure we would have gotten some articles during the campaign about Loving v. Virginia, etc. But Barack and Michelle’s marriage is equally inter-racial with Michelle being black. Of course that is lost on the media.
handy
This is patent nonsense. The built-in assumption here is that there is such a thing as “race politics” and above and beyond that, it is apparently uninterested in things like jobs, access to medicine, and environment. Our liberal media is very stupid.
Common Sense
@Zifnab:
To be fair Hitler, Stalin, Nixon and Chairman Mao were all white. I’m not sure about his genes way back when, but Carter is pretty much 100% honky himself. At some point Obama has apparently been just like all of them.
Peter J
If one for some reason would want to compare a president to Tiger Woods, wouldn’t Bill Clinton be more appropriate? At least then you would have flaw that they both share and not only just the color of their skin?
jibeaux
@BR:
It’s a good point, but it’s nothing really new and I think people do it across racial lines. I started reading the Hemingses of Monticello (good, but lengthy, didn’t finish it) a while back, and it was just interesting to learn about the children Jefferson had with Sally Hemings — I knew of course that they were “interracial”, and I had heard that they were light-skinned and some of them “passed” as white. What I didn’t realize before was that they were 7/8 white. Born enslaved, the children of a slave, because their great-grandmother was African. Everyone else in the chain was European. A weird thing, this “drop of blood” idea.
Ailuridae
Howard Kurtz must have missed that day where Glenn Beck said that health care reform was nothing more than reparations.
slag
@cervantes: You know, I hear that phrase a lot, “transcended race”, and I still don’t know exactly what it means. Is “transcending race” something that white people like?
drillfork
Tiger Woods is topical! Good writing should be topical!
Plus there’s the whole similarity in pigmentation thing…
bayville
From the Kurtz column.
Obama:
Went?
In case Mr. President hasn’t realized, 140 banks went belly up in 2009, including seven last weekend alone. I’ll lay 2-to-1 odds on Over-140 for 2010, and I’ll set the New Year’s Over-Under line at 200. And you can bet Citigroup will come looking for more bailout $$$$ by March. That shithole company is literally insolvent.
Not to mention the 10.2% unemployment figure and the continued increase in homes currently going through the foreclosure process.
Went?
asiangrrlMN
@slag: Yes. Like I said, it means that a person of color doesn’t ever talk about it or act like it.
slag
@asiangrrlMN: So, “transcending race” is the equivalent of “acting white”? Because there is no colorless person, to my knowledge. Would Howard Kurtz characterize people like Emenem and the Beastie Boys as “transcending race”?
AngusTheGodOfMeat
Why all the talk about Tigger, anyway?
Why are we animals always the ones who get the abuse?
drkrick
You might want to take another look at that list.
Brick Oven Bill
Zifnab, those people making the generalizations are ignorant Typical White People.
Ailruidae, universal health care is reparations, as the Journal of Blacks in Higher Education reports that blacks who are working earn approximately three-fifths that of working whites.
Thus this program would transfer wealth from whites to blacks on an ongoing basis. Glenn was right on this one. This fraction does not include those who do not work. I cannot find this data, although only one in three Americans works in accordance with the Jobs Report.
Dreggas
before long i expect to see some on the left saying that their relationship with Obama is now like Tiger and his wife’s and that they are all Elan now.
Mike E
AKA BoB
Napoleon
@John Cole:
But his comparison was to society as a whole. He didn’t just cherry pick black people and make the comparison. By the way, I think Rich’s basic point was right.
Tonybrown74
@asiangrrlMN:
Well, you do know that whenever you do something perceived as negative, people never seem to remember the other race’s you may be mixed with.
Not a surprise to me at all …
*sigh*
asiangrrlMN
@Tonybrown74: I know. It’s just that as someone who is from the ‘invisible minority’, it gets damn irritating to hear that everything is about black and white.
And, just to clarify, it was when people wanted to claim Tiger that I got scoffed at for pointing out he’s half-Asian.
@slag: Yes. White is the standard or the norm. The goal is to act like that.
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
@drkrick:
Now that our Chinese Banking Overlords own us all 6 times over, yellow is the new white.
bago
@Zifnab: Three words for you: Black Jimmy Carter.
Ailuridae
@Brick Oven Bill:
So what, exactly, does it take to get banned here?
As much as health care reform is a transfer or wealth its a transfer from rich to poor. I know you are a pretty open bigot but all rich people aren’t white and all poor people aren’t black. If it were reparations as you and Glenn suggest wealthy black people would be exempted from the taxes and poor white people wouldn’t be entitled to the benefits. So its reparations for people who don’t understand what reparations means.
Jeebus, you’re an idiot.
SadOldVet
As an older white male, my observations about Tiger Woods and his affairs are prejudiced by my history of working with a large number of races and nationalities in the military.
First, I get upset with the seemingly never-ending discussions of Tiger’s sex life. So what if he appears to be a hypocrite; we have millions of them in our country. What he has done is between himself, his wife, and their lawyers.
Second, unless all of these asshats discussing Tiger’s sex life will also start discussing John Ensign’s sex life; I wish that they would STFU. What Tiger did is immoral, but what Ensign did highly likely includes illegalities to his immorality.
Third, I have a perception that, for a very large number of white males, the dissing and demeaning of Tiger Woods is racially based and that they are using Tiger Woods as a metaphorical substitute for Barrack Obama. For many, I see all of the trashing of Woods as a way to trash all black males, especially Obama.
To quote from the Spanish philosopher, Jesus Christo: “Let he who is without sin cast the first stone!”
SadOldVet
For those who reply to Brick Oven Bill and his ilk, keep in mind that he presents a facade of being a stereotypical wealthy republican.
The mantras of this class of republican are:
– More is never enough.
– I’ve got mine, f*ck you.
Brick Oven Bill would probably have you remember the teaching of Jesus that “It is easier for a camel to fit thru the eye of a needle than for a poor man to go to heaven.”
lamh31
I posted this in the earlier thread, but it seems to fit here, especially in response to BoB
From Ta-Nehisi: “There Are No Poor White People”
http://ta-nehisicoates.theatlantic.com/archives/2009/12/there_are_no_poor_white_people.php
cervantes
Well, for those who inquired about this idea of “transcending race,” it is better to show than to tell.
Some years back I did a “minority needs assessment” study for a small city. (Their title, not mine.) A nightclub owner was alleged to be turning away Black and Latino customers, so a member of the task force that was overseeing my work, a guy named Adrian, went with me to talk to him. The guy said (Janet Malcolm quotes), “I’m not a racist at all. I mean Adrian, look at you, you’re wearing a coat and tie. I don’t even think of you as black. You look just like a normal person.” Adrian’s jaw dropped. “But I am black,” he pleaded, almost wistfully.
Does that help? And y’all are right, Tiger Woods is only black by the one drop theory, as he has often said himself.
lamh31
From Ta-Nehisi: “There Are No Poor White People”
http://ta-nehisicoates.theatlantic.com/archives/2009/12/there_are_no_poor_white_people.php
Randy P
@Brick Oven Bill:
Too shiny to resist.
There’s something very “Underpants Gnomes” about that chain of logic. Let’s set it up.
1. A earns $45000, B earns $60000.
2. Health Care Reform
3. ????
4. Therefore money is being transferred from B’s pocket to A’s.
Can somebody trace step 3 out for me? Because I’m missing the part where money is leaving B’s pocket, and also the part where money is entering A’s pocket.
Comrade Kevin
@slag:
I’m sorry, but “yadda yadda” is from Lenny Bruce. Seinfeld, er, appropriated it. Go find “Father Flotsky’s Triumph” some time.
jenniebee
@Brick Oven Bill:
The FDA needs to get on this shit. Let me give them an assist.
WARNING: If you retire or take care of your kids full time, this will cause you to not work any more, which may turn you black. BLACK blackity black black black. Black.
Rick Taylor
__
I wonder what it would have been like if he’d transcended race, but only in an unreal sense.
someguy
None of the president’s opponents oppose him on racial grounds. They oppose him on the merits. Just ask them.
The fact that the racist elements in this country just happen to be the people who oppose the president, is purely coincidence.
Brick Oven Bill
Re: So what, exactly, does it take to get banned here?
I should definitely be banned for challenging you Ailuridae. But the data is the data. Sorry. Here it is. I don’t think the source has a bias.
You are correct that all white people are not rich and all black people are not poor. This is called a ‘normal distribution’.
Because of the progressive tax code, socialistic policies necessarily result in a transfer of wealth from relatively successful groups to relatively unsuccessful groups. I don’t personally see Barack transcending the basis for his refusal to befriend people who were not ‘Structural Feminists’ or ‘Marxist Professors’ based on the color of their skin.
Also note the SAT score data by race and income level in the same link, second table down on the right. You will note where the ‘privilege’ is in America-2009. People should be compensated by the value they add to society, not the color of their skin.
Brachiator
@Brick Oven Bill:
So let’s see. Women earn on average 70% of what men earn. Therefore, all women are black. And health care reform is reparations for women.
QED, BOB style!
Panurge
@Randy P:
3. B pays taxes that A doesn’t while both get the same access to health care.
What the wingnut crowd assumes is that (1) this is necessarily unjust because the free market is just pluperfect and that (2) B makes just $60K a year instead of being Paris Hilton.