I know not all you of share my views on what a big role race plays in American politics, but I have a hard time believing teabaggers would be using this rhetoric if Eric Holder was white (h/t JK):
Andrew McCarthy, the former Chief Assistant U.S. Attorney who led the prosecution of the 1993 World Trade Center attacks, also gave a speech, declaring that Holder didn’t “understand what rule of law has always been in wartime.” He said, “It’s military commissions. It’s not to wrap our enemies in our Bill of Rights.”
“Traitor!” someone shouted.
Edith Lutnick, who works for the Cantor Fitzgerald Relief Fund, told the crowd, “My brother, Gary, lost his life that day.” The 9/11 victims, she said, “were murdered by the terrorist Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, and we do not want him and his fellow-terrorists tried in that building. . . . We need to tell Eric Holder that we will be victims no more.”
“Lynch Holder!” an onlooker cried.
Maybe I shouldn’t go here, but as long as we’re on this topic, I might as well add that I don’t think the reaction to 9/11 would have been the same if it had been Cabrini-Green rather than Cantor Fitzgerald that had gotten hit.
Update. This is fucked up (from a commenter at TNC who, to provide some context, seems to lost a relative on 9/11):
Did Ta-Nehisis “Tee-hee-hee” Coates ever object when it was suggested President GW Bush be strung up or as his likenesses were hung in effigy hundreds of times during his Presidency? Is it always okay to suggest hanging a white Republican? Wasn’t that what they were suggesting, Tee-hee-hee? Or was it is effigy? You being a person of color, obviously makes you the world’s foremost expert on peering into a person’s heart and mind-reading so you know. Discern for us their intent, please, Tee-hee-hee. I am currently hanging in effigy a printed off picture of you, Tee-hee-hee, over my computer with the words ‘Lynch Coates’ written on the photo. Discern that.
El Cid
It’s both race and region. The strongest opposition to Obama by far comes from the American South.
Kryptik
This is the same Andy McCarthy that was patron saints to the birthers, right?
jeffreyw
Speaking of 9/11 and the Towers, is there any progress at all on building something there?
TR
How does trying KSM in New York make them victims?!
I lived in NYC during 9/11, and everyone I know there wants these assholes brought back there for justice.
Show them we’re not afraid. Show them we live by our principles and they didn’t change us one goddamn bit. Show them what America is all about.
gopher2b
Yes, it’s true, there are racist people in this country.
John Quixote
Hey DougJ, check out this TNC post from yesterday.
http://ta-nehisicoates.theatlantic.com/archives/2010/02/lynch_coates.php
I don’t know quite what to say.
DougJ
@jeffreyw:
I sort of lost track but last I checked there was some kind of progress. Personally, I think the 1700 foot Freedom Tower idea was nuts.
jeffreyw
Here’s your daily hawk.
DougJ
@jeffreyw:
Cool pic.
GregB
Most Republicans don’t believe that brown skinned people deserve human fights.
It really is that simple.
-G
John Quixote
What kills me about that TNC post is that he NEVER plays the race card. Ever.
jeffreyw
@DougJ: Thanks, several more in the stream. A pair were all over the feeder this morning.
Heresiarch
So the commenter is saying, “Hey! All us tea-partiers aren’t hate-filled, murderous racists! I’ll prove it by hanging Ta-Nehisi Coates in effigy!”
I can’t quite wrap my head around this.
TR
I can’t wait to read some 10,000 word articles in the Washington Post wondering why Republicans have such a hard time reaching out to minorities.
aimai
Its on point that the majority of opposition to Obama is southern and that means that when people wail their anguish they are going to use southern tropes and images–sometimes, perhaps, in that astounding innocence that Americans always profess when someone reminds them of their own history.
As for what would have happened if the 9/11 had hit cabrini green–well, the glee with which this would have been greeted and the joy with which the developers would have rushed to fill the hole with luxury hi rises simply doesn’t bear contemplating. But if you have to you just have to look at the right wing response to Katrina and the whitening of New Orleans.
aimai
brent
from a commenter at TNC who, to provide some context, seems to lost a relative on 9/11
Not sure how much context it provides really. That is, I don’t believe that the awfulness of his behavior is mitigated or shaded in any way by his loss. I am honestly not sure how it would be.
Given his particular mentality, which seems to be that of a rather dim and mean spirited 6th grader (I mean, “Tee Hee Hee.” you gotta be kidding me), I suspect that he wasn’t an especially pleasant person even before his loss. Who knows, really? But nothing about what he writes persuades me that his core personality was ever one of thoughtfulness and of generous spirit.
John Quixote
@Heresiarch: Committing an act of terrorism against a fellow American in response to a terrorist act………I feel sorry for this guy. His rage combined with his grief has driven him to insanity. Although he may have been nutters before hand, playing the 9/11 card in order to spew racist bullshit is a new kind of crazy. Get that man some thorazine.
El Cid
@TR:
They so totally could if the libruls weren’t so condescending and if Jimmy Carter hadn’t helped ACORN steal several hundred billion dollars worth of mortgages from banks to give to the blacks.
MoeLarryAndJesus
I really am sick to fucking death of Angry White Guys – especially since most of them have nothing to be angry about.
El Cid
Via Gawker, a different view:
Also, if professors are by definition librul, didn’t she therefore shoot other libruls?
cleek
you need to tell yourself that, first, dimwit.
Josh Huaco
@MoeLarryAndJesus:
No shit. I’m a white guy who’s angry about angry white guys.
licensed to kill time
__
Are those Lynch Coats anything like white sheets? You know, with holes in ’em?
(also, “printed off” picture?)
mr. whipple
@Josh Huaco: Another.
John Quixote
@Josh Huaco: And another.
Heresiarch
@John Quixote:
Is it okay if I don’t feel sorry for him?
Kryptik
@cleek:
The intense irony of that statement is that the fear inherent in all this outrage against holding the trials shows more victimhood than anything.
Part of getting past being a victim is getting yourself past the event you were a victim of and not letting it burden you. Obviously though, most of them are so paralyzed by fear of swarthy brown men that they can’t help but still be victims of terror.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Victims of what, exactly? I realize arguing with someone scarred by this kind of grief, grief that has been nurtured and encouraged and exploited for almost a decade, is pointless, but… WTF?
scav
Josh and mr. whipple. What’s the opposite of an oreo?
PTirebiter
I followed TNC’s link to the guy’s website last night. What’s really disturbing is how relatively reasonable these people can appear to the casual visitor. It’s like seeing Eric Erickson on CNN without having his other unhinged comments for context.
John Quixote
@Heresiarch: Sure.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
I did a google search to see if my librul memory was defective, and “Bush hung in effigy” (which has been googled enough to auto-fill) mostly turns up assertions similar to these, pictures of giant puppet Bush heads, and Bush being
burned or hung in effigycelebrated as a liberator according to local custom in IraqEl Cid
@scav:
Golden Chocolate Cream Oreos.
PTirebiter
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: I couldn’t help but think of how differently Pat Tillman’s family has comported themselves. They’ve refused to play the victim or dupe for anyone.
Annie
@PTirebiter:
I, too, followed the link to his website. What you realize is that HE is the website, and he just links to the usual wingnut crowd, including Lynne Cheney’s new organization. If other 9/11 families are part of the site, they are not acknowledged.
I hate when one person claims to speak for an entire group, particularly in the case of 9/11 families…
El Cid
More Harvard elite educated liberals.
hal
Let’s completely gloss over and ignore the racist history of lynching in America in order to make a false equivalency. I’m going to guess the vast majority of people “hanging” Bush in effigy were white, and were not objecting to Bush because of his race.
Genine
@MoeLarryAndJesus:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TG4f9zR5yzY
Enjoy! :-)
gnomedad
Not to discount the racism, but “Burn the Constitution!” would be a more appropriate rallying cry for these people. They don’t give a shit about limiting government except when a Democrat is in charge of it.
ppcli
@hal:
I don’t doubt that the lynching suggestion is “worse” when an african-american is the target, but we shouldn’t leave the impression that hanging anyone in effigy is appropriate or acceptable, even President Bush.
More to the point – there is a huge difference between what happens in a large, rambling demonstration or blog comment board by anonymous weirdos and a remark that goes (apparently) unchallenged and uncorrected in front of a former assistant U.S. attorney.
JoyceH
No ‘think’ about it! Just look at Katrina, where the survivors of a hurricane weren’t even able to WALK out of their underwater, storm-ravaged city because MEN WITH SHOTGUNS were manning the other side of the bridge and turning them back! Try to imagine that happening if, say, Newport Rhode Island was flooded following a devastating hurricane and the residents were not allowed to walk over the bridge to escape the destroyed buildings, underwater neighborhoods, and bloated bodies floating in their streets. The residents of New Orleans were treated like invaders rather than survivors. I never thought I’d see US citizen disaster victims treated that way by their own fellow countrymen.
Ruckus
@MoeLarryAndJesus:
Agreed.
And especially when what they profess anger at has no connection whatsoever with them.
MoeLarryAndJesus
@Genine:
Hah, I love Louis CK.
If I had any real musical talent I’d do a parody version of McCartney’s “Silly Love Songs” called “Angry White Guys.”
You’d think that people would have had enough
Of Angry White Guys.
But I look around me and I see it isn’t so.
Some people want to fill the world
With Angry White Guys.
What’s wrong with them?
What’s wrong with them?
I’d like to know.
Hob
@hal:
And I’m going to guess that the vast majority of those people were imaginary.
I spent the Bush years going to protests in New York and San Francisco, which, if one were interested in finding really insane and obnoxious protesters to make the left look bad, would be the places to look. People said and did a lot of stupid shit; no one hung any fucking effigies of Bush. If that ever happened in the United States, it was at some private Spartacist garden party. The crazy man who wrote to Coates never saw any such thing; he just assumes it happened because that’s the kind of thing he knows the hippies and the blacks are always doing, and because assuming it happened gives him permission to indulge his own sick murder fantasies.
Jules
Being a victim and over emotional drama queens seems to be a big thing among conservatives.
They seem to forget that you are only a “victim” if you want to be and justice demands a reckoning. If one of my family members had been killed on 9/11 you can be sure that I would want to be able to face one of the bastards involved and see them pay the price.
Jules
@MoeLarryAndJesus:
A classic for our times….
Liberty60
I think Obama’s election was for white people similar to the aquittal of OJ-
It suddenly cracked open divides that had been invisible. At OJ’s aquittal, suddenly black and white people who had worked together peacefully for years suddenly found themselves on opposite sides, shocked by the reaction of the other side.
White people who for years appeared calm, tolerant and non-racial suddenly became unhinged at Obama’s election, and of course now have to speak in dog whistles and code.
In 2007 I wouldn’t have believed it, but it is undeniable now.
On another blog, I pointed out that Obama is actually more moderate than say, JFK. I posted excerpts from the 1960 Democratic platform, showing how amazingly liberal they were back then. (full emplyment, strong union protections, government health care…)
Still, the other posters insisted Obama is a dangerous un-American radical, far different and strange than anyone who has come before him.
Strange and different, in that his skin is a darker shade.
Liberty60
I think Obama’s election was for white people similar to the aquittal of OJ-
It suddenly cracked open divides that had been invisible. At OJ’s aquittal, suddenly black and white people who had worked together peacefully for years suddenly found themselves on opposite sides, shocked by the reaction of the other side.
White people who for years appeared calm, tolerant and non-racial suddenly became unhinged at Obama’s election, and of course now have to speak in dog whistles and code.
In 2007 I wouldn’t have believed it, but it is undeniable now.
On another blog, I pointed out that Obama is actually more moderate than say, JFK. I posted excerpts from the 1960 Democratic platform, showing how amazingly liberal they were back then. (full emplyment, strong union protections, government health care…)
Still, the other posters insisted Obama is a dangerous un-American radical, far different and strange than anyone who has come before him.
Strange and different, in that his skin is a darker shade.
asiangrrlMN
Good lord. I am very dispirited. Shit. I can’t even be snarky here.
@brent: I agree with you. I said it about Joe-the-not-Plumber in a different context, but the nature of a person is more pronounced once it comes to light or once the person goes through a crisis. This guy was an asshat before 9/11. It is clear to see that by his writing.
@El Cid: FH#3, I want those cookies, damn you! I have never seen them before.
Jackmormon
I am currently hanging in effigy a printed off picture of you, Tee-hee-hee, over my computer with the words ‘Lynch Coates’ written on the photo. Discern that.
This is fucking disgusting.
Mike G
…join us to wonder why the Repuke party shit on all these attributes for the eight years of willfully-ignorant, incompetent and disastrous misrule of Cheney and Bush, and why this club cheerled their destruction until we suddenly became outraged when Obama took office.
Blue blazer and prep school tie required. Make contacts for your future career as a crony capitalist milking government influence.
Josh
Having heard TNC on the radio, I think it’s actually pronounced “Tee-ha-hee.”
bob h
You have to understand that the people in Lower Manhattan are doing God’s work, and we wouldn’t want that to be inconvenienced in any way by the road closures that would accompany a trial of those who murdered 3000 of their friends and associates.
Church Lady
@El Cid: The meeting was in Manhatten, not Birmingham.
mclaren
Ha. I read that as someone in the audience calling Andrew McCarthy a traitor for ridiculing and dismissing the Bill of Rights.
Which I would agree with, actually. Our constitution, right or wrong. The bill of rights: love it or leave it. If you dislike trial by jury and habeas corpus, emigrate to North Korea.