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This post is in: Post-racial America, Assholes, Our Failed Media Experiment
I think the thing that pisses me off the most about the birtherism and the coverage is that no one will come out and state that what is obviously motivating this crap is racism. Period. End of story.
If Obama was white, we wouldn’t be politely rebutting lunatics questioning his birth certificate for four fucking years. But because he is black, we can spend tens of thousands of hours listening to drooling idiots wonder whether or not he is a real Murrikan.
It’s really that simple.
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[…] John Cole: I think the thing that pisses me off the most about the birtherism and the coverage is that no one will come out and state that what is obviously motivating this crap is racism. Period. End of story. […]
[…] Birtherism — I think the thing that pisses me off the most about the birtherism and the coverage is that no one will come out and state that what is obviously motivating this crap is racism. Period. End of story. Yep. This. Birtherism is the Intelligent Design of electoral politics. A foolish, stupid stalking horse that manages to lend credibility to people’s superstitions/prejudices. […]
kwAwk
I disagree. Republicans would use any dirty trick and maneuver they could find to try to discredit any Democratic president.
I personally believe looking at this through the lens of racism is counter productive. These people are just upset because they’re told day after day from the likes of Limbaugh and company that they’re right about everything.
They’re infallible except the lesser Americans keep voting for people other than those they want to see elected.
Raenelle
At least it’s become unacceptable to express outright racism. What you cannot express, you cannot on some level think. So, the role of those exploiting racism is to come up with the code language that allows it to continue. Racists are merely ignorant; those who exploit it are sociopaths.
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
They would say “Get that Nigger out of the White House” if they could get away with it.
Dave
Amen, John. Birtherism has EVERYTHING to do with the President being a black man with a non-Anglo name. Hell, I’d go so far as to say it drives a majority of the Tea Party and the insane vitriol on the Right.
NC Reggie
But yet the media does any kinda of mental gymnastics required not to paint these mouth breathers as ‘racists.’ Its insane that so many people refuse to call a spade a fucking spade (im black btw so I can use the term spade haha)and call out this bullshit for what it is. I mean, John McCain was born in fucking Panama and Sarah Palin’s homestate was former Russian territory but hey, that black guy with the funny name can’t possibly be a legal American.
aimai
It racism, and xenophobia, and misogyny all rolled into one. Because one of the key elements is this right wing fantasy that Obama’s mother wasn’t a “real” citizen either, or at least not capable of granting her child citizenship simply by virtue of her citizenship. There are lots of societies, anthropologically speaking, where men and women are considered to contribute different things to their offspring-the men are the “bone” and the woman the “blood” side with bone being indistructible and “real” while blood is ephemeral. At least in archaic Hindu caste based systems. While in Medeival Europe theories of reproduction for a long time included the notion that women were nothing more than a field, planted with a fully formed homunculus by the male sperm. So women contributed nothing to the child.
I see the whole thing as fascinating, and disgusting. A mish mash of cultural hysterias that doesn’t have to be rigidly logical or make any sense. Its more of a general feeling of disgust, fear, confusion, anxiety–a fog rather than an argument. But a lot of it comes down to pretty classic anxieties about black men and white women producing hybrids that can’t be properly controlled by society. SAme as it ever was with the confederate party.
aimai
Mark S.
Some people say . . .
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
@kwAwk: No, this goes beyond just him being a Democrat, because with his mom being an American, that should have ended it even if he wasn’t born in Hawaii. It’s more than just not having a Republican in the White House.
Comrade Javamanphil
Whatever national morning news my wife had on this morning (not CBS) actually did a very good job of debunking each lie told by Trump in the latest round of neo-birtherism and even pointed out how deluded the Republican electorate is on the issue (without stating it quite this
harshlytruthfully.) Still, I agree for some not small percentage of birthers, racism is the main factor and yes, this should be pointed out each time this story is covered.Just Some Fuckhead
Imagine if Obama had been born in the Republic of Panama instead of the United States. We’d already be dealing with a constitutional crisis.
Uloborus
I disagree. If he weren’t black, they’d have found some OTHER stupid ass meme to challenge his legitimacy.
However, it SHOWS OFF their racism beautifully, doesn’t it? I mean, while they sat around and went ‘Okay, what can we come up with to claim he’s not really president?’ and someone piped up and said ‘Well, he’s a nigger.’ and EVERYONE THOUGHT THAT WAS A GOOD IDEA.
NC Reggie
Also, last i checked, no one ever demanded to see the birth certificate of our Anglo presidents. Sure, you can argue that this is the standard demonization of Dem presidents but come on. No one ever questioned their legitimacy as American citizens, there was always the implicit assumption that while they maybe pinko commie negro/jew/homosexual/brown people lovers, that at least they were legal US citizens.
david mizner
Yup. Donald Trump is running a racist non-campaign campaign for president. NBC should be under pressure to drop his show, he should be facing boycotts, etc. Instead, the media are like, Heh, Heh, that’s just Donald being Donald. Racism is becoming more acceptable, not less.
MattF
I’d say Birtherism starts with racism but it’s sustained by right-wing paranoia. So, 1) Palin/Trump can appeal to the racists and the nuts and 2) ‘respectable’ anti-Birther Republicans politicians can appear to disavow the nuts and still appeal to the racists (see, e.g., Barbour, Haley).
Wisdom
All he ever had to do was release his long form.
dmsilev
It really is fascinating, in a horrific sort of way. The racial overtones include, at least to me, a strong undercurrent of “how dare that white woman have a child with one of …them”, which descends from all sorts of crap going back to the segregation era and continuing back to the antebellum slavery period of legends about brutish near-animal black men ravishing helpless white women.
I’m pretty sure that the birthers would call Obama a mulatto if they thought they could get away with it.
kdaug
Dunno. Vince Foster, Monica Lewinsky, et al.
It may be a larger straw to grasp at, but the grasping will be done.
Mowgli
It’s more complex than simply racism, although that is a component of the fuel.
It is part and parcel of a larger conspiracy theory (which, by the way, is the TRUE common theme among the hard-core right wing these days) that IF they can prove Obama is not a citizen, THEN all the legislation passed since he was in office is NULL AND VOID. AND they can prosecute their favorite liberal targets, such as Pelosi, for fraud. So it’s not only kicking him out of office, but ERASING his presidency as if it didn’t exist. THAT’S why Birtherism has stayed on- it enables a much larger fantasy.
Chuck Butcher
Somehow what the birthers seem to ignore is that GWB had control of the DOJ, FBI, CIA, & etc and certainly was no friend to Obama. This supposes a bunch of incompetence and even conspiracy on the part of the Fed Govt to give him a pass.
heh
soonergrunt
We would never be having this discussion if his name were Barry O’Bannon, and his father was born in Kerry instead of Kenya.
Dave
@kdaug: But that would be covered by the “Ayers wrote his book!” kind of bullshit. This goes beyond Foster-level political hackery. This is driven by his race and it’s abysmal that it is still, on some level, tolerated by some people in this country. Too many of which have some level of political or social power.
Ella in New Mexico
I disagree, slightly. The idea is to use whatever suppressed feelings of disgust, distrust or fear can be manipulated in these boobs who tune in to keep them in line.
“Whatever it takes, Whatever works” is closer to the philosophy of modern Republican oppositional campaigns. This issue keeps coming up because they are having to work really hard to keep their base fundamentally distrustful of a President who is clearly not a bad guy at all, seems like a middle of the road leader and who they say they have more confidence in than their own party members, when polled the right way.
Obama’s being black, having a “shady” origin is merely the most convenient tool in the shed, the prize in the Cracker Jacks for righties because racist fear is probably the most easily manipulated human weakness.
Just go back and review all the Clinton era smear campaigns–they were no less ridiculous. His sexual escapades, Hilary’s murder of Vince and her Butch-lesbian takeover of the White House. We were still hearing about how to buy the videos halfway through the Bush administration, just for good measure.
I hate these wankers. I hope Donald Trump wakes up with a raging case of herpes II enveloping his stubby freckled member in painful sores.
Hermione Granger-Weasley
@kwAwk: I think you are wrong. The conservative elite has made a full court press to suppress birtherism from CPAC 2010 to CPAC 2011. It has not worked, there are more birthers in the GOP base now than a year ago.
Birtherism is subliminated racism, because overt racism is a social taboo in contemporary American culture.
Independents don’t like it, minorities don’t like it, and youth doesn’t like it…because racists are not cool. You can no longer win a general election without some part of those demographics.
Any prospective GOP candidate that endorses is not actually running.
Palin just rejected birtherism, while weasel wording for the base. That is why I think she is running, and Trump is not.
kc
Actually, Leonard Pitts, Jr. just came out and said it in a recent column. Called the birthers “jackasses,” too.
http://www.miamiherald.com/2011/03/29/2140199/donald-trump-and-the-birthers.html
Joe Beese
Not sure what “coverage” you’re referring to.
The lefty blogs quiver with indignation every time some right-wing asshole makes hay out of birtherism. But if it made the cover of Time magazine, I didn’t notice.
Elisabeth
I’m sure, if you ask, Birthers will claim they’d have the same concerns if Barack Sr. was from, say, Canada and was white.
AnderJ
The statements of Birthers are not intended as factual statements, so it is unfair to cast blame. Besides, John mere reaction to these bracing stories about Obama’s heritage have already moved the discussion about natural born citizenship to new grounds!
PaulW
It can be both racism AND the Republicans’ overriding desire to discredit/defund/destroy the entire Democratic party.
There were rumblings like this back when Clinton was President (that he was a President without a mandate because he won without a popular majority in a three-way race). But with Obama, they do have a racial component (“He doesn’t look like us! He grew up in Indonesia! His father’s a Kenyan!”) with which to discredit Obama and make his entire administration “illegal”.
What is shocking – and so very much a part of the racism – is how driven the critics are, and how public they are about their disdain for Obama’s very existence.
It would be easy to label every Birther a Racist. But that’s a hard accusation to prove… until one of these Birthers flat out use an obviously racist remark (not the N-word, but something akin to an obvious racial insult that can’t be dog-whistled away).
WaynersT
Racism is definitely a major component but it’s mostly because he is a democrat. Remember Hillary Clinton was a murderer, Bill ran drug smuggling rings in Arkansas etc. Racists may be taking the lead on this one but it’s the same group of people. Best Bill Maher quote ever
“Not all Republicans are racists, but all racists are Republicans”
If he were a non caucasian – republican with a funny name do you think it would be the same? No way, no how. See Jindal, Bobby.
Not only has anyone never asked to see his birth certificate but the guy actually completely changed his name and is still the great hope of the GOP.
Bmaccnm
@Wisdom: His birth certificate, issued in Hawaii in 1961, looks like my birth certificate issued in Pennsylvania in 1959. My birth certificate has always been adequate to prove my citizenship. He shouldn’t be held to a higher standard than me.
mickey g
I’m sure every one of these fucking birther clowns voted for the guy that was born in Panama.
cmorenc
@kwAwk:
It’s a mistake to assume there’s one causal explanation so dominantly correct that the alternatives are either incorrect or so secondary as to be but minor factors. BOTH are correct.
1) The GOP hard-liners truly DO regard any democratic President who wins election as inherently suspect personally and unworthy of deserving to hold the office;
2) They believe it would be difficult for a democrat to win the Presidency without his margin of victory in critical states coming from voters who are either: a) of suspect eligibility, if not outright fraudulent; b) among those bona fide technically eligible, a substantial portion are too ignorant and stupid to deserve to vote.
3) In the case of a black president, racism is an underlying emotional motivation toward constructing theories undermining his legitimacy. Since overt racism isn’t acceptably permissible (not that there isn’t some), they construct claims nominally along non-racial grounds.
Note e.g. that technically, John McCain, who was born in Panama, was not a “natural Citizen” of the United States to any greater extent than Obama would have been even had he not been born in the US (because of American citizen parentage in both cases).
Ella in New Mexico
I disagree, slightly. The idea is to use whatever suppressed feelings of disgust, distrust or fear can be manipulated in these boobs who tune in to keep them in line.
“Whatever it takes, Whatever works” is closer to the philosophy of modern Republican oppositional campaigns. This issue keeps coming up because they are having to work really hard to keep their base fundamentally distrustful of a President who is clearly not a bad guy at all, seems like a middle of the road leader and who they say they have more confidence in than their own party members, when polled the right way.
Obama’s being black, having a “shady” origin is merely the most convenient tool in the shed, the prize in the Cracker Jacks for righties because racist fear is probably the most easily manipulated human weakness.
Just go back and review all the Clinton era smear campaigns—they were no less ridiculous. His sexual escapades, Hilary’s murder of Vince and her Butch-lesbian takeover of the White House. We were still hearing about how to buy the videos halfway through the Bush administration, just for good measure.
I hate these wankers. I hope Donald Trump wakes up with a raging case of herpes II enveloping his stubby freckled member in painful sores.
The Ancient Randonneur (formerly known as The Grand Panjandrum)
I believe it to be more sinister than you make it sound. If Obama’s mother had been a black Kenyan woman and his dad a white American man we wouldn’t have quite the fuss over his citizenship. In the end it’s more about keeping white women away from black men.
zmulls
Actually, my slightly contrarian view is that it’s because he’s *Hawaiian* as much as anything else. A lot of people keep forgetting that those tourist islands in the middle of the ocean are actually one of the 50 states. If Obama had come from Sheboygan you would be getting less of this nonsense.
Plus his father was not an American. That’s a huge factor in the ‘get the Democrat’ sweepstakes.
I don’t discount that racism plays a part (father was *African*) but I also think it’s because “nobody’s from Hawaii”…..
Dave
@PaulW: The entire “controversy” is the dog whistle. If citizenship was really the issue, then McCain would have been getting hammered for being born in Panama. But since he’s white, he barely got a once-over on the issue and then it was gone.
kwAwk
@Belafon (formerly anonevent):
The rules were different back then. That didn’t grant citizenship to a child of a parent who hadn’t resided in the US for a certain period of time after becoming 18.
If by the law at the time of Obama’s birth Obama hadn’t been born in the US he wouldn’t have been a citizen.
But he was so it’s a moot point.
biff diggerence
It’s certainly an appropriate discussion on the 150th anniversary of the attack on Fort Sumter.
Unfortunately, the rhetoric from the 27 percenters sounds no different than that of the Secessionists of 1861.
The Political Nihilist Formerly Known as Kryptik
The thing that pisses me off isn’t the racism.
It’s the fact that this is so utterly transparently full of grade-A aromatic, full farm fresh bullshit, and yet we have a significant number of Americans swallowing it whole heartedly to the point that it actually influences their vote. This shouldn’t be even a “debate” or an issue”, and yet it is. How, why, and what the fuck is wrong with this fucking country that it is an issue?
The racism offends me morally and makes it all the more, sick, but it’s the flat out brains-turned-off stupidity that offends me as a human being.
Steve
@NC Reggie: Back in the day, there were plenty of conspiracy theories claiming that Chester A. Arthur was really born in Canada, or maybe even in Ireland. As a political issue, it proved about as potent as birtherism.
kdaug
@Hermione Granger-Weasley: I think your are right. The money is recoiling, but the shriveled pit of old-school (50’s,60’s) conservatism is going to do what it does. I think the R’s best hope is to wait until the elders die off – until then, they’re increasingly fucked.
MonkeyBoy
During the GWB reign one often heard from the right that American should support him because he is the president.
For the right to negate this “respect for authority” view, they need to question whether Obama is legitimately the president. One approach is Birtherism, another is claims like ACORN stole the election for him.
It doesn’t matter if such legitimacy issues are factually refuted – as long as they can be kept in the news some people will feel his legitimacy is still an open issue which is the important goal – not the confusing (lack of) evidence supporting it.
Birtherism and ACORN have racist tie-ins. Are there any attacks on Obama’s legitimacy that don’t have racist elements?
ChrisNYC
Chris Matthews has said it over and over and over, since the campaign.
Here’s the latest. “Basically, they don’t like him cause he’s black.” Matthews, from the beginning, has basically said, “They want to make this guy the other, say he’s not an American, because he’s black.” He really gets it.
http://thecompetentconservative.com/video-christ-matthews-goes-nasty-on-trump-slams-his-birtherism/
kerFuFFler
@dmsilev:
That or “macaca”….
CT Voter
@AnderJ: Also too, the math demands that the serious and courageous dialogue of the birthers be heard.
BerkeleyMom
When and how did Obama get his first passport? Did he fake his birth certificate then? Was it a gov’t conspiracy to legitimize Obama so he could one day run for the presidency?
I mean these folks are just crazy. The dude’s bi-racial. It’s driving them nuts. Flouride also too.
Suffern ACE
@kc: Think that this is more jackass stupidity against liberalism and democrats. It can keep going because the president had an “abnormal” childhood. It would never have started if his parents hadn’t divorced, his father had been from Peroria, arcane citizenship laws weren’t available, his mother hadn’t remarried, and he hadn’t spent the early part of his youth in Indonesia. He’s shown what the damn state of Hawaii requires and that should be the end of it.
rickstersherpa
John, probably because you were a Republican in those years, you don’t remember all the stuff Conservatives did to Clinton undermine his legitimacy. David Brock revealed this in “Blinded by the Right” when he recorded this in his account of the Arkansas Conspiracy. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arkansas_Project.
Because the President practially scandal free (Yves Smith and William Black would say he has facilitated the banks control fraud of the U.S., and it may be true, but it is not one the more active conspirators, the Repulicans, can call him on), they have had to get really loony. And it is a way for Neo-Confederates to dog whistle about Obama’s race, but it is not just racism, it is primarily politics and the preservation of the oligarchs privileged position.
Observer
No, Cole, it’s not the end of the story. It’s not even the story.
It Obama wasn’t black, there’d just be something else to make a conspiracy about. Your post is highly annoying.
Obama being black is an attribute. He has other ones too. When you’re trying to tear someone down, you figure out their attributes and try to somehow use each one against him. That’s what politicos do. It’s their job. If he was white and from the South and slept with a lot of women they’d have called him called Slick Barry.
Stop crying racism. I know what real racsim is. This is just politics. Highly, highly annoying. And I for one am g-damned tired of white people trying to gain some advantage by using a historical wrong as some sort of rhetorical club in their private political battles to gain some perceived higher moral ground.
Just leave it alone, didn’t happen to you, don’t use it.
jrg
46% of Mississippi republicans think that interracial marriage should be illegal, but the press won’t point out the (obvious) racial component of Birtherism.
Why, you ask? Fairness and balance, of course! Some may claim that it’s because the press is full of spineless wankers, but opinions differ.
cleek
i want to disagree, because i think it’s unfair to accuse people i don’t know of racism. but it seems inescapable that these conspiracy theories get a huge boost from racism and xenophobia.
a white man with a similarly exotic birth and family history would get a lot of attention from conspiracy theorists, too. but i think it takes a little something else to give the Birther version of Obama’s birth story such widespread acceptance.
cat48
It became clear to me that racism was a factor when I heard Huckabee talking about growing up in Kenya with the mau mau tribe. The radio host was truly disgusted with the mau mau tribe. Sigh…..
Cnn & Msnbc just love this story w/Trump. The last week they’ve discussed it several times a day.
CT Voter
@Dave:
It no doubt helped that Democratic Senators submitted a nonbinding resolution stating John McCain was an NBC:
John McCain is an NBC
Hmmm. Why won’t any Republican do that now, for Obama?
Chris
@kwAwk:
Sorry, but IMO, the “birther” attacks, like the “he’s a Muslim” attacks, are only plausible because of the man’s dark skin color, vaguely Arabic sounding name and African-immigrant father. He looks different to the Republican base in a way that Carter and Clinton didn’t. That’s why they find it plausible that he is completely different, e.g. not an American.
Carter and Clinton could be (and are) accused of being agents of a Muslim conspiracy, but not of being actual Muslims themselves. They could be accused of being traitors, but not actual foreigners. Because as white, Baptist Southerners, they simply look, sound and act too familiar for most Americans to buy it. Not true of Obama.
biff diggerence
Black Penis in White Vagina yields a President.
The howling will continue.
Hopefully, a second term will force a large percentage of the Nuts to off themselves.
Don’t wait, assholes. Do it now.
cmorenc
@Elisabeth: @Elisabeth:
Of course they’d say that, precisely because they know there’s zero chance of them actually being presented with that alternative hypothetical. It’s like predicating the purported objectiveness and non-racist nature of a negative comment about blacks with “some of my best friends are blacks”, without actually having to know any blacks.
Chris
@david mizner:
Oh, it’s always been acceptable. Today it’s birther shit. Right after the civil rights victories, it was Nixon and Reagan’s welfare queen and law and order rhetoric. Before the civil rights victories, well…
Chris
@Chuck Butcher:
Bush was a liberal.
Over and done with, next?
Just Some Fuckhead
How do we know Obama is really black if we can’t believe his birth certificate?
Jack Bauer
Nope. They would be just as hard on this if he was white, I’m convinced of it. Recall how insane they were over the Clintons? They just made shit up and ran with it.
They are racists, but they hate liberals more.
Omnes Omnibus
@Observer: If you are AA, you don’t know the things that are said when you are not in the room. As white person, I can see and identify racism as well. Sometimes it may even be easier for me because some assholes will say thing like, and I quote, “I don’t like black people.” I can actually spot the racism there. If you think race is not a factor in the hysterical reaction towards the President by people on the right, you are simply fooling yourself.
cleek
@Just Some Fuckhead:
right.
how do we know his father was actually Obama Sr ? without a paternity test, there’s no way to be sure. Obama’s real father could have been anyone with dark skin ! Pam Gellar could be right: our president is Malcom X’s son!
Villago Delenda Est
If you’ll recall, the vile dogshit that are the Paulistas whined that John McCain, son and grandson of Naval Officers, wasn’t eligible to be President because he was born outside of the 48 states. He was born at a Naval hospital in the Panama Canal Zone to two American citizen parents, and that supposedly disqualified him.
While there is absolutely no question that much birferism has to do with the fact that Obama is near, the insanity of the “not a natural born citizen” trope applies to white guys who don’t pass the fucktard ideology test, like John McCain.
Chris
@Hermione Granger-Weasley:
True, but you can neutralize or mitigate that to some extent by going “yeah, racists aren’t cool, but they’re ancient history, and those people wanting affirmative action for blacks and Hispanics are the REAL racists because nobody should have privileges, y’know?”
Probably would’ve worked on me when I was just coming out of high school. There’s quite a few suburban, middle-class white kids even in my generation that it would work on.
Roger Moore
@Dave:
I think that there’s a mix. If Clinton taught us anything, it’s that the Republicans will do anything they can think of to delegitimize a Democratic president. In that respect, the attacks on Obama are nothing new. The racism gives shape to the attacks and probably lends them extra vitriol, but they would have come up with some kind of nasty attack against any Democrat who managed to win the Presidency.
Mandramas
America success owns a lot to the latino immigrants and descendant of slaves. They provided a poor, docile and cheap workforce. Also, european immigrants formed a huge, relatively educated middle class. WASP just climbed at the top of the pyramid quite easily. This caste system worked well on the XIX century, since it is the ideal setting for a “free market” condition. America entered on XX century with a huge resources and installed capacity that quickly allowed to become a superpower. Then, soc1alist revolutions and the recurrent depressions (far common on second half of XIX century) triggered an equalitarian movement to avoid a social crisis.
Racism and lower class exploitation was instrumental to America’s rise. So, the question is: what do you prefer, to have a fair and just country, or to have a powerful and rich country?
Of course, what worked in the past don’t necessarily will work in the future.
PurpleGirl
@kwAwk: The rules were different back then. That didn’t grant citizenship to a child of a parent who hadn’t resided in the US for a certain period of time after becoming 18.
Wrong… that residence thing was about a naturalized child. A child who was born, say in Italy, was brought here and became a citizen through the naturalization process. It did not apply to a natural citizen, and President Obama’s mother was a natural born citizen, who I don’t believe lived outside of the US until after he was born.
dww44
@Comrade Javamanphil:
Could you perhaps ask your wife what TV news outlet this was? I would love to revisit that on their website and play the video if there is any. I need something to counter my visual memory of Trump’s recent inteview on the Today show where Meredith Viera allowed Trump, with only the mildest of challenges, get away with one after another vile lies about our President.
Tsulagi
In Trump’s case, don’t think so.
I’ll denounce him right along with Stalin, but Trump is just going for a piece of what sells in the country these days: Stupid. See Palin, some actually seriously considering Crazy Eyes Bachmann as a possible prez candidate without breaking out in hysterical laughter (love that one), Beck, and the hillbilly heroin connoisseur, Limbaugh.
There’s big bucks in it. First and foremost, Trump is a salesman. For him selling the stupid to an eager market gets his show higher ratings, a Fox gig, and just as valuable as money to Trump, people stroking his ego by talking about him. That’s it.
Villago Delenda Est
@The Political Nihilist Formerly Known as Kryptik:
The entire teatard movement would not exist without turning off brains.
Which is why I am consumed with anger at these people. The stupid, it burns.
Hermione Granger-Weasley
@Chris: no social media when you graduated, right?
Was there hip hop culture then?
kwAwk
@cmorenc:
Well, my thoughts are based on the fact that these same people who think Obama was born in Kenya, are the same people who believed in the 1990’s that Bill Clinton was regularly having people killed in order to advance his political career.
To me it doesn’t matter who on the Democratic side would have become President, they would have found something to believe that would have invalided that person in their minds.
Obama having a foreign sounding name and the background that he did made focusing on those areas convenient. The root, in my opinion, of issue to me comes from the compulsive need of the conservative to invalidate anybody who disagrees with them simply because they believe that anybody who disagrees with them is morally inferior.
That is Ayn Rand in a nutshell.
Hermione Granger-Weasley
@Tsulagi: Trump may just be a stalking horse for some “serious” candidate at this point.
Mebbe Handsome Mormon Guy promised him the VP slot….or Bachman or Palin.
Who can say?
Chris
@Roger Moore:
Oh, absolutely. It’s just the nature of the attacks that changes. The charges “he’s not really an American citizen” and “he’s a Muslim” could not have stuck to either Clinton or Carter.
Of course, I’d argue there’s still a racial component to a anti-liberal rhetoric in general, regardless of the President’s color. A ton of the resentment for white liberals comes from the impression that they’re [deleted]-lovers, which in some ways is seen as even worse than being an actual [deleted].
Hermione Granger-Weasley
@kwAwk: It is obviously subliminated racism.
Don’t be thick.
Chris
@Hermione Granger-Weasley:
I graduated high school in 2005. Yeah, there was definitely hip hop culture. Why do you ask?
Mandramas
America success owns a lot to the latino immigrants and descendant of slaves. They provided a poor, docile and cheap workforce. Also, european immigrants formed a huge, relatively educated middle class. WASP just climbed at the top of the pyramid quite easily. This caste system worked well on the XIX century, since it is the ideal setting for a “free market” condition. America entered on XX century with a huge resources and installed capacity that quickly allowed to become a superpower. Then, soc1alist revolutions and the recurrent depressions (far common on second half of XIX century) triggered an equalitarian movement to avoid a social crisis.
Racism and lower class exploitation was instrumental to America’s rise. So, the question is: what do you prefer, to have a fair and just country, or to have a powerful and rich country?
Of course, what worked in the past don’t necessarily will work in the future.
danimal
@Wisdom: Does anyone seriously believe that producing the “long-form” birth certificate would change this controversy. I have no doubt that every line on the “long-form” birth certificate would be inspected by the Rathergate crew and some kind of trumped-up anomaly will be pounced upon to ‘prove’ it’s a fake.
You can not provide enough proof to dissuade conspiracy theorists. Each proof is just an excuse to go further down the conspiracy rabbit hole. Remember, Obama provided the official state record on the internet already. The version he provided is enough to get a driver’s license, prove citizenship for aid programs, become a registered voter, etc. It’s the real deal and, constitutionally, all 50 states recognize it under Article IV, Section 1 of the US Constitution (the Full Faith and Credit Clause).
The amount of Bull#$it on this issue is a clear indicator that the reason for the controversy is NOT what the Birthers claim. For some, it may be politics, for others, a Declaration of Stupidity, but for many, it is undoubtedly racism that is behind the charge.
Nylund
Birthers certainly didn’t seem to care about the legal problems associated with McCain being born in Panama (and there are actually some issues there).
I think racism may be part of it, but it may simply be this years version of “Bill Clinton killed Vince Foster”…ie, a wacky conspiracy theory aimed at whichever Democrat currently sits in the oval office.
kwAwk
@PurpleGirl:
The constitution does not define natural born citizen except for the 14th amendment which states that anybody born in the United States is a United States citizen.
Being born of US parents does not constitutionally make you a natural born US citizen, the legislation of Congress does and at that point in time children of one US parent born outside the US to a parent who hadn’t lived in the US for a specified period of time were not considered natural born citizens.
Observer
@Omnes Omnibus: I don’t think you understood what I wrote. Race is always a factor. It’s just not *the* only driving factor.
Carter was a pussy, Clinton a dope dealer and a killer, Gore was a liar, Kerry a liar and a pussy, and now Obama’s a muslim kenyan.
This is equal opportunity false accusations. Where’s the racism?
Villago Delenda Est
@Nylund:
The same rules that apply to McCain (at least one parent is an American citizen) applies to Obama, even if the birthplace is on Mars.
This didn’t stop the Paulistas from having a conniption fit about McCain’s “foreign” birth.
This matter was settled in fucking 1790!
Kilkee
@Wisdom: You are aware that he CAN’T, right? In other words, HI officials have made it clear that (1) they have seen the long form which indeed does exist, and the details of which are accurately reflected on the much-maligned COLB, and (20 State law prohibits Obama from “releasing” the original. He is entitled to inspect it (but he knows he was born in HI, and he’s busy) but even he cannot “release” it for public consumption. So shut up about that. And maybe, instead, ask youorself the question birthers never ask: why (and how) the hell would an impoverished 18-year old white girl fly half-way around the world to give birth in a third-world hospital?
Chuck Butcher
I think it is a mistake to call birtherism just racism or just politics or just anything. I think a whole lot of things play into it, including racism, xenophobia, politics, and general discontent; varying in degrees and components by individuals. All that said, it is just plain stupidity.
PurpleGirl
@kwAwk: His mother was a citizen, he was born in Hawaii, which was a state.
He was not born outside of the US. He was born to a US citizen in the United States.
ETA: I have a cousin who was born in Hawaii, of two US parents. She was born a citizen. Hawaii is a state. It was when my cousin was born, it was when President Obama was born.
Villago Delenda Est
@kwAwk:
No, but in 17fucking90 it was decided that having one American citizen as a parent makes you a natural born citizen…if you can prove it (which takes care of all the unintended offspring of GIs on leave/liberty at various fleshpots around the globe).
celticdragonchick
@danimal:
The Rathergate crew at LGF pretty much all believe that the tea baggers and birthers are racist loons as well.
Mr. Long Form
Are you embarrassed by your short birth certificate? do you wish you had a birth certificate you could be proud of and that others would envy? Mr. Long Form has what you need. When you see the look in your favorite teabagger’s eye, you won’t regret the cost, especially when you sign up right now …
Bmaccnm
@cleek: If he were Malcolm X’s son, then he’d automatically be a citizen because BOTH of his parents would have been NBCs. Can’t have both ends of the crazy.
PurpleGirl
@Mr. Long Form: LOL.
Kilkee
@Mr. Long Form: I get a lot of this Long Form spam, myself. Should I be concerned?
danimal
@Mr. Long Form: How many inches can I add to my short form? I’m very interested and would like to sign up for your newsletter…
Trinity
@aimai: Well stated!
Cheryl from Maryland
Every time someone mentions Donald Trump as a Presidential candidate, I think of when Trump was saved from death by having his brain transplanted into Bill the Cat’s body (Bloom County comics), and he spruced up Bill’s litter box by naming it the “Trump Dump”.
Mantisounds
Imagine if the press and/or the birther-curious had been similarly passionate about “getting at the truth” regarding W’s Air National Guard service?
Town
Black people are not Real Americans™, period.
Never have been, never will be.
Real Americans™ are white, straight and Christian.
If Bill Richardson had somehow won the presidency they’d be running this birther stuff on him, too, except he’d be a suspect “anchor baby” born in Mexico and snuck across the border.
Birther = “I can’t believe this black guy is the President!”
Citizen_X
@Observer:
Lee Atwater just called. He said to tell you that these two things are not mutually exclusive.
This is my country. It is happening to me.
Paul in KY
@Chuck Butcher: I’ve mentioned that & then they’re all ‘oh, he was incompetant, Barack could have pulled the wool over their eyes.’. This about a man they worshipped 2 or 3 years ago.
Incompetant (or evil) when invading other nations I can see, but they were never incompetant when it came to running a political campaign & ratfucking your opponents.
sukabi
if it hasn’t been pointed out already, I’ll politely say that Obama is as much white as he is black…
we seem to have been transported back to the old south, or South Africa… where even a drop of “other” blood rendered you “not”.
Now those fuckin’ ORANGE people can go back into their spray cans.
Paul in KY
@Hermione Granger-Weasley: I’m pretty sure The Donald is not going to run. I don’t think Sarah! will either.
salacious crumb
@Elisabeth: i refuse to vote for anyone from Canada. Canada sucks.
Paul in KY
@kwAwk: So what the fuck does that have to do with Pres. Obama’s situation?
salacious crumb
all this hand wringing amongst is much ado about nothing, in my opinion. yeah we got Birthers going bat shit crazy about Obamas citizenship, and ya its racism, but most of these old white geriatric folks know their game is up(who were born before 1975)…like Chris Rock recently commented, its their final act of lashing and writhing before they go down final time (like you know wounded snake spitting and lashing out because its knows its time has come) not saying racism doesnt exist amongst the younger generation (read alexandra wallace of USC)..still we as a nation have come a long way and this is just a blip. These old folks are still fighting a war of the past they know they have lost and they wanna do everything they can to still feel relevant, have a purpose in life and what not…
sukabi
@salacious crumb: dude, not all white folks born before 1975 are retarded, backwards, racist fuckwads… and you’ve probably just pissed in 75% of the folks on this boards cereal.
Paul in KY
@salacious crumb: Personally, I don’t think being born before 1975 makes you ‘geriatric’. Geez, give a 1959 born brother a break, don’t put me in the ground yet ;-)
Comrade Mary
@salacious crumb: I’m in Canada and I refuse to vote for anyone in Canada. #cries#
Anyway, birthers express one or more of these traits in my book:
1) Casual ignorance. Can be rectified with thoughtful discussion if no other traits listed below are present.
2) Aggressive ignorance that is difficult to distinguish from true stupidity.
3) True stupidity.
4) Racism and/or xenophobia. May co-exist with any other trait, but is not required to be present.
5) Political opportunism.
6) Hair poisoning.
sukabi
@Paul in KY: apparently if you’re over 36 you’re now considered old… nice… or salacious crumb is really one of Ryan’s hacks and has just tipped his hand on where the “cut-off” is for “people we marginally give a shit about”…
Paul in KY
@sukabi: I’m guessing the Salacious one is a youngun.
J Frank Parnell
Credit to Jake Tapper, whose report on Maya Soetero-Ng’s response to Trump is titled “President Obama’s Half-Sister Is Asked About Birther Nonsense.”
He also tweeted this earlier today:
“AND also a reminder that i block birthers/truthers, so believe what you want but keep the drek out of my twitter stream”
sukabi
@Paul in KY: I know… thought I’d return the favor and piss in his cereal.
Sasha
I disagree, John. What motivates these loons is that Obama won the presidency fair and square, and without any doubt of legitimacy (unlike Bush43) and they are clinging to any straw that can sustain the fantasy that he’s not the legitimate president.
The fact that he doesn’t look like any of our previous presidents, however, does help reinforce their idea that he’s not really “one of us” and probably “one of them”.
Paul in KY
@sukabi: Thank you, on behalf of geriatric half-dead people such as us.
kwAwk
How about this.
Turn this around and look at it from the other direction. If Obama was a Republican and held views similar to Eric Cantor and all other factors were held constant, is there anybody here willing to take the position that the ‘birther movement’ would exist on the American right?
I personally doubt it, and if you can’t make the arguement that it would exist, then the core of the issue must be something besides race. I would say that core is base on Randian
philosophyreligion more than anything else.salacious crumb
@Comrade Mary: aha, i was just having fun at expense of Canadians….seriously u folks voted for Harper..wtf…cmon Elizabeth May for Prime Minister this time
salacious crumb
@Paul in KY: There was some study done a yr or so ago by some university that said people before before 1975 tended to have the most conservative views..ok so I was generalizing a bit …so apologies to people born in 1959 :-) but i think you got the gist of my point
sukabi
@kwAwk: the one flaw in your hypothesis, is that Obama would have never been the Republican candidate. period. He wouldn’t have been allowed to get that far in the process on the Republican side of things — EVEN IF HE WANTED TO.
My Truth Hurts
Ladies and Gentlemen, I present to you “Black Bush”
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-2871033510590191580#
(this is the chapelle show spoofing what bush would seem like to white people if he was black, and I think, what obama does look like to certain white people)
sukabi
@salacious crumb: if you were to take it back to prior to 1945, then you might have something with the study… or limited the study to only folks in the deeply southern states… but things have been progressing wrt race relations / attitudes…
you never would have had the sweeping changes of the 60’s without folks born before 1975. A good part of those folks were born in the 40’s & 50’s…
Villago Delenda Est
@sukabi:
DING DING DING DING DING!
Prezactly, sukabi. Prezactly.
Jim Pharo
What boils my bottom the most is that the 2008 GOP candidate was not in fact born in the US. Nor the 1968 Presidency-seeking father of the (likely) 2012 GOP candidate.
It’s always projection with these people. Always projection.
Comrade Mary
@salacious crumb: SOME PEOPLE voted for Harper. I would scoot bareass down a saguero before I did that.
My riding has been solidly Liberal for years, but we’ll see if we actually get a Green in this time.
salacious crumb
@sukabi: ok you win.
Omnes Omnibus
@Observer: The racism is in the fact that they chose to pursue this particular avenue of attack. I believe that I understood what you wrote; I simply disagreed with it.
kwAwk
@sukabi:
Its sometimes nice to think that no African American could ever succeed in the Republican Party, but that doesn’t explain the rights absolute devotion to Clarence Thomas.
Truth be told, Republicans would gleefully jump at any chance to break up that 90% block of African Americans voting for Democrats.
Jay in Oregon
@Wisdom:
‘Scuce me while I whip this out…
Virginia Highlander
@Villago Delenda Est:
Nicely done.
Virginia Highlander
@Omnes Omnibus:
This.
My undeniably racist parents are losing their minds over Obama to a degree unreached under the Clintons — who they despised, by the way. Looking around me, my parents are far from alone.
Villago Delenda Est
@kwAwk:
It appears that the last 45 years of GOP Presidential election strategy has eluded your analytical skills, as limited as they appear to be.
Redshift
@kwAwk:
How is that “looking at it from the other direction”? A “birther movement” wouldn’t exist in that case because the need to deny the legitimacy of a Democratic president wouldn’t exist to combine with racism, not because the racism doesn’t exist.
That argument is like declaring that the Clinton impeachment was reasonable and legitimate because Republicans wouldn’t have impeached the equivalent of Clinton on their own side. Wha?
Redshift
However, the real problem with the media treatment is that they go on endlessly discussing the “evidence” rather than asking the question that would get to the root of birtherism: “Have you ever seen the birth certificate of any other president, and if not, why are you suspicious of this one?”
(This would require the followup that “some guy said something that made me suspicious” is not an adequate answer.)
kwAwk
@Villago Delenda Est:
lmfao. Yeah, because Republicans had one strategy in 1968 it means they have exactly the same strategy and intentions now.
Grow with the times dude.
Villago Delenda Est
@kwAwk:
Wow, you really are as stupid as you post.
kwAwk
@Redshift:
We’ll you’re right that what you said makes no sense. But it also has nothing to do with what I said.
What I said was that the reason Republicans feel it necessary to challenge Obama’s citizenship, thus the validity of his election has to do with the need to believe that their opponent’s election was fraudulent or invalid.
Think ACORN. ACORN wasn’t a community organizing project it as an evil empire set up to steal elections from them.
They can only lose if elections are stolen from them don’t you know?
gwangung
@kwAwk:
I might take the position that this would have been circulated in the primaries and prevented Obama from getting the nomination entirely.
Sorta like the South Carolina rumor about McCain’s daughter.
kwAwk
@Villago Delenda Est:
I suppose you missed Ken Mehlmen apologizing a few years back for the cynical and racist campaign strategies of the Republican Party of the Nixon era?
I suppose you missed George W. Bush spending 8 years reaching out to hispanics?
But hey, you know what you know from 1968.
gwangung
@kwAwk:
I’m not sure why you’d laugh; if it gets them votes, why change?
kwAwk
@gwangung:
Hmmm… did I just imagine the McCain/Palin ticket in 2008?
Omnes Omnibus
@kwAwk: You are pointing out isolated examples of people doing damage control, not signs of a change in policy.
soonergrunt
@Mowgli: This is very perceptive. Of course, this particular aspect of birtherism ignores 200+ years of law, like the De Facto Officer Doctrine, but hey, if you’re going to engage in fantasy, why not go all the way.
Villago Delenda Est
@Omnes Omnibus:
Such subtlety eludes someone who is bound and determined to be in denial about the nakedly racist nature of the modern GOP.
All of the deserting coward’s outreach to Hispanics has been pissed away over the last three years, just look at the situation in Arizona.
Observer
@Omnes Omnibus:
If Obama wasn’t from Hawaii the whole birtherism thing wouldn’t work since the attack depends in large part on that Hawaii is halfway around the world and somehow “foreign”. But no one accuses birthers of being Hawaii-ists.
So you’re saying that using strategies which depend in part on obliquely taking advantage of people mentally referencing the blackness attribute of a person is racism.
But then you’re holding blacks to a wildly different standard…you’re saying if you’re black and a public figure, then the most important attribute when interpreting something is that you’re black and don’t you forget that and opponents can’t use that attribute for any purpose because it’s a special attribute. Which it isn’t.
gwangung
@kwAwk: You’re certainly ignoring what actually happened. And you’re baldly saying that the same people who promulgated that rumor in 2000 wouldn’t have done a birther rumor on Obama.
I don’t think that’s a good supposition to make.
kwAwk
@Omnes Omnibus:
You’re free to believe what you want. I believe that if in 2008 Republicans would have had a prominent sufficiently conservative African American in their ranks that didn’t come off as a crazy man, ala Alan Keyes, that person probably would have been on the ballot in 2008 instead of Sarah Palin. You know, the whole we have a black man too strategy, as opposed to the we have a woman too. Think Michael Steele, only competant.
It also wasn’t that long ago that Colon Powell was being touted as the first black presidential candidate.
winoclown
Maybe this has already been dismissed as a counter-argument to the birther crap, but Obama’s mother was an American citizen and doesn’t being born to an American citizen automatically make one an American citizen?
john F
While I think racism is a component of some of this birther stuff, I think it’s mainly because he is a Democrat in the White House so the GOP will use whatever is available to discredit him. When Ah-nald beat Gray Davis for the Govn’r of California, the Republican base was fired up that maybe he could follow Reagan’s course and run for the Presidency. Orrin Hatch even drafted legislation at the time to amend the Constitution. So at one time, the GOP base wasn’t all that bothered of a foreign born US citizen running for Pres. IOKIYAR
kwAwk
Why do Republicans love Alan Keyes and Clarence Thomas but hate Barack Obama? Political ideology, not race.
Chris
@kwAwk:
Yeah, and he’s gotten holy hell for it, and it’s one of the things the Tea Party Movement points to when saying he was really a liberal and they’re tired of establishment Republicans in Washington pulling that shit on them… just saying.
PaulW
@Dave:
It came and went because Democrats don’t roll that way. Democrats do not question a candidate’s birth origin, race, gender, etc. What they do question are the qualifications the candidate has for office (such as “Does a failed CEO who clung to other successful people because of his daddy’s financial connections deserve being President?”)
Obama’s Birth Certification remains a major topic of discussion for the Republican party leadership (Limbaugh, Rove, Roger Ailes, et al) because they do roll that way. To them, any Democrat is suspect simply for being a Democrat in the first place. And they can’t abide the slight possibility of a majority of voters ever voting for a political party they cannot abide. Remember, the Republicans over-riding agenda is to rule under
ReaganNixon’s banner for a thousand years.I mentioned earlier, the template of GOP Hatred here is how they reacted to Clinton: Christ, I drew a comic strip (not very well) for the South Florida campus paper about how the Republicans were over-reacting to Clinton’s very existence (and yet, when Clinton finished his term, the nation was still here and operating smoothly. Republicans still ignore that fact). When I re-read about all the outrage that was pouring out against Clinton, the one underlying vibe I got from the Republicans was that “he’s interrupting our perfect eternal imperial rule! How dare a non-Republican run this country!”
Obama’s skin color is simply making the GOP act far worse than they ever did to Bill or even Hilary (whom they really despised as an ambitious career woman). So I still say it’s a combination of both racism and an obsession with One-party-rule.
Bill (aka 10amla)
@salacious crumb: Two things:
Part The First: If I should be carted off to the geriatric ward, I hope there are cute post 1975 born asian nurses there.
Part the Second: Just for accuracy’s sake; while Alexandra Wallace may have belonged at USC, she WAS regrettably a UCLA student.
Egan
@kwAwk: You are right about what’s motivating this: a childish inability to accept losing, being wrong, that your guy didn’t win, etc. As a result, that childishness leads to a need to delegitimize the other side. That is the ultimately goal here: to delegitimize Obama, his electoral win, those who voted for him, and his Presidency. However, this approach to delegitimizing him is based in racism.
Swoosh
Exactly what data would a “long form” contain that is not contained in the various documents/copies etc. that have already been made public?
The copy that was distributed does have an authentic serial number, signature, and embossed seal (everything that is necessary for one to legally obtain a US passport). What else is there? An affidavit by Kenyans that he wasn’t born there?
Omnes Omnibus
@Observer:
I am not saying that at all. At least, to the extent that I can parse your rather convoluted sentence, I am not saying that. I am saying that it is my belief (reinforced by observation and experience) that, to a large extent, opponents of the president see a black man, and only a black man, when they look at him and they see this as making him somehow illegitimate as president. I do not dispute that the GOP would try to delegitimize any Democrat, but I think the fervor is increased by racial issues.
sherifffruitfly
This was the case when Clinton supporters invented birtherism, and it remains the case to this day.
jazzgurl
I tell you what, let’s just say that Obama wasn’t even born,he is just a figment of our imagination! There, that should satisfy the arsecross Donald and his adoring little deep seated racist fans.Yep, take the white man who is slick and dumb, but, cast the black man out who has more brilliance and class in his big toe!
A fricking jackass of a grown so-called billionaire is happy to embarass himself to the world talking this shit daily….and ‘Ameriklans’ encourage him further with interviews and polls. Don’t blame Donald, blame the turds in the media who call themselves the msm.
As the saying goes’ YOU CAN”T BUY CLASS AND RENT BREEDING!’
Fugitive Pope
@Uloborus:
They would have found another meme? But not a racist meme. Yes, he’d be attacked for some other reason. Racist birtherism is just gravy. Gravy on the stew of the 150th anniversary of the advent of the civil war. It wasn’t about racism, it was about states rights. It’s not because he’s black, it’s because he’s . . . ok, it’s about because he’s black.
hitchhiker
@Observer:
That’s the point. If you think of someone’s race as an attribute that can be used to tear that person down, by definition you’re thinking like a racist. Of course it’s a political tactic, but it’s a political tactic that only makes sense in the context of our racist society.
jazzgurl
Stop flipping trying to over intellectualise all this shit. Racism is racism period, whether it comes couched in words, actions,or subconscious entitlement.
Some just do not like the idea of a black man and his family in the White house, added to which he is a Democrat, added to which he is sharp, bright,classy, articulate,added to which he is showing up many of the white esteemed presidents in terms of achievements….hence the constant comparisons and revisiting the past!
Race is part of life,as everyone is loyal to their race, that’s natural, but what is not natural is present day open warfare on your own president who happens to be
‘of colour’. Read Steven Weber’s ‘ The Impossible Truth’. Yep, he nails it to the core. It is on Bob Cesca’s site today!
sukabi
@kwAwk: The right’s love for Clarence Thomas is due to the fact that
1) he NEVER opens his mouth to disagree with them or oppose their backwards shift of the country to the 12th century.
2) he’s a useful tool in that he’s helping to enact their changes to the law, EVEN WHEN IT’S AGAINST WHAT WOULD BE GOOD FOR HIM PERSONALLY
3) he’s willingly used for countering charges of racism in the GOP… just like you’re doing above.
When you can count the number of minorities in your party that are in positions of prominence on one hand, you’ve got a problem.
As for supporting Alan Keyes, they knew he was crazy and didn’t have a chance of getting the nomination, they just used him to maybe siphon votes away from Obama.
Pat in Michigan
As always, you’re full of crap and yourself.
jummy
this is as appropriate a time and place as any to note that charles johnson was a birther who believed obama was a “seekrit muslim” who holds “shockingly racist anti-white attitudes” and redesigned the u.s. flag with his signature “o” before he reversed time and “never” believed these things.
jummy
i don’t find cole’s contention at all controversial. but some of the comments which follow are hard to take.
@sukabi
1)”NEVER” is simply a misstatement of fact. the extent to which justice thomas is very often in agreement with conservatives is due to the unremarkable fact that he is himself a conservative. i suppose this is remarkable to you because you, presumably know…
2) …”WHAT WOULD BE GOOD FOR HIM PERSONALLY”. because he’s black.
’nuff said. really no need to go on to item three.
as for counting the number of black americans in prominent positions, i think that regardless of the administration, you could always count them on one hand. in fact, there are fewer in pres. obama’s administration than there were in pres. bush’s. that is, unless you factor in your notion that black americans who don’t think the thoughts you require them to aren’t “real” black people.
returning to item three, it’s not so much that justice thomas is used to counter progressives charges of racism against conservatives as it is that the subject of black conservatives so reliably inspires progressives to demonstrate their own racist assumptions about black people.
with regard to alan keyes, i have to agree. that was a rancid and blatantly racist contrivance on the part of the illinois gop. it was sickening to watch first-hand. keyes is a pathetic figure, and if there is an example of a mind broken by internalized hatred, it is he.
that use of a black person by a white party apparatus to attack a black nominee was the most obscene such example since the democrat party hired anita hill to attack justice thomas.
Yutsano
@jummy:
Uhh…what? Link or GTFO.
jummy
@Egan: i think you have it quite correct.
jummy
@Yutsano: obviously i’m speaking of the 2004 illinois senate race and the justice thomas confirmation hearings.
Wolfdaughter
@salacious crumb:
Come on, not all of us born before 1975 are racists or birthers or even right wing!
Bear in mind that a lot of us protested the Vietnam war, although a number of those people went on to become yuppies. But don’t paint us all with the same brush! I get REALLY tired of this meme.
Dave Briggman
How is it that we’re racist against a guy who’s as much white as he is black? Some of us just believe in the government complying with its own law.
Darkrose
Why isn’t there a “The President is Near!” tag yet?
Bobby Thomson
@jummy:
Since your mother appears to have dropped you on your head, everyone in the room knew you were talking about Thomas’ confirmation hearings. However, you failed to provide any support for your claim that the Democratic party “hired Anita Hill to attack” Thomas. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof, and you lack even ordinary proof. This raises the eternal question of whether you are misinformed, knowingly dishonest, or just plain fucking stupid. At this point, I don’t care. At a minimum, you are reckless with the truth.
DOC
@Wisdom: No. you watch if he ever releases the long form they will claim he forged it
but who am I but a subversive:
1. I am a Christian but not born again
2. I support NPR
3. My parents are Reform JewsI supported their conversion
4. I am white, wife is black
DOC
Extreme Liberal
Right on, John. I wonder if there is ONE black person in the entire country who thinks he wasn’t born in this country? One sane black person, that is. There are a few black teabaggers and Republican consultants who may think that.