Racism is dead in America. Really! Every neo-confederate and Republican with a pesky pointy white hood rash says so. It is so dead that we can get rid of civil rights law, they argue, because racism is so dead that nobody would even notice that those onerous suffocating laws were gone. Or something to that effect.
I don’t suppose that a tired coffin with enough nails in it to look like a chia pet needs one more. If it did, though, I guess the word of their own presidential front-runner, who is killing in South Carolina, ought to do it. See, Herman Cain thinks that racism is out there like gas in an elevator and lying on your taxes. Criticizing him is racist. Covering sexual harassment allegations is really, really racist.
KRAUTHAMMER: But does race have any part of that? Establishment, maverick, yes. What about race?
CAIN: Relative to the left I believe race is a bigger driving factor. I don’t think it’s a driving factor on the right. This is just based upon our speculation.
Cain knows this because he is black. Way blacker than Barack Obama.
Boortz noted that Barack Obama also had not participated in the civil rights movement (Although, in all fairness to Obama, this may be because he was born in 1961). Later on, Boortz asked Cain how he’d do in a debate with Obama, which then prompted both men to agree that Obama has “never been a part of the black experience in America.”
Claiming special privilege on behalf of his race, check. Knee jerk racism claims, check. Cain seems to embody everything that Republicans hate in a politician. And he is their frontrunner. Go figure.
***update***
Edits for grammer.
***critical second update!***
Cain had an attack of basic logic, blames Perry now. I guess we can forget about the racism thing.
Maude
Condi Rice has made a statement and doesn’t like what Cain is doing in relation to race and the harassment issue. Wow.
Baud
Well, racism would be dead in American if it weren’t for those crazy liberals and their racism. Stupid racist liberals. Why won’t they let conservatives end racism?
Cat Lady
Could we finally be at…. peak wingnut?
Ron
@Cat Lady: Nah, peak wingnut is still a lie.
Baud
@Cat Lady:
Ain’t no such thing, Miss Lady.
ABL
I so am enjoying watching the wingnuts losing their shit about this. I just find it fascinating.
Democrats are the Real Racists™.
GOP Blacks: Better than DemoBlacks.
Fun.
Rommie
If Sarah Palin really does jump into the race, then we’ll know for sure Toonces is driving the clown car. And that would mean, no, peak wingnut is still ever higher.
Baud
@ABL:
Shorter GOP platform: I know you are, but what am I?
Villago Delenda Est
@Baud:
The liberals are still pissed that the Union lost the War Between the States, that’s why! They’ve never forgiven Stonewall Jackson for burning down Cleveland…that’s the Cuyahoga River’s job!
dmsilev
@Rommie: If Sarah Palin gets into the race, that will be proof positive that God loves us. And has a sense of humor.
And Another Thing...
@Cat Lady: OMG. DVR the first 15 minutes of Anderson Cooper show tonight. Dana Loesch thinks Cain might be a stalking horse for Romney, Carville & J Rubin talk over each other & laugh.
Cain is absolutely inept in dealing with this.
Obviously, the only extant racism is librul racism.
What a bunch of clowns. These characters shouldn’t be trusted with any level of responsibility.
Michael D.
It should also be noted that Herman Cain and Neal Boortz are great friends and that Cain often substituted for Boortz. I would also guess that Neal Boortz is the producer of the Herman Cain show because Boortz is the ONLY reason he has a show.
Hardly a critical interview.
But you all knew that.
lamh34
So on twitter some saying that one accuser has changed her mind and doesn’t want to come forward. The accuser’s husband is a GOP lobbyist.
Marginalized for stating documented facts
No mystery. Cain’s not a Mormon.
The evangelical Christian dominionists who make up the Republican base would rather vote for the bones of Mao Tse-Tung than for a Mormon. Anyone, absolutely anyone who is not a Mormon, no matter how obviously insane or how grossly incompetent, will beat Mitt Romney for the Republican presidential nomination.
What is it about “fanatical evangelical Christians hate and fear Mormonism as a satanic cult” do you people not understand?
Michael D.
Also, Tim F. spelled color with a U.
Gay. European.
Or Canadian.
lamh34
I take great satisfaction in this tweet:
LMBAO!
Jenny
Palin went 3 weeks without any attention. It must have been killing her.
She’ll basically announce that she may reconsider every 2 weeks for the next 18 months.
Villago Delenda Est
@Marginalized for stating documented facts:
They’re just a stand in for the REAL satanic cult…the cult of the Papists.
Michael D.
@lamh34: I wish I had a BA to LO.
Tim F.
@Michael D: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lRjMsf-ZbBA&feature=youtube_gdata_player
The Ancient Randonneur
Wow, so racism doesn’t really exist but you DO use it to fend off an attack?
I’m ready FSM! Take me now!
Villago Delenda Est
@lamh34:
Ari Fleischer, vile sack of loathsome shit, fretting on twitter.
Reads like…victory!
Cat Lady
@Rommie:
She’s not going to jump in – too much work – but, I think she’s watching and waiting and hoping to become a kingmaker. Her flying monkeys haven’t found their new habitat yet and she wants to still be a playa. Wingnuts abhor a vacuum.
jl
Insanity is not dead in America. Nonsense neither. We know that for sure.
It is depressing to watch this country follow the vile sewer that the current GOP has become, down into a cesspool of vicious and hate filled double talk, lies and purest distilled malicious BS.
Well, malicious BS for me, probably delicious BS for them (Edit: which brings to mind the old Shakes line ‘filths savor only themselves’ or something like that.
Violet
“Everyone does it” was the talking point of the wingnuts next to me at the gym tonight. They went through Gary Hart, Clarence Thomas, Clinton, etc. and determined that Cain wasn’t guilty.
Then they said that Perry was to blame for the whole thing. And then rehashed the drunk-Perry video from the other day and insisted he was drunk, on something, or both.
I would have expected these guys to like Perry, but they did not. Not one bit. They were Cain fans and hoped he’d find a way out of this mess.
Linda Featheringill
The Selma to Montgomery marches were in 1965 [according to wiki] and Obama was born in 1961. I just don’t understand why he didn’t take part in some of those.
General Stuck
I for one, am happy to see Herman Cain keep the issue of race front and center. It is always better to keep that feisty devil of the American experience sitting on the front row where we can keep an eye on it, especially having the first black president. Lest the issue fall back into the darker nether regions of white consciousness where all sorts of fear and urban legend lives .
I don’t have a clue why Herman is the GOP front runner, unless it is the obvious choice of the winger guilt center gone sideways in the fetid swamps of there deep seated prejudice.
If they think Cain is helping them politically, then they are nuts. If he helps them in some healing psychiatric way, then they could be on to something. But I wouldn’t crawl inside that question for love nor money.
It is sometimes hard to grasp the big picture of events that have never happened before, and that didn’t seem would ever happen until they did, or are. Like the still surreal reality we are being presidented by a black man in THIS country. And that fact is the most prominent thing that may have ever occurred to us.
Where Herman and his most excellent adventure as the GOP POTUS frontrunner falls along that continuum will not likely be known, until the dust settles and some time has passed. But I sometimes get the feeling we are in some kind of unconscious experiment of our own design, or maybe it’s Gawd playing dice with the universe.
Linda Featheringill
@lamh34: #16
And the Prez is not the only one laughing. :-)
Mr Stagger Lee
I hope there will be a movie made about this GOP Primary. Get the Farelly Brothers on it or the Cohens. Samuel L. Jackson as Cain, John Travolta as Rick Perry, Ben Affleck as Romney, Julia Roberts as Bachmann.
Thoughtful Black Co-Citizen
Tim F. you are forgetting the first rule of the GOP: IOKIYAR*. All Cain needs to do is say the magic words: “I’m a victim of Feminazi PC Police!” and all will be forgiven.
If he can’t even manage that, he hasn’t got what it takes to be a GOP candidate.
@Michael D.: Or the title of a Pink Floyd song and so, accurately spelled.
*Second rule: I’m all right Jack, keep your hands off of my stack. There is no third rule.
Roger Moore
@Michael D.:
Or a Floyd fan.
jl
@General Stuck: I think Cain is front runner because he is smarter and can think on his feet (even if only enough for an adequate BS comeback when he is stumped or surprised) much faster and better than the others, except Huntsman, who doesn’t count as a real Republican for the purposes of the primary.
Granted, that says almost nothing about Cain, as we are seeing now.
Counter argument is why would any person who could think their way out of paper bag want to stay in the GOP primary race to win it? But then, if I understand correctly, until recently, this run for pres thing, for Cain, was just a cool promo to juice his book tour.
jwb
@General Stuck: Lately, I’ve become convinced we are living some updated rewrite of The Producers.
jl
@Mr Stagger Lee: Might be already made. Is there not an old cult slasher black comedy about a clown car full of bad clown who careen across the country spreading destruction and finally tear each other apart? Or, am I imagining things.
I remember a scene with a giant octopus attack…. no that was about some loopy sailor in Venice CA
General Stuck
@jl:
I haven’t been able to watch any of the debates, but have heard others say the same thing you are about Cain’s performance being better than rivals.
Rome Again
Love it, and the title of this post is PERFECT!
Martin
Cain is supah-black. Like a black hole of blackness.
AnotherBruce
God this is perfect. There is not enough popcorn in the universe for this.
Arm The Homeless
This came to mind. Perhaps it’s too early to start alluding to great disasters. But the tears of a clown taste like whisky and burnt kettle corn.
boss bitch
Every time Cain tells a lie, he tells you he’s lying. He pulls the race card and then says “this is just based upon our speculation”. Another time he said, “I don’t have the facts to back this up.” There is another example of this but I can’t recall it right now, but there it is.
Hunter Gathers
@Martin: How much more black could Cain be? The answer is none. None more black.
handy
@Arm The Homeless:
That site you linked to is awesome. The first one, not the second. Actually the second is pretty great too.
Brachiator
Damn. I am loving how Cain is blaming Perry for being the source of all these allegations. Mitt Romney must be thanking his lucky underwear that these guys are tearing into each other.
No one of importance
But not for spelling :(
Bubblegum Tate
@The Ancient Randonneur:
Racism doesn’t really exist, but you DO use it to fend off an attack–then claim that it’s just a “liberal tactic” to use it to fend off an attack. Great comment from a wingnut blog:
Then, when said wingnut is challenged on the stupidity of his statements, he comes back with:
So racism doesn’t exist, but liberals are the real racists, and conservatives are using “liberal tactics” by claiming that it’s racism to report on this story at all.
It’s some pretty impressive pretzeling if you think about it.
twiffer
@Linda Featheringill: yeah, i hear he was a draft dodger too, during nam.