Just to pile on the Sununu meltdown– as one must in this case:
John Sununu does us all a favor. He comes ever closer to the moment when some prominent Republican just up and says it. Not Ni-Clang! exactly — but the underlying conviction that lies behind that word.
As everyone reading this no doubt knows by now, Mr. Sununu, former governor of one of the whitest states in the union, former chief of staff to Bush the First and now one of Mitt Romney’s official surrogates, said this today (via TPM):
John Sununu, the former governor of New Hampshire and a leading Romney surrogate, told reporters that Obama’s recent defense of public infrastructure shows he “doesn’t understand how America works.”
“I wish this president would learn how to be an American,” Sununu said later.
I’m white. Have been all my life. Haven’t had to put up with the daily tests that attend being nonwhite in America. So I’m not going to go on long about this. But I can tell you that you don’t need to be African-American to ask yourself what you are hearing when John Sununu tells you that Barack Obama, President of the United States, born here, educated here, married here, raising two kids here, the whole run — doesn’t know how to be an American.
I think I can guess: hell — I don’t need to guess. As I said, I’m a white guy, but I hear Sununu loud and clear, and what I pick up is a prominent Republican saying pretty damn clearly that African Americans aren’t real Americans. They need to learn how to pass…
One could say that I’m being overly particular here. To Republicans, as we’ve seen over several administrations now, Democrats aren’t real Americans. When on occasion some Democrat manages to dupe the electorate into sending someone with a “D” after their name into high office, that’s simply an error to be corrected, by restricting the franchise to the right people — real Americans — if need be.
But just because a result is over-determined, that doesn’t mean that the most grotesque explanation isn’t true. As here, IMHO.
Is John Sununu — surrogate to Republican presidential nominee-presumptive Mitt Romney — a racist?
A simple yes or no is not quite the right way to respond to that form of the question. Rather ask: Did John Sununu just say some racist shit, dog whistling to that portion of the electorate that responds to such filth?
I stand within a tradition that weighs works, not any inner manifestation of piety. By that standard?
Now the question answers itself.
Image: Jan Steen, A Class with a Sleeping Schoolmaster, 1672.
comrade scott's agenda of rage
Aka teatards.
And yes…he is.
schrodinger's cat
The list of unreal Americans keeps growing, at this rate, they will declare that we are no longer a Republic but an Empire. I wonder who will be their Caesar.
MattF
Ach. This… just makes me angry. I’ll get back to snark some other time.
Dave
This is the same asshole who, as Bush 41’s Chief of Staff, would take personal trips and expense them off as government work.
Ella in New Mexico
Why is it, sadly, that when people like John Sununu talk like this, I know immediately that he IS, most definitely, an American?
Ash Can
Nobody says Sununu can’t be both racist and a dog-whistler. (And I must be turning canine, because these dog whistles sound more like air horns to me.)
BTW, if that schoolmaster is sleeping through all that, he ain’t sleeping. One of those brats slipped him a mickey.
Baud
I will always be grateful to Sununu for Justice Souter. Sununu is in all other respects worthless.
Scott S.
I am at least somewhat amused that Mitt Romney, with his Unlimited Corporate Cash, can only afford a racist broken-down ugly-ass chunk of thermonuclear hippo-puke like John Sununu as his spokesman.
That’s just weak.
Phil Perspective
Is John Sununu — surrogate to Republican presidential nominee-presumptive Mitt Romney — a racist?
I’ll f-cking say it. Yes, yes he is.
Commenting at Balloon Juice Since 1937
You’re not. That was the most offensive part that I heard earlier. I was surprised no one had picked up on it yet. They should be demanding that Romney apologize for it. They won’t because that’s the woosie thing to do. They’ll probably release an ad : “Mitt Romney thinks that if you’re not rich like him, then you’re not a real American”.
MoeLarryAndJesus
Sununu was born in Cuba. He should go back there.
Roger Moore
As has been pointed out, John Sununu is the Cuban born child of a Palestinian father and an El Salvadorean mother. Where does he get off on deciding who gets to be a real American and who doesn’t?
trollhattan
@Ash Can:
’twas the pig that done the deal. Painting reminds me of junior high whenever there was a substitute, only somewhat less chaotic.
Recall
Good to know that I’m some sort of lesser American.
schrodinger's cat
Is Sununu a relative of the Nu Nu?
tamied
@Ash Can: I had a teacher one time with narcalepsy. It looked like that.
gbear
I think that Sununu’s comments have more to do with the ‘D’ after Obama’s name. It’s just a normal reaction for republicans to feel that a democratic president should be impeached (for whatever; reason doesn’t even matter). If race is involved, I think it’s more to do with white privelege than overt racism. Sununu is like the rich lady in the car waiting to get to the Romney fundraiser telling the reporter that Obama just doesn’t know the way things are supposed to work. Rich white people are just supposed to get everything they want. Why can’t the rest of us see such an obvious fact?
schrodinger's cat
@Roger Moore: Real American == someone who is a Republican.
jibeaux
It is a dog whistle in this case, but is also used by Republicans in other contexts to sneer at regions/people with too much book larnin’ and recycling. See, e.g., Sarah Palin campaign for VP, the one that inspired a lot of riffs on 30 Rock and Liz Lemon exasperatedly saying “Jack, no place in America is more American than any other place in America.”
wrb
So when we told the little wogs
that they would be as happy as a
monkey in a monkey tree
’cause its great to be an American,
we were misleading them??
gbear
@Scott S.: What Romney has is Unlimited Corporate CRASH!
JPL
Racist yes, dog whistle to the birthers, too.
Chris
@schrodinger’s cat:
It does, indeed. But it’s always been the GOP strategy to create a 50% + 1 majority of “real Americans” and set them at the throats of the 49% .
23
Sununu – a guy who was born outside of the US, can accuse the President of being Un-American because he lived Indonesia for 4-years when he was a child. The fat fucker can get away with that because he passes for white.
Litlebritdifrnt
@Roger Moore:
This. He has got some damn nerve.
Frankensteinbeck
@gbear:
I used to think this was all about Obama being a Democrat, but the sheer ferocity of the last four years changed my mind. Yes, they hate and demonize and try to illegitimize all Democrats, but the Republicans have gone way beyond that with Obama, into a land of frothing derangement. THAT difference, the fevered hatred rather than assholish spite, is the racism in this scenario. Sununu is playing directly to it.
Richard
Real Americans have money stashed in foreign tax shelters.
Real Americans send jobs overseas.
Real Americans are corporate parasites who send companies into bankruptcy as they pillage their finances and pension funds.
Real Americans retire retroactively.
Tom Levenson
@Richard: Precisely so.
the Conster
It’s a dessert topping and a floor wax. He gets to use the dog whistle and accuse Obama of the same thing that the new ad does – call into question who is more patriotic. It’s all about that devastating ad and taxes. They know it, we know it, and they know we know it.
And Another Thing…
Unlike Bush the Lessor who could see into Putin’s heart, the rest of us mortals must rely on what we see & hear. I’m sick of people saying & doing cruel and racist things, and alibing themselves or some ally as “not a racist.” That especially includes Romney’s “if you could see what’s in my heart” plea to the NAACP. Stupid is as stupid does. Racist is as racist does.
Ash Can
@Recall:
As are all those children of military personnel stationed abroad, diplomatic corps, corporate executives working abroad, etc.
Chris
@Recall:
You and every Army, Navy, Air Force and Marine brat out there.
@schrodinger’s cat:
Yes and no. Republicans, as a group, do get to decide who is and isn’t “really American” enough for them. That can occasionally include Republican demographics, like Muslim Americans, that they decided to turn on for this or that reason.
Scott S.
@gbear: Needs to be a tag. :)
Where *is* little Republican what’s-his-name anyway, the guy who kept bragging about how inevitable Romney was? Haven’t seen him in a while…
Randy P
So what the heck is Sununu’s point? That a real American doesn’t use roads and bridges? I can’t figure out what Obama is supposed to not be understanding.
scav
Sununu: The self-appointed Republican Sorting Hat of Citizenship.
Vico
Yet another difference between Republicans and Democrats: Republicans claim that Dems aren’t real Americans; Democrats know that Republicans are all-too-real Americans.
And yes, Sununu is a racist.
Vico
Yet another difference between Republicans and Democrats: Republicans claim that Dems aren’t real Americans; Democrats know that Republicans are all-too-real Americans.
And yes, Sununu is a racist.
23
@gbear: John Sununu was born in Cuba (not sure how old when he came to this country). The reason he can otherize Obama is because the fat fucker can pass for white. It has nothing to do with being a Dem and more to do with the color of the President’s skin and his middle name. The sooner we all understand that the better we will be equipped to fight this plight.
Anya
@gbear: John Sununu was born in Cuba (not sure how old when he came to this country). The reason he can otherize Obama is because the fat fucker can pass for white. It has nothing to do with being a Dem and more to do with the color of the President’s skin and his middle name. The sooner we all understand that the better we will be equipped to fight this plight.
Scott S.
Also, too, could I just say that if Sununu is saying this stuff in an attempt to distract from the ongoing Bain/tax return scandals, it’s got to be one of the worst deflection attempts I’ve ever seen.
Even if it’s successful, the narrative goes from “Romney is a corporate crook” and “Romney never pays any taxes” — to “Romney is a racist motherfucker,” which is not actually a better narrative to work with…
Holden Pattern
This kind of thinking is endemic in the US; it’s not just wingtards like Sununu. The next time you read election coverage, look for phrases like “Democrats would not win without Indian reservations / college students / poor people / women / citydwellers / African Americans”.
You literally never see the converse: “Republicans would not win without white people / rich people / fundamentalists / rural folks / men”.
That’s because the people on which the Republicans depend are “Real Americans” — they’re the default position. Everyone else is suspect, not really American, probably shouldn’t even be voting.
Recall
@Ash Can:
@Chris:
Oh, I know. I went to school with those kids. Romney is going to be facing a worldclass shitstorm pretty soon here.
Roger Moore
@Scott S.:
It is if he’s desperate to convince the racist motherfucker demographic- a key Republican constituency- that he’s solidly on their side and they need to back him to the hilt.
quannlace
Sununu? John Bolton wasn’t available?
Rob in CT
I’d rate this as 70% “he’s a Democrat” and 30% “he’s dark and has a funny name.” 70/30 partisan derangement/bigotry.
As for whether Sununu is racist himself, meh. Maybe he is, maybe he’s not. Either way, he’s saying some disgusting shit (racist? pandering to racists? who cares?), so screw him.
SatanicPanic
I once saw an interview with some guy from the Muppet Show. He said they’d come up with a sketch idea but often wouldn’t know how to end them. So they’d just start blowing stuff up. The Romney campaign seems to be at the blowing stuff up phase.
Mattminus
I don’t see how you read this as racist. All D’s are unAmerican. In 2004, it was “the french looking John Kerry”. Democrats are socialists, which is the opposite of American.
Maybe the guy is racist, but i don’t think there’s anything in this statement that gets you there if you weren’t already inclined to believe it.
reflectionephemeral
Sununu said what he said for the same reason that Mitt Romney repeatedly lies about America– “apology tour”, “entitlement society”, “put free enterprise on trial”, “Fannie and Freddie caused the financial crisis”,“regulatory uncertainty”, “throw Israel under the bus”, deliberately harming America, lying about foreign policy, “class warfare“, “very little of” federal spending goes anywhere but to bureaucrats, etc.
To wit: the GOP has jettisoned policy beliefs for Southern Strategy rhetoric, designed to heighten resentment against the government and out groups. There’s literally nothing else to GOP allegiance.
This might be the last general election where that’s a plausible path to victory, it occurs to me.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@Randy P: That George Washington prayed in the 1785 and Jesus sent his angels to build the interstate highway system. Remember these are the same clowns that think the Pentagon is freemarket and paid for by the Defense Fairy.
AnonPhenom
@Phil Perspective:
Why would you give that asshole the easy way out?
trollhattan
Add this one to the “ouch, that’s gonna leave a mark” file. “Building my own coffin.”
http://tbogg.firedoglake.com/2012/07/17/building-my-own-coffin/
Turgidson
The GOP seems to think running the 08 campaign over again is the way to go. Maybe they think they only lost because Bush was being blamed for the umpteen messes he got us in, but now that Obama can’t coast into the White House running against Bush, the niCLANG dog whistles are sure to work.
I think they’re wrong. Guy’s been president almost four years now. Saying he’s a furriner who hates America only had a shot at working when Obama was new to the scene. Sure, the knuckledraggers believe it and eat it up. But they believe a lot of things. I think the average joe, whatever they think of Obama’s leadership, sees him as a decent man with a beautiful family. And also, we’re probably past the point where saying “ZOMG he smoked pot 30 years ago!!!” is likely to move more than a few dozen morons to change their vote.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@Mattminus: Your being obtuse; “dumb, pot smoking slacker” is the dog whistle here.
Litlebritdifrnt
Just got this link from Twitter “In 2002 Romney demanded opponents tax returns, said what is she hiding”
http://www.buzzfeed.com/andrewkaczynski/romney-campaign-attacked-opponent-for-refusing-to
Noonan
Doesn’t matter if John Sununu is racist. He’s just hoping you are.
KG
@gbear: I don’t want to say his name and conjure him, but I have to say, it’s been a little quiet around here without our friend who is convinced of Romney’s pending VICOTRY!
dedc79
This is spot on. I know Kay has been beating this drum for months, but in terms of national awareness, I think it’s only just beginnign to sink in that this election may turn more on voter ID laws than on the will of the voters.
trollhattan
@SatanicPanic:
Borrowing from another commenter’s nym, that would be the “Deus ex Romneybot.”
Works for me.
bemused
First they come for non-white Americans, then poor and middle class whites because you’re not a real American unless you are in the 1% to 2% wealth class.
Baud
That’s the key phrase. They’re melting down because we’re winning. Keep it up.
Nicole
The only thing surprising to me about this post is the painting. I had no idea there were co-ed schoolrooms in 1672.
iLarynx
“AN American?”
He was misquoted. What Sununu actually said was “UN-American” (“I wish this president would learn how to be Un-American like us Republicans,” Sununu said later.)
Baud
@KG:
I prefer Balloon Juice without that guy. He has ruined many a good thread.
Redshift
I wasn’t in on the earlier Sununu threads, so forgive me if this story has already been told, but it’s the thing I always remember most about Sununu. In the Bush (I) administration, Sununu had this reputation for having a really high IQ (probably because he bragged about it, or possibly because he got staffers to mention it for him.) Everyone knew that he had taken an IQ test and scored really high, so they were impressed that he was a smart guy.
Somewhat later, it came out that the source of this IQ score was a self-test in OMNI magazine that he had taken on a plane trip.
Now it’s possible that this story is apocryphal, and I’m just remembering it because I like it. But I will note that his Wikipedia bio says (emphasis mine):
It just says that he “has met the eligibility requirements,” not that he is or was a member. Hmm, I wonder why not?
Southern Beale
OT but .. we knew it!
Not a shocker, but haven’t seen this info anywhere and I think it deserves to be out there ….
Ash Can
@Recall: Now, I don’t take anything for granted; I’m working on the neighborhood OfA campaign and I’ve already volunteered to do door-to-door as well as GOTV all day on Election Day. But I do believe that the GOP is setting itself up for a pretty good smackdown at the polls come November. And it’ll be because they pissed too many people off. (But no way will they figure this out. And unless and until they regain their sanity, that’s a good thing for this country.)
AnonPhenom
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b0Ti-gkJiXc
cmorenc
It’s easy to see through the motivation behind Sununu’s “unAmerican” comment about Obama, and it’s not merely to try to define Obama as “other” to voters. The other key strategic aspect is to try to provoke the Obama campaign into responding, thereby creating a new shiny object to take some of the media spotlight off Romney’s Bain problems and force the Obama campaign into a more defensive mode.
I hope Mr. Cool Obama is smart enough to not take the bait, and that he keeps his surrogates on a leash as well. Be smart enough to recognize that this is an instance where the media (even David Gergen, who seems to often be a Romney surrogate himself) will likely do the work for them, without having to get distractedly off-message about Bain.
...now I try to be amused
Eisenhower was black?
That statement is not racist on the surface. As others have noted, black people are only a subset of the un-Americans. However, to borrow from Mill, not all right-wingers are racists, but all racists are right-wingers.
And Another Thing…
@Rob in CT: Have to disagree. Republicans have accused Democrats of lots of things over the years…but I don’t recall this overt “not an American” of any other prominent Dem. Even the often heard smear of the Bush years of calling someone a traitor tacitly infers you’re an American.
It’s about race.
jwb
@Mattminus: All Dems are unAmerican, but the way each expresses his or her unAmericanness differs by individual. In Obama’s case it was almost inevitable that it would be expressed through race. If it was Hillary, it would have been through gender. And if it was some white guy, it would be because he was too European, or too urban, or too whatever struck the fancy of the GOP id at the moment. The whole strategy is to find a difference (it doesn’t matter what), fix on it and turn it into the mark of otherness against which the tribe can unite.
trollhattan
@Baud:
Amen to that. And for ye olde tymes sake: “UNLIMITED CORPORATE CAAAASH!”
I nao haz a skeerd.
Turgidson
@cmorenc:
The campaign’s response to Sununu’s first excretion was that the Romney campaign has gone off the deep end.
Works for me. Amused contempt is probably a good response to bullshit like this.
wrb
I think that less of it originates in racism than it might seem, but that it is nonetheless creating racism where it wasn’t before.
There technique is to attack anything that might be a weakness, whether Frenchness, melatonin, or cankles in the hopes that it will peel off a few voters on the margin.
But the way the Republican heard mentality works people who never gave a shit about will react by think, “oh, our team is anti-black, ok, guess I gotta throw out my Sly Stone records and learn some watermelon jokes. And I used to think I enjoyed Sly, damn.”
Quaker in a Basement
What on earth else could a black person do to meet the “learn how to pass” standard? Obama had a white mother, was raised in Kansas, went to college in California and at Harvard, got a law degree (with honors), married well, raised smart, respectful children…and got himself elected President of the USA.
If that’s not enough to satisfy white America, then skin color is all that’s left.
FormerSwingVoter
@Scott S.:
“Is a massive racist” is actually a much better narrative. Someone who exploits legal loopholes to weasel his way into favorable positions strikes people as unseemly. But hating other people? Just because? A lot of people can relate to that.
We dramatically overstate just how badly “being a terrible person” will bite politicians. An awful lot of people eat that shit up.
scav
Another sign of uncoordinated grit in a poorly organized machine. Accusations of ZOMG Crony Capitalizm !!! by the Zociast In Chief !!! work a bit better when your GOP Senate team isn’t blocking again a Campaign Disclosure Bill . To my mind, at least, being all worried about “intimidation of donors” seems to be correlated with knowing you’re in the business of pushing unpopular ideas for guys with bucks but no guts.
Redshift
@Mattminus:
There’s a difference between un-American and not an American. Un-American is refusing to behave in accordance with their vision of what America is, and being elected by people like that (Democrats) makes your legitimacy suspect and resistance to all your policies mandatory for true Americans. But even people who are un-American can learn the error of their ways, and if they were born here, become true Americans.
“Not an American” is “other,” foreign, usurper. This is not a subtle distinction.
Mattminus
@Enhanced Voting Techniques:
So they were racist against Bill Clinton, too?
“Everything I don’t like is racist!” is the laziest type of argumentation. You can’t take every negative, generic insult that they throw at all of their enemies and say, ‘well that’s what they think about blacks, so it’s racist this time.”
Tonal Crow
Republicans haven’t got runny cold dog excreta to give America, so they must resort instead to racist dogwhistles and vile imputations of unpatriotism.
You, Mr. Sununu, are not fit to polish President Obama’s teakettle.
lacp
So…David Frum sez that Willard needs to get the votes of the white working class, who are highly suspicious of fat cats such as, well, Willard. It makes me wonder if Sununu’s comments were made with the assumption that they would win favor with this group.
jwb
@And Another Thing…: The logic works thus: there are Americans and real Americans. This theme was particularly strong in the 2004 election, but it has a long and storied history, usually built on the urban/rural divide.
...now I try to be amused
@Turgidson:
Obama is good at that. Many a time I’ve seen an “I just can’t believe this shit” look on his face.
gwangung
@Mattminus: Sorry, but this is an ill-informed and ill-formed argument.
This is the same argument trotted out against blacks, Asian Americans and Latinos. It is a COMMON argument used against us. It’s all related to being not a white American.
People of Color sure know that this is surely a race based argument.
Redshift
@cmorenc:
According to TPM, TPaw is already out saying that Sununu has “clarified” his comments, and that he was really just talking about entrepreneurs and private enterprise and stuff. So it seems like pointing and laughing in response worked pretty well.
NCSteve
Truth. And the truth is that most white Republicans really do equate “American” with “white.” When they think of non-whites in the context of Americanism, they are presumed to be disloyal and must prove their loyalty over and over again.
What’s f**ked up is that that presumption of disloyalty comes from a deeply repressed empathy. Part of them is saying “man, if this country dumped on me the way it dumps on those people, I’d totally hate it (which they wouldn’t, because if it really was them, they’d get that it’s not “the country” dumping on them, but rather people who think they’re “the country” but aren’t). But there’s nothing a white Republican hates more than empathy, so the repress the hell out of it and it bubbles out as hysteria and anger.
GregB
One would think John Sununu would embrace diversity being that he is America’s foremost shitheel-American.
Ash Can
OT, but I’m still howling over Jon Stewart’s “horse prom” skewering of Romney.
(PS: My editing buttons are back and I haz a BIG happy!)
KG
@Baud: @trollhattan: I guess I’m just screwy in the head, because I always enjoyed watching him twist himself into ever more complicated knots without realizing it… In fact, I was holding out hope that we’d actually be at the center of the Wingularity because of he who shall not be named.
wrb
@FormerSwingVoter:
The Rs are employing racism in a way that shows that they think it is a winner for them.
SFAW
Well, I’m stunned and amazed that no one has yet pointed out that YOU, Tom, are the actual racist for suggesting that Sununu is a racist. (And if I missed a previous comment stating that, please don’t tell me, and let me be blissful in my iggerance.)
Also, too:
Tom, with your massive amount of pull at the Li’l Trade School on the banks of the Muddy Charles, can you please Please PLEASE get Sununu retroactively (just named Word of the Year for 2010!) expelled from the ‘Tute, and his degrees rescinded?
Patricia Kayden
Great post, but haven’t the T’Baggers/Repubs been telling us that President Obama is not a “real American” from day one? Nothing new in what Sununu said at all.
The question is why are so many Americans supporting Repubs/Romneybot 2.0 despite the in-your-face racism being spewed. The polls show Romneybot and Obama pretty much tied.
Mattminus
@gwangung:
Now you’re getting into a weird identity informed epistemology. “Only non-whites can know this, so our opinions become authoritative facts.”
By screaming “racism!” at everything, you play into conservative stereotypes and discredit all legitimate claims. I’m just saying that you have to have some method aside from your gut to making these claims.
Can we imagine a counterfactual? They said Bill Clinton was a pot smoker, a horndog, and a dumb bubba. These are probably all things that racists think about blacks, but it doesn’t make them inherently racist. It’s possible that they can say mean things about Obama unmoored from his race, because they do that to all dems.
“Food stamp president” in the context of the NAACP, undeniably racist. The stuff we’re talking about today is just boilerplate.
Also too, none of the same stereotypes applied to blacks and latinos get applied to asians, and vice versa. If anything, and I know the asians in the oppression olympics hate to hear this, asians are “white”.
wrb
@Patricia Kayden:
Don’t forget the PUMAs. They went there first.
It isn’t only the right that will play on racism if they think it to their advantage.
And Another Thing…
@jwb: The point I’m trying to make is that R’s have history accusing people of being unAmerican or too European, or not real Americas – urban/rural split, but what’s new is actually saying, arguing, that someone is actually NOT an American. Millions of Americans actually believe Obama is literally not an American.
It’s about race. If Obama were white and named Jones, the accusation would not have had traction..
tamied
@Redshift: This. This is the difference.
Brachiator
@Tom Levenson:
Great phrase. I noted in another thread on this guy, Sununu comes to us pre-mocked:
Sununu is also featured in a “Dilbert” comic strip in which Dilbert suggests that Dogbert not start frothing at the mouth and barking whenever attractive women are near.
@…now I try to be amused:
Ya know, there used to be some mythology or urban legends about 5 black presidents, including Ike and Warren Harding.
And Another Thing…
@And Another Thing…: Go to Wkipedia & scan the list of presidents looking only at last names. They’re all waspy.
shortstop
@Mattminus:
Goddamn, how can you stand up straight with that supergigantico chip on your shoulder?
Somebody’s got a year’s subscription.
trollhattan
@KG:
I confess I poked at it with sticks bunches of times, but even that got old after awhile. And whither BOB–is he off stalking women and immigrants? Tea-partying in his man pants?
wrb
@And Another Thing…:
I had a conservative Russian friend who liked to point people to the pictures of American presidents to demonstrate American decline. He contended they were nobility up through maybe Kennedy , but since then they have been increasingly goofy, reaching the nadir with GWB.
The visual supports his argument quite powerfully. I argued that what he was seeing was due to changing styles of portraiture and ideas about dignity.
shortstop
@Brachiator:
Not Ike. Jefferson, Jackson, Lincoln, Harding and Coolidge.
Surreal American
Do Surreal Americans count as Unreal Americans? I suspect they (and I) do.
Isis the Scientist
I suspect his motive was strategic, intended to remind a portion of his base that they have doubts as to whether Obama is a citizen. Maybe he can give us his long, long, long form birth certificate. Or a picture of him emerging from his mother’s vag draped in Old Glory.
The Populist
Wait…aren’t roads and railways and freeways and airplanes how we get goods moved around the country? People to work?? Oh yes, the Prez doesn’t get it.
Idiots.
FlipYrWhig
The only thing I remember from when Sununu was part of the Bush I administration was that you could use his name in a palindrome: “Dessert, Sununu stressed.”
What my wife remembers, having grown up in New Hampshire, is that her town didn’t vote for Sununu for gov., so he pulled the plug on a bridge repair they needed.
shortstop
@FlipYrWhig:
Now THAT’S American.
FlipYrWhig
@The Populist: It’s not the infrastructure point he’s complaining about, of course. He’s making the same complaint my Wall Streeter FB friends are all het up about: to wit, to say that someone who built a business didn’t do it on his own is an attack on American Free Enterprise and an admission of startling naïveté. That’s why it shows he needs to learn how to be a Real American, so that the capitalist indoctrination will take.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@Mattminus: God Lord. Look, I am over a 40, white male ex-Republican. Admittedly Sununu fault is he is way to heavy handed, but after all Sununu isn’t white so he’s trying to prove it to the country clubers. Still, he rant is classic white boy, let’s snicker at those people speak.
Keith G
Good take on this wretched behavior. No need to call them names (which only leads to more and louder static). Just be sure that their actions and words, in their entirety, are know to all.
Spatula
@Mattminus:
But then what would ABL write about? You’re only dismissing her entire ouvre.
Brachiator
@Mattminus:
Nobody screamed, and nobody screamed “racism” at everything. What are you going on about?
I thought that Asians were, well, you know, Asian. Funny how you try to use the social construction of race to try to deny racism.
Asians have had to battle the stigma of racism as much as many other groups. Can you say Chinese Exclusion Act?
And then, there is the craziness of Justice Harlan’s dissent in Plessy v Ferguson:
See? Race is America has always been complicated.
And of course, die hard white supremacists hate Asian Americans as much as they hate anybody else who doesn’t fit their image of Real American White People(tm).
Tonybrown74
@Mattminus:
That is not what she [she, right?] is saying at all.
When an offensive and/or racist term is being directed at me (being both black and foreign born), I’m gonna know. And the reason I know is due to the fact that it happens far, far more often to me than you may even know or realize.
All we’re asking is that you LISTEN to us when we tell you that.
Ash Can
@Mattminus: Tip: When a non-minority says “This isn’t racist language” and a minority says “Oh yes it is,” guess what — it is.
Tonybrown74
@Spatula:
JAYSUS KREIST, is this for real??
This is not even ABL’s post and you still decide to bring this shit here. Her mere existence seems to drive too many of you insane.
My GAWD! Everyone should take note.
Witness the AWESOME powers of the BLACK VAGINA!
I want one!
Midnight Marauder
@gbear:
If you’re a minority, white privilege IS overt racism.
There’s no way around that fact.
jh
Mattimus,
You are wrong and should stop digging.
I know exactly what Sunnunu meant to do. It was to point out Barack Obama’s “otherness”.
It was a too clever by half attempt at dogwhistling and those of us with a passing familiarity with racism in America were able to easily identify it.
You are batting .00 today.
Darkrose
@Mattminus:
Mmm. Nothing picks me up on a crappy day than being whitesplained to about what constitutes racism.
Catsy
@Mattminus: You know, between this willfully obtuse nonsense and your one-note pot-related threadjacking in the previous thread, I was starting to wonder when we’d gotten ourselves a new concern troll. So being a conscientious sort, I did a quick google for “mattminus site:balloon-juice.com” just to make sure I wasn’t making unwarranted assumptions about someone who might just be having a bad day. And lo: we have years of material to go through. A sample follows.
Mattminus on the Va Tech shootings:
Mattminus on Zimmerman:
Mattminus on police:
So no, I’m wrong. We don’t have a new troll–just an old one who hasn’t grown out of it yet.
ETA:
Anyone who employs the bolded term in all seriousness has nothing of value on the subject worth listening to.
Brachiator
@shortstop:
RE: there used to be some mythology or urban legends about 5 black presidents, including Ike and Warren Harding.
Yeah, Ike, too. Though agreed, not as often as the other 5, or Alexander Hamilton as a black founder, for that matter.
I have this thing for urban legends. And thank the deity for the Wiki (163,000 hits if you search on “eisenhower black ancestry.”)
...now I try to be amused
@Brachiator:
I didn’t know any of that, thanks. I post an offhand smartass remark, I learn something! I love the Internet.
Catsy
@Baud: As much as I’m inclined to agree, I admit it would be hilarious to see him try to twist himself into knots explaining why the Romney campaign’s ongoing implosion is Good News For Romney.
dogwood
Sununu is a hack and a bigot. He deserves as much attention as the President will give him, which is none at all. People like Sununu hate and resent Barack Obama because the best they could ever do is become high-paid lackeys and hacks for phony white aristocrats like Bush and Romney.
jim filyaw
no doubt he considers clarence thomas and michael steele as credits to their race.
gbear
@Midnight Marauder:
Yes, yes, you are totally correct. Thank you for the clarification.
Joe Ramirez
Sununu was born in Havana, Cuba, the son of Victoria (née Dada) and John Saleh Sununu, an international film distributor.[1] He is of Palestinian and Greek descent [2]. His father grew up in Jerusalem and his mother was born in San Salvador, El Salvador.[2][3] He is a Maronite Catholic.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_H._Sununu)
Mattminus
@Ash Can:
This is just fucking stupid. Some of us believe in rationally obtainable, objective reality.
What do we do if one minority tells me it’s racist, and another tells me it’s not?
Spatula
@Ash Can:
But what if ANOTHER minority says it is NOT? Do we take a vote?
Spatula
@Catsy:
Wow. that’s pathetic.
Consider getting a life offline.
Chyron HR
Yes, yes, guys. It’s so unfair the way the President’s critics get branded as racist just for daring to ask “Is NiggerObama Lazy & Stupid?”
Who among us cannot recall the many times in the 90s when the GOP would accuse “NigClinton” of enjoying “Ape-firmative action”?
Ash Can
@Mattminus:
@Spatula:
Hell of an idea, guys. I’m all for it. Let’s start with this joint right here. How many minority folks here agree that there is NO racism at all in what Sununu said?
Mattminus
@Chyron HR:
Because that’s exactly what Sununu said, amirite?
Triassic Sands
“I wish this president would learn how to be an American,” Sununu said later.
And I wish Sununu, Romney, and all the other Republicans would learn to be human beings, but I guess there’s no hope of that ever happening.
Joel
@Redshift: Yuppity yup, yup.
Fuck John Sununu. That pasty motherfucker has wasted too much of our nation’s time as it is. And double fuck Mitt Romney for thrusting that piece of shit on us.
Ash Can
@Mattminus:
@Spatula:
Most important, though, is this: If you are not a minority yourself, you DO NOT get to decide what is and is not racist. PERIOD.
Spatula
@Ash Can:
could you reference the applicable case law on this?
Also too, you did not answer my question: There are always goign to be minority members who will disagree on these charges of racism; how do we resolve this conundrum?
Catsy
@Spatula: I’m not sure what’s more pathetic–that you think that google search took more than a minute of my time or a minimum of effort, that you think that minimal effort to know who you’re talking to is something to be embarrassed about, or that you actually used “get a life offline” un-ironically in the 21st century with no apparent awareness of what an anti-intellectual idiot it makes you look like.
Joel
@Spatula: Hi, and welcome! Feel free to help yourself to the bowl of dicks on the dining room table over there.
kerFuFFler
@Mattminus: I do not recall any Republican ever saying Clinton was not American. Sununu’s outburst seems like a pretty clear dog whistle to the birthers and racists out there.
Omnes Omnibus
@Joel: Are they salted? Some people need to be concerned about their blood pressure.
Bob
This is the same line from the Republicans they’ve been trying to use since 2008 – Obama is somehow now a real American, doesn’t understand America. A little bit foreign, a little bit black, a little bit Kenyan, a little bit Muslim, a little bit Socialist, a little bit cigar chomping Chicago pol, a little bit American hater, a little bit terrorist sympathizer. Republicans have been trotting out that trial balloon every so often, they get yelled at, but the people who are supposed to hear it hear it. It has to be done carefully, updated with care, but Sununu is using an outdated version of it and got caught looking like an idiot. Same ol same ol.
Seanly
Yeah, coz those roads & bridges just magically appear where needed like in Civ II, III & IV.
Mattminus
@kerFuFFler:
I seem to recall all kinds of stories about his time at Oxford and meeting with Soviet agents. I don’t care enough to look deeply into it, but a google of “bill clinton soviet” returned the following as the first result:
http://www.aim.org/media-monitor/bill-clintons-soviet-connection/
Having no less a personage than Bush the Smarter suggesting that you met with the KGB seems pretty analogous to the “unamerican” charge.
Catsy
@Mattminus:
Which of course is exactly analogous to the vast reams of Republican rhetoric aimed at insinuating or outright stating that Obama isn’t a citizen, isn’t a real American, is Kenyan/Indonesian, or otherwise is The Other in some way that has absolutely nothing at all to do with the color of his skin.
Then do yourself and everyone else the courtesy of shutting the fuck up about things you not only don’t know but don’t actually care to educate yourself about.
Sure. If you remove it from the context of the last eight years and pretend to be completely ignorant of the existence of that context.
Just like your aggressive denial that there’s a racial component to the “not an American”-type attacks against Obama could be easily interpreted as good faith ignorance–provided that one removes them from the context of everything else you’ve written about race and racism here over the years. You do realize that nothing gets deleted from the Internet, right? And that anyone here can easily look up your posting history and see for themselves the kind of garbage you spout on this subject?
Peddle your crap somewhere else. No one’s buying and you know it.
WaterGirl
@Tonybrown74: I think this is Little Timmy with a new name. Don’t waste your time.
Felanius Kootea
@Ash Can: Thanks for trying, but those two aren’t saying anything worth listening to in this thread.
rikyrah
yes Sununu is a fucking racist.
since I’ve been Black in America longer than 3 days, that dogwhistle was obvious to me.
Chris
@And Another Thing…:
You know, they have a schizophrenic relationship with that word “European.” On the one hand they like to use it as a slur against faggy elitist types, but at the same time they love to imitate the trappings of European nobility – the slave owners’ South considering itself “the most European part of America,” the robber barons of the Gilded Age marrying off their daughters to European noble houses, etc.
ellennelle
this is spot on, tim; totally obvious. in fact, it stands as a metaphor for all the other dog whistles that have been thrown around since obama took office. and before.
but the other thing sununu said that fascinated me was that obama just doesn’t get how business is done in america.
unh huh, right; the guy with rmoney is announcing that obama does not understand how we do business here in america.
i don’t know, but that sounded to me like a thinly veiled threat from the mob that this new (ahem, unamerican black) guy had just better start playing by “the rules” or …else.
gwangung
@Spatula:
Right here , muthafucka.
Phoenician in a time of Romans
@wrb:
“So bongo, bongo, bongo I don’t want to leave the congo
Oh no no no no no
Bingle, bangle, bungle I’m so happy in the jungle I refuse to go
Don’t want no jailhouse, shotguns, fish hooks, golf clubs
I’ve got my spear
So no matter how they coax him
I’ll stay right here”
(A pretty racist song excused because it’s themed on a racist period in history)
Brian
Catsy: Yeah, the huge amount of time trying to portray Clinton as the criminal hillbilly lecher of Arkansas is pretty comparable to the time trying to portray Obama as the thuggish Kenyan Muslim, actually.
The thread shows lots of non-race related cases where Republicans have “otherized” people in campaigns; so it comes down to “But just because a result is over-determined, that doesn’t mean that the most grotesque explanation isn’t true. As here, IMHO.” So Tom thinks it’s racist, although Sununu could have said the same thing/acted the same way (“determining the result”) without being racist. To me, it looks like confirmation bias in action.
Another Halocene Human
@Scott S.: Probably back on his favorite MRA message board sneering that Rush is *still on the air, *therefore I win, but not convincingly enough to flog his limp dick into something resembling military readiness.
Either than, or drinking.
ETA: I am indeed drinking, hit send before checking over whether I had typed just as I was thinking, *missed a few it seems.
AxelFoley
@Mattminus:
@Spatula:
Could you two asshole trolls go somewhere else? There’s a place called GoFuckYourselfville about five clicks east of here.
Ash Can
@Felanius Kootea: Hey, I’ve added both of them to the pie filter now. Life’s too short for arguing with racists.
Mattminus
@AxelFoley:
Doesn’t it suck when you’re getting really into your hour of hate and some troll comes along and throws cold water on it.
@Ash Can:
Everyone that disagrees with you is racist against your opinion or something.
Caz
How does “Obama needs to learn how to be an American” translate to “I hate black people”??
You think you’re doing blacks any favors by pulling out the race card all the time, so that when it really does apply no one will even listen because you’ve cried wolf too many times?
I don’t think I’ve ever seen a collection of such dishonest, slimy, sleazy, racist, ignorant idiots as the posters on this site.
If I were to describe it, no one would even believe me it exists unless they actually saw this site themselves.
There must really be something wrong with how your brain works if this is the stuff you think. How sad. I’m sooo glad I’m not anywhere near as pathetic as you!!
It makes this blog funny though, I’ll give you that. It’s better than the Onion because you people actually believe this crap most of the time. The rest of the time, you’re just flat out lying.