From the Washington Post, “Meet the Blogger Who Is Keeping Steve Scalise Up at Night“:
… On Sunday, White broke a story on his Web site, cenlamar.com, that has left Scalise struggling to explain how he ended up speaking at a gathering of white nationalists in 2002.
Just as James O’Keefe has become a thorn in the side of liberals, White fills that slot against conservatives. He was famously on the receiving end of one of Andrew Breitbart’s last tweets before the conservative provocateur died; Breitbart called him a putz on Twitter…
Cutbacks in political coverage at the state level have provided an opening for bloggers like White, who have largely partisan missions and a singular focus…
But this election cycle, White… didn’t limit himself to what he calls “the circus of Louisiana politics.” He also figured rather prominently in the governor’s race in Texas, where he is currently a law student at Southern Methodist University.
At an October press conference, White, who has cerebral palsy, argued that Wendy Davis (D) was a champion of the disabled, while her opponent, now-Gov.-elect Greg Abbott (R), himself in a wheelchair, was not. White, who is sometimes unsteady on his feet, was moved from the center of the stage while seated and critics said he was dragged across stage and was awkwardly used political prop.
He then took to Twitter and to his blog: “I Was Smeared Online for Being Disabled: How the Internet Amplifies the Politics of Hate…”
There’s much more at the WaPo link, including a short phone interview. Of course O’Keefe is a bad comparison, and yet “correct” in the sense that liberal/progressive White relies on honest research while “conservative” O’Keefe relies on ambush video & dishonest editing. Pretty fair exemplars of our modern Dem-vs-Repub debate!
And it’s well worth checking out White’s blog, for essays like “Barry & Bobby“:
… They are, at the same time, incredibly similar and diametrically different. After college, Obama took a low-paying job in Chicago with a non-profit organization championing the improvement of housing conditions and the expansion of job opportunities for inner-city residents. Jindal spent a few months down the street at a high-paying gig at the mega-consultancy McKinsey before he was whisked back to Louisiana, at the age of 24, to become the Secretary of the Louisiana Department of Health and Hospitals.
Obama, of course, is a decade older than Bobby Jindal. But consider this: When Obama was Jindal’s age, he was a State Senator from Illinois, running for the United States Senate, a man who was best known for his rousing speech at the Democratic National Convention in Boston. In the same number of years it took Barack Obama to make it to the podium at the DNC in Boston, Jindal had already become a two-term Governor, a two-term US Congressman, the former President of the University of Louisiana, and the former Secretary of the Louisiana Department of Health and Hospitals. Although there’s a legitimate argument that Jindal’s meteoric rise has less to do with his own political aptitude and more to do with the dearth of qualified, highly-educated candidates in Louisiana, you can ridicule his record and his real accomplishments, but, still, you can’t discount his resume…
I wish I could admire him the same way some of my friends do. He wants to become the next President of the United States, and after all, it sure would be cool if the next President was from down the bayou. But I could never support Bobby Jindal…
Villago Delenda Est
“Dishonest” is such a mild term for what O’Keefe does. He fabricates. He lies. He has all the integrity of a cloud of marsh gas.
He’s utter scum.
Which means he’s right at home in the modern GOP, which is mere centimeters away from being a legitimate neo-Nazi party.
schrodinger's cat
Stuck in moderation, so trying again.
The right wingnut progeny of Indian immigrants who mold their identities, going as far as changing their religion and their names, to fit in with the neo-Confederate GOP leave me cold. I am looking at you, Jindal and Haley and Ramesh Ponnuru.
KG
@schrodinger’s cat: in fairness to Jindal, he’s been known as Bobby since his childhood, and converted to Christianity in high school. tough to make those purely political calculations – I mean most of us agnostic/atheist types changed our religious views around the same time. and lots of people have nicknames.
if those had been moves he made in his mid/late 20s, I’d be with you.
Frankensteinbeck
It’s been mentioned already, but it deserves more force. NO. You cannot compare an activist journalist with a man who fakes evidence for political smear jobs. Let me repeat the important words there. Fakes evidence. Even Both Sides Do It Jesus must be looking uncomfortable with that false equivalence.
KG
ok, random question/comment:
so, my folks have season tickets to the Anaheim Ducks, which means I get to go to games occasionally (including yesterday). but they do this thing, usually in the 3rd period (I think)… Wild Wing (the mascot) wears a camp jersey and they honor a member of the military, put them up on the jumbotron, run through their service/awards/etc. They get a standing ovation.
It always makes me uneasy, because it seems like such a cop out “support the troops” thing. It’s not like they’re donating money to Wounded Warriors (or some such organization). It’s not being used as an opportunity to promote the VA or hiring vets or anything like that.
Is this something that happens at a lot of stadiums/arenas now? And am I right to be uneasy about it?
A Streeter
They do something similar at every Washington Nationals home game, fourth inning or so. Any active-duty service members at the game, and perhaps a few recently retired veterans, are given scoreboard thanks and a standing ovation from the other fans. I participate for the sake of the service people (my father and pretty much all my male relatives of that generation served in WWII or Korea), but I’m similarly uneasy about the, well, imperialism of the exercise.
KG
@A Streeter: like i said, i’d be much more ok with it if they were making a $10k donation to Wounded Warriors (or whoever) in the honoree’s name, but it has a very weird feeling to me.
Mnemosyne (iPad Mini)
@KG:
I thought I might know, but it turns out that Disney sold the team in 2006, so now I’m back to not knowing. Maybe they get a lot of their fan base from San Diego? The only professional sports games I’ve attended lately have been Dodger games, and even that was a few years ago.
Mike in NC
Jindal has a snowball’s chance of getting elected Preznit. Best joke so far of 2015.
KG
@Mnemosyne (iPad Mini): I’m not sure it’s even that. Like I said, I think it’s supposed to be a well meant “thank you for your service” thing, but it seems like a token “support the troops” by giving them an ovation rather than making sure they’re well trained, well equipped, and have resources when they get home.
Steeplejack
@KG:
I don’t know whether it happens a lot at sporting events, but I think you are right to be (slightly) uneasy about it. It is a weird combination of symbolically deifying the troops while permitting ourselves to ignore them in reality (in substantive ways that would help, e.g., jobs, benefits, therapy).
satby
@KG: an ovation is free. Taxes might need to be raised for that other stuff.
Steeplejack
@satby:
Word.
rikyrah
@schrodinger’s cat:
This.
Barack Obama is BARACK OBAMA.
Jindal changed his NAME AND RELIGION.
He got his name from a TV SHOW.
Alison
OT – can anyone recommend a good product for cleaning a smartphone screen? Just something to get the fingerprints and such off – I’ve seen a few of them but I don’t know if one works better than others, and I’d have to order it online so would prefer to be more sure ahead of time of what I was buying.
SatanicPanic
@KG: Someone should ask the troops if they like it. If they do then I say why not, but if they find it patronizing then no. It would be neat to expand the applauding to say, teachers too.
Ruckus
@KG:
Said it here before, I’ve had the thanks for your service and to me it seems phony. The people that said it seemed to be genuine but the sentiment is hollow and well, a little selfish. As @satby: stated it’s free. Of cost or involvement or responsibility. And it’s easy. Anything that has real meaning costs money(which can be in the form of time), energy and responsibility. And this applies to anything in public/political life, not just vets.
Hkedi
@Alison:
Isopropyl alcohol, you can buy it lots of places. Put some on a paper towel or cotton ball and it will take the grease off nicely. It also works wonderfully for keyboard gunk. It’s also dirt cheap.
Alison
@Hkedi: Oh, okay – I didn’t know if something like that would be safe to use on electronics…but if so, that;s easier and probably cheaper :) Thanks!
Mike J
@rikyrah:
When he was young he went by Barry instead of Barack. Jindal started using the name Bobby as a child. Jindal just stuck with his nickname.
As for changing religions, so what? Are you suggesting that everyone has to have the same beliefs as their parents?
Jindal is a vile human being. The name and religion stuff is weak sauce. there’s plenty of good reasons to despise him.
Steeplejack
@Alison:
Several ways to go. I can’t recommend a specific brand name, but you could use eyeglass lens cleaner. I have some that I acquired when I got my last pair of glasses, and I use that sometimes when I’m out and about.
Or you can make up your own mix of either (a) half distilled water and half isopropyl (rubbing) alcohol or (b) half distilled water and half white vinegar. All ingredients readily available at grocery or drugstore. Note: isopropyl alcohol should be the 90% stuff.
I have a little spray bottle of the water/alcohol mix and use that for the screens on monitors, TV, tablet and cell phone. Works fine.
ETA: I would not use isopropyl alcohol on a screen without diluting it—with distilled water.
Alison
@Steeplejack: Ah okay, thanks for the additional details :)
rikyrah
@Mike J:
I disagree.
It meant a great deal that Barack Obama became BARACK Obama. That he accepted the name given to him by birth and chose, in college, that, as a man, he would go forth by that and make his destiny with his name.
Jindal could have made the same decision, but he didn’t. He turned his back on his birth name, his culturally given name, for something that sounded more WHITE.
He turned his back on the religion of his birth for one that was more ‘ acceptable’. More ‘ White’.
Seeing him turn his back on the name and religion given to him by his parents tells me everything I would ever need to know about him. It tells me that he will shuck, jive and tapdance to whatever the ‘White Man’ wants him to.
Just like I never needed to know any of the policy decisions that Clarence Thomas did at the EEOC to know WHO he was. The moment I heard the story of him going up in front of a bunch of White folk and ridiculing and degrading his sister for going on welfare, when HE KNEW the reason behind it – told me everything. EVERYTHING. I knew which way was up with him, and nothing he’s done has changed it.
You don’t think Jindal turning his back on his name and religion matter – I dare say they epitomize everything about him and his craven desperation for acceptance by the White Establishment.
Tree With Water
“[White] was famously on the receiving end of one of Andrew Breitbart’s last tweets before the conservative provocateur died…”.
Conclusion: White has gnarly powers we cannot fathom, and is not to be trifled with
AxelFoley
@rikyrah:
All this.
Gvg
Universities make a lot of decisions from the point of view of educating a student body and widening their experience. some of those decisions don’t nessesarily work well, but that is why they do them. it is a fact that way too few people still know any veterans which could make them indifferent. I think it probable that the University simply thinks they are teaching their students. You would not believe how guns ho my University is about things like diversity events, international cultural events and the like. I like the tolerant atmosphere but personally get bored by the repetitive events. I have been here far longer than a student though. I don’t think we honor a veteran every game but I am pretty sure it does happen now and then and again, the administration does almost everything from the point of view that they are educating the students. there have been a number of stories,lately about how most of our population doesn’t see wars as something that effect them anymore and don’t know any who have served, thus we don’t hold generals and politicians accountable etc.
kc
@schrodinger’s cat:
I’ll be damned if I’m going to fault anyone for that. Smacks of right wing tactics, appealing to prejudice and bigotry. As much as j dislike Haley, it really pisses me off when liberals call her “Nimrata.” It’s like they’re sayin, “Don’t be fooled, she’s really a brown foreigner with a funny name!”
Someguy
Even if the story about Scalise isn’t exactly true, it’s too good to let go of. Like the stuff O’Queefe kicks up, when you have a club that lets you bludgeon the career of a political enemy, you swing it repeatedly. It really doesn’t matter if the story is true or not, it is effective. Well done, Mr. White. Well done, sir.
rikyrah
@kc:
Not me. When I use it, it’s to point out that she’s a sellout. A complete and utter sellout.
LWA (Liberal With Attitude)
When I see the black and Indian members of the GOP, I always think of that scene in Animal House where one of the cool guys pulls the freshmen nerds over and tells them, “here’s some people I think you should meet” and we see a corner with a Sikh, a guy in a wheelchair and a blind guy.
Jindal and Carson and the rest are the “black friends” that racist white people always reference- the odd exotic pals who submit to the dominant culture and allow the dominant ones to remain unthreatened, yet broad minded.
schrodinger's cat
@kc: She can call herself whatever she likes, and I can draw my conclusions about her decision the way I like. BTW nowhere in my original comment have I called her Nimrata.
ETA: Kamala Harris did not have to become Kate Harris to be the AG of California, so high political office and an unusual name is not a null set. I think it also says as much about the GOP as it does about Haley and Jindal.
kc
@rikyrah:
Well, if you think that’s a winning strategy, by all means keep it up.
kc
@schrodinger’s cat:
I didn’t say that you did, and I didn’t mean to imply it. Though it sounds as if you don’t disapprove of that. But I have seen it done plenty of times, by liberals.
It’s gonna say something about liberals if we think hammering minority politicians over their names and religions is a good idea.
kc
As an aside, I note that Barack Obama became a Christian as an adult, and then ditched his pastor in the middle of a presidential campaign when the pastor became controversial.
Not that I fault him for that, but people who don’t, and yet think it’s cool to bash Haley and Jindal for becoming Christians, well . . . . that’s just the flip side of the coin from people who claim Obama is a secret Muslim who’s just pretending to be Christian.
schrodinger's cat
@kc: I was making an observation, not suggesting their name change as an attack tactic to win elections.
You are mind reading. I call people by the name they wished to addressed as.
BTW did you manage to get the feral kitteh to the vet?
kc
@schrodinger’s cat:
Apologies, then! I shouldn’t mind-read; I’m not very good at it. The “Nimrata” thing is something I’ve seen from SC people on local websites, so far. As she attains more national prominence, and she will, maybe other liberal commenters will pick up on it, but I hope not. I hate to see liberals go down that road. Not that you would, but some would.
Re the feral kitty: Haven’t gotten him to the vet yet, but mostly because of my (and the vet’s) holiday schedule. However, I took someone’s suggestion to cover the trap with a blanket and have been putting his food dish in the trap and pushing it back a bit further by increments, so that by now he has to get his entire body in there to eat. And it’s working, he is going in and eating the food. I’ve just avoided putting the food far enough back to trigger the trap door yet, because I don’t want to lock him in until I know the vet can take him. I’m shooting for next week.
We’ve made some additional progress in that yesterday, he actually meowed at me, and came within arm’s length – really long arm’s length – and let me scritch his head! Very exciting.
Thanks for asking.
jame
I read Library Chronicles and cenlamar daily. Lamar White is doing some very solid journalism in my home state. I think you should add him to your blogroll.
Ruckus
@rikyrah:
I am not in any way defending Jindal’s politics, they are horrible and I believe he is a horrible person. But having to follow a religion for any reason other than one wants to is wrong. I was raised and baptized Presbyterian but I haven’t followed this or any religion since I was 12, a very long time ago. And while my name is pretty white bread, middle american, for years I thought about changing it. My folks had, it seemed to me, no imagination and named me after my dad. But it actually gets me that the reason was they wanted me to follow his footsteps in his field of work and into business. No idea that I could be an individual. And it was far worse for my sisters. They were supposed to get married and produce kids, nothing more, nothing less. Didn’t pay for their college so they could learn anything, but so they could met a man. I’ve known kids whose parents supported them in what ever they wanted, that just wasn’t mine. Maybe it wasn’t Jindal’s either.
Now if you want to dis the man’s politics I’m 1000% in agreement.
I dare say they epitomize everything about him and his craven desperation for acceptance by the White Establishment.
Now on the other hand, if you are correct in what I’ve quoted then that falls under politics and I’ll take back everything I said in his case.