Race card sighting, race card sighting.

[rabbitproof]

Originally Posted by Flacolaco

The crux of the argument is, why are people being penalized for doing well for themselves? It's like if you were to tell the Celtics, "Hey, since you guys won the Finals, you have to give more of your pay to the players association." And the Celtics would then (rightly) say "wtf? all the other guys had an EQUAL chance to make it to the Finals, why the hell should we be punished for playing by the exact same rules and doing a little better for ourselves?"

"Screw winning the championship, we've lost our shot at the lottery!!"

Is that what you're saying happens?

[Arne]

Originally Posted by rabbitproof

Let me preface this by saying that I am more of a not McCain supporter than a Obama supporter. Paul was my guy.

But cmon, you're making fun of his obviously ethnic middle name and news outlets are associating his fist jab with terrorists... we're not color-blind and Obama is just confirming the realities of the situation.

Anyways, being that it is campaign season, as my friend says...

Obama will try not to appear too young and black, Michelle too angry.

McCain will try not to appear too old and white, Cindy too skanky.

Welcome to politics.

I feel quite the same. Except for the fact that Ron Paul still is my guy (of course not for the election but in general when it comes to politics of today) and that I don't have to make a choice for the lesser of two evils, since I'm not American. If I were American I'd be torn between Obama (probably a tough choice, but I'd do it just to make sure that McCain doesn't get into office) and the consitutional party's candidate, even though I'd much rather write "none of the above" on the ballot.

By the way it should say:

McCain will try not to appear too old, violent, mental and white, Cindy too skanky.

[dude1394]

Another race card whiney sighting.

Obama continued: "And so the only way they figure they’re going to win this election is if they make you scared of me. So what they’re saying is, ‘Well, we know we’re not very good but you can’t risk electing Obama. You know, he’s new, he’s... doesn’t look like the other presidents on the currency, you know, he’s got a, he’s got a funny name.'

[Usually Lurkin]

Originally Posted by dude1394

Another race card whiney sighting.

where'd you get that quote, dude?
Where I've read it, he said "doesn't look like all those other presidents on the dollar bills."
http://apnews.myway.com/article/20080731/D928PB3O0.html

[Flacolaco]

all those other presidents on the dollar bills

That's even better.

You know all those guyS on the one dollar bills and all their crazy shenanigans...

[DirkFTW]

Well there's the one-eyed guy with the triangular face... and Chris Anderson, the Bird Man himself.

[DirkFTW]

Did Obama Accuse McCain of Running a Racist, Xenophobic Campaign?

July 30, 2008 10:45 PM

"John McCain right now, he's spending an awful lot of time talking about me," Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., said today in Rolla, Mo. "You notice that? I haven’t seen an ad yet where he talks about what he’s gonna do. And the reason is because those folks know they don’t have any good answers, they know they’ve had their turn over the last eight years and made a mess of things. They know that you’re not real happy with them."

Obama continued: "And so the only way they figure they’re going to win this election is if they make you scared of me. So what they’re saying is, ‘Well, we know we’re not very good but you can’t risk electing Obama. You know, he’s new, he’s... doesn’t look like the other presidents on the currency, you know, he’s got a, he’s got a funny name.'

"I mean, that’s basically the argument -- he’s too risky," Obama said, per ABC News' Sunlen Miller. "But think about it, what’s the bigger risk? Us deciding that we’re going to come together to bring about real change in America or continuing to do same things with the same folks in the same ways that we know have not worked? I mean, are we really going to do the same stuff that we’ve been doing over the last eight years? ... That’s a risk we cannot afford. The stakes are too high."

Obama made similar comments earlier in the day in Springfield, Mo.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but does it not seem as if Obama just said McCain and his campaign -- presumably the "they" in this construct -- are saying that Obama shouldn't be elected because he's a risk because he's black and has a foreign-sounding name?

The Obama campaign says no, no, no, certainly not, he was talking about his "opponents" in general, writ large, the talk radio hosts and smear artists and such.

Then in Union, Mo., this evening, Obama seemed to specifically accuse McCain and the GOP of peddling racism and xenophobia.

Obama said that "John McCain and the Republicans, they don’t have any new ideas, that’s why they’re spending all their time talking about me. I mean, you haven’t heard a positive thing out of that campaign in ... in a month. All they do is try to run me down and you know, you know this in your own life. If somebody doesn’t have anything nice to say about anybody, that means they’ve got some problems of their own. So they know they’ve got no new ideas, they know they’re dredging up all the stale old stuff they’ve been peddling for the last eight, 10 years.

"But, since they don’t have any new ideas the only strategy they’ve got in this election is to try to scare you about me. They’re going to try to say that I’m a risky guy, they’re going to try to say, 'Well, you know, he’s got a funny name and he doesn’t look like all the presidents on the dollar bills and the five dollar bills and, and they’re going to send out nasty emails.

"And, you know, the latest one they’ve got me in an ad with Paris Hilton," Obama said, referring to a McCain campaign ad launched today. "You know, never met the woman. But, but, you know, what they’re gonna try to argue is that somehow I’m too risky."

There's a lot of racist xenophobic crap out there. But not only has McCain not peddled any of it, he's condemned it.

Back in February, McCain apologized for some questionable comments made by a local radio host. In April, he condemned the North Carolina Republican Party's ad featuring images of the Rev. Jeremiah Wright.

With one possible exception, I've never seen McCain or those under his control playing the race card or making fun of Obama's name -- or even mentioning Obama's full name, for that matter!

(The one exception was in March when McCain suspended a low-level campaign staffer for sending out to a small group of friends a link to a video that attempts to tie Obama not only to Wright but to the black power movement, rappers Public Enemy and Malcolm X.)

While I have no doubt there will be a bunch more racist, xenophobic, and other ignorant drek coming our way courtesy of the Internet and perhaps the occasional cable news network, it's important to determine where it's coming from. Is it from a specific campaign or party? A third-party group? A third-party group with direct ties to establishment figures? This all matters.

I've seen racism in campaigns before -- I've seen it against Obama in this campaign (more from Democrats than Republicans, at this point, I might add) and I've seen it against McCain in South Carolina in 2000, when his adopted Bangladeshi daughter Bridget was alleged, by the charming friends and allies of then-Gov. George W. Bush, to have been a McCain love-child with an African-American woman.

What I have not seen is it come from McCain or his campaign in such a way to merit the language Obama used today. Pretty inflammatory.

- jpt

http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpu...ama-accus.html

[Usually Lurkin]

Originally Posted by DirkFTW

"doesn’t look like all the presidents on the dollar bills and the five dollar bills and"

does he keep saying the same thing over and over, or is he getting requoted every time a little differently? Here, there's no pretentious "other" in front of "presidents"

[DirkFTW]

I think he's said the currency-related line at least twice now.

[Arne]

Answering a question on Obama's "race card", John McCain tries his new girly voice:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DIy08l0NRRA&feature=user

Hilarious...

[dude1394]

In my best Bubba's Momma's voice:

"Are you crazy or are you just stupid?"

http://www.abcnews.go.com/GMA/Politi...5495348&page=1

Sen. Barack Obama's chief strategist conceded that the Democratic presidential candidate was referring to his race when he said Republicans were trying to scare voters by suggesting Obama "doesn't look like all those other presidents on the dollar bills."

So is he playing the race card if he actually admits he's playing the race card?

[chumdawg]

I wonder if it's worth stopping down to ask if maybe Team Obama knows exactly what they are doing and are doing it very, very well. After all, one must admit that their political shrewdness has been extraordinary up to now. It almost seems like forever ago, but remember that they took on a hugely powerful nominee in waiting, herself a member of a political group that is known to play the game about as well as it can be played, and put her away. Maybe it's time to wonder if Team Obama is the new unstoppable force in modern politics.

Consider the current brouhaha in that light. Remember that it started with Team Obama. They began the discourse. Maybe they knew exactly what they were doing. Their words were carefully chosen. It wasn't "They are going to scare you by saying he's a black man." No, that would be too easy to defend against. See, that would be playing the race card off the TOP of the deck. Rather they said that he "doesn't look like the other presidents." There was deliberate ambiguity. The ball was now in Team McCain's court. And how did they respond? Well, Obama didn't just play the race card, but he played it off the bottom of the deck!

In other words, he cheated. It's okay to play the race card, so long as you do it out in the open. But when you sneak it in there? No fair!

So now the ball is back in Team Obama's court, and they respond at first by embracing the ambiguity. Deep down nobody really buys it, but it does seem to make some sort of sense. After all, they have a case. He *is* a young guy. He *is* a relative Washington outsider. He *is* a fresh and different face in American politics. Maybe he's right. I mean, look at McCain. He *does* look like those presidents on the currency. But we know that doesn't make him as qualified as a George Washington. Maybe you don't have to look like one of those presidents in order to do the job in this day and age.

This appeases the undecided voters, and it successfully fills one news cycle. And then the next day Team Obama brings the hammer down. Turns out that yes, they were talking about race after all. But, see, they eased you into that. They made you receptive to hearing it. They couldn't have just come out and said it in the first place.

And of course, they continue playing offense in another news cycle.

I'm just saying, maybe these guys are far more shrewd than most people realize.

[dude1394]

IMO you are giving him way too much credit. I think you are missing a fundamental imo. Clinton was done in by Iraq and the leftists in the democrat party. When the democrat party disowns a guy like Lieberman, you know they are way,way left. Especially in the primaries.

Clinton would have won that nomination without that dynamic imo. She won all of the bigger moderate races anyway.

He's been playing the race card all year, clinton (bubba and hillary) should have called him on it flat out. Instead they tried to defend their statements. You cannot defend yourself from the race card, but they could have turned it on him, mccains doing the right thing here.

And this doesn't provide much evidence that he's being that shrewd imo. It will get worse than this before it gets better I expect. This is a three-day rolling average so I don't expect the trend to go up for a little bit.

[chumdawg]

The kind of shrewdness I am talking about is a meta-strategy. It's not going to be reflected in a three-day rolling poll. My idea may be way off base. I'm not saying it is what I believe, necessarily. What I'm doing is wondering if it may be the case.

The funny thing about the "race card" issue is that you can't necessarily say that it is below board. After all, he is black, and race issues do exist. Hillary had a similar "card" to play--and play it she did--except hers was gender as opposed to race. How could she call Obama on trying to be the first black president when she was trying to be the first female president?

My sense is that we are at a time in our nation's history when a lot of people would like to put some of our ugly past behind us. We know that women couldn't cast votes all the way up till 1920, and we'd like to make some symbolic gesture to correct that wrong. We know that blacks couldn't drink from the same fountains as whites as little as forty years ago, and we'd like to make some symbolic gesture to correct that wrong.

At its essence, is it wrong for a candidate to capitalize on that sentiment? People vote for all kinds of reasons. Why should some of those reasons be out of bounds, as it were?

Except, I don't think that's what Obama is aiming for, when he plays the race card from the bottom of the deck. I think what Obama is talking about is skin color, as opposed to the notions we associate with "race." They aren't necessarily the same thing.

[dude1394]

I would agree that lot's of liberals feel that we need to do something to put our ugly past behind us, I believe (accurately) that the majority think that it's over. We've had enough affirmitive action, we've had enough set-asides. If someone or some agency is illegally racist, they are prosecuted.

[chumdawg]

Do you really "believe (accurately)" that racism is gone for good? I don't think you are being intellectually honest. I think what you mean is something like this: "Racism, or discrimination in general, is no longer legal, as it used to be. Hence, it no longer exists, at least in any form that is worth talking about."

But discrimination does still exist, and you know it. And you know that the government can go only so far in legislating against it. Private entities--down to and including you--can discriminate all they want and the government can't do anything about it. A country club can be all-male if it wants to, all-white if it wants to, all-female if it wants to, all-black if it wants to...nothing the government can do about it. You personally can discriminate against anyone you want to discriminate against, and there is nothing the government can do about it. Let's not act as though government-sponsored affirmative action solved discrimination in our country.

You say "we've had enough affirmative action." In also suggesting that you think the ugly parts of our past are "over," I would guess that you feel affirmative action did the job it was supposed to do. It's good that you recognize the positive effect affirmative action had. After all, the country was, what, 150 or so years old before women finally got the right to vote...but in the last few decades we have, through affirmative action, elevated blacks' status from the vestiges of slavery to the case now where they hold important positions in all areas of our government and industries. Affirmative action was much more effective than letting the natural course of things play out.

But you say enough is enough, and that it is a liberal viewpoint that we haven't finished the job. The "conservative" viewpoint you imply is not actually a conservative viewpoint but rather a reactionary one, a viewpoint that longs for the days of old.

I'm happy not to share that one with you.

[dude1394]

No...I forget what that "actually" referred to.

Sure there is racism, on both sides white, black, hispanic, indian, chinese etc. All kinds. But there is not institutional racism, nor is there guvment sanctioned racism.

But there IS guvment sacntioned reverse-racism. It's time to end it. There is much more snobbery than racsim imo.

As Obama would say...I can't know what would have happened had we not had AA, set-asides and busing. Other than I know that many folks were hurt by the same policies that supposedly helped others.

You call it wishing for the days of old, I call it wishing for the days of new for the cultures themselves who continue to be hurt by victimhood. I call it wishing for the Ward Connally, Thomas Sowell and the Bill Cosby day of personal responsibility, not victimhood. The black culture appears to be imploding imo, I dont' think it's been that helpful.

[ShaggyDirk]

Originally Posted by Flacolaco

The crux of the argument is, why are people being penalized for doing well for themselves? It's like if you were to tell the Celtics, "Hey, since you guys won the Finals, you have to give more of your pay to the players association." And the Celtics would then (rightly) say "wtf? all the other guys had an EQUAL chance to make it to the Finals, why the hell should we be punished for playing by the exact same rules and doing a little better for ourselves?"

it is naive for you to come up with this ridiculous analogy of the NBA salary spread to, for example, middle class vs. poverty stricken class.

[dude1394]

I guess I'm not the only person who thinks theOne is playing the race card. Playing it hard.

http://www.rasmussenreports.com/publ...mment_that_way

Sixty-nine percent (69%) of the nation’s voters say they’ve seen news coverage of the McCain campaign commercial that includes images of Britney Spears and Paris Hilton and suggests that Barack Obama is a celebrity just like them. Of those, just 22% say the ad was racist while 63% say it was not.

However, Obama’s comment that his Republican opponent will try to scare people because Obama does not look like all the other presidents on dollar bills was seen as racist by 53%. Thirty-eight percent (38%) disagree.

[wmbwinn]

Originally Posted by ShaggyDirk

it is naive for you to come up with this ridiculous analogy of the NBA salary spread to, for example, middle class vs. poverty stricken class.

The impoverished in this nation pay no taxes except consumption/regressive taxes such as the sales tax. The impoverished in this nation receive the tax dollars of others in the form of food stamps, housing, "earned income child credit", and in many other forms of government help.

So, you are right. You cannot compare the nation's tax structure to the NBA.

But, the idea of progressive taxation is one that can be taken too far.

If you overly tax the richest, then you are taxing the economy. When we talk about taxing those who make more than 250K (described as the top tier 2% of the nation), then we are talking about taxing GM, Toyota interests in the US, Pharmaceutical companies, Banks, etc.
We are also talking about increasing the tax on those who have salaries about 250K who are NOT business owners (and that group will get shellacked hard because they can't write anything off, not being business owners). Increasing taxes on the part of the economy that drives the economy is another way to speed up the process of that part of the economy moving to China (are you here Janet?). Why would Ford build cars here in the USA when Ford can build them in China and pay a lot less in taxes?

[Arne]

By the way, new homeland security news:

"As part of border search policy, government agents are now authorized to seize electronic devices and inspect documents in them, the document states. The electronic devices might include laptops, cell phones, portable music players or storage devices such as portable hard drives…"

http://www.pcworld.com/article/14930...ml?tk=rss_news

Get those terrorists, get them, get them... Their evil notebooks have to be seized so we can spend even more money gathering all this "intelligence"...

[DirkFTW]

The resonance of racism
In a nation steeped in stereotypes, candidates' words can hit a nerve.

Whether by calculation or coincidence, Hillary Clinton and Republicans who have attacked Barack Obama for elitism have struck a chord in a long-standing symphony of racial codes. It is a rebuke that gets magnified by historic beliefs about what blacks are and what they have no right to be.

...

This could not happen as dramatically were it not for embedded racial attitudes. "Elitist" is another word for "arrogant," which is another word for "uppity," that old calumny applied to blacks who stood up for themselves.

...

Deep end

Gergen: McCain Using Code Words To Attack Obama As "Uppity"

On Sunday, longtime Washington hand David Gergen took umbrage with John McCain's recent attack ads, charging that the Senator was using coded messaging to paint Barack Obama as "outside the mainstream" and "uppity."

"There has been a very intentional effort to paint him as somebody outside the mainstream, other, 'he's not one of us,'" said Gergen, who has worked with White Houses, both Republican and Democrat, from Nixon to Clinton. "I think the McCain campaign has been scrupulous about not directly saying it, but it's the subtext of this campaign. Everybody knows that. There are certain kinds of signals. As a native of the south, I can tell you, when you see this Charlton Heston ad, 'The One,' that's code for, 'he's uppity, he ought to stay in his place.' Everybody gets that who is from a southern background. We all understand that. When McCain comes out and starts talking about affirmative action, 'I'm against quotas,' we get what that's about."

Wow.

I'm sure the arugula price check and the disdain for gun-clinging, bible-clinging rural people had nothing to do with it

[DirkFTW]

Is Slate part of the Onion...?

When "Skinny" Means "Black"
The Journal stumbles over racial subtext.
By Timothy Noah
Posted Monday, Aug. 4, 2008, at 6:06 PM ET

In the Aug. 1 Wall Street Journal, Amy Chozick asked, "[C]ould Sen. Obama's skinniness be a liability?" Most Americans, Chozick points out, aren't skinny. Fully 66 percent of all citizens who've reached voting age are overweight, and 32 percent are obese. To be thin is to be different physically. Not that there's anything wrong, mind you, with being a skinny person. But would you want your sister to marry one? Would you want a whole family of skinny people to move in next-door? "I won't vote for any beanpole guy," an "unnamed Clinton supporter" wrote on a Yahoo politics message board. My point is that any discussion of Obama's "skinniness" and its impact on the typical American voter can't avoid being interpreted as a coded discussion of race.

Chozick insists that she didn't intend her playful feature about Obama's physique as potential electoral liability to carry any racial subtext. "I can't even respond to that," she told me. "That's ridiculous." Bob Christie, Dow Jones' vice president of communications, phoned me in a flash to reaffirm that message. I believe Chozick and Christie when they say that the Journal never intended skinniness to serve as a proxy for race. (Full disclosure: I was a reporter in the Journal's Washington bureau a dozen years ago. I know neither Chozick nor Christie. Fuller disclosure: I phoned my former Journal colleague, Michel Martin, an African-American journalist who is now host of NPR's Tell Me More, which frequently addresses matters of race, to ask whether she was offended. She was not. )

But I firmly disagree that a racial reading of Chozick's story is "ridiculous," and I would counter that any failure on Chozick's part to recognize such is just a wee bit clueless.

Let's review the basics. Barack Obama is the first African-American to win a major-party nomination for president of the United States. African-Americans are distinguishable from other Americans by their skin color. This physical attribute looms large in our nation's history as a source of prejudice.

The promise of Obama's presidency, in many people's minds, is partly that America will move toward becoming a post-racial society. It's pretty clear, though, that we aren't there yet. When white people are invited to think about Obama's physical appearance, the principal attribute they're likely to dwell on is his dark skin. Consequently, any reference to Obama's other physical attributes can't help coming off as a coy walk around the barn. A whole genre of humor turns on this reality. A Slate colleague informs me that an episode of the TV sitcom Happy Days ("Fonzie's New Friend") had its 1950s-era characters nervously discussing the fact that a black man in their midst was so … skinny. Was it true that skinny people liked fried chicken? That they were good at basketball? And so on.

It might be argued that body weight differs from certain other physical characteristics (apart from skin color) in that it has never been associated with racial caricature. Chozick wasn't asking (and, I feel sure, would never ask) whether Americans might think Obama's hair was too kinky or his nose too broad. But it doesn't matter. The sad fact is that any discussion of Obama's physical appearance is going to remind white people of the physical characteristic that's most on their minds. Moreover, Martin points out, "The black male body has been commodified in this country from its earliest days. People were brought here for their bodies." Better either to leave the whole topic alone, it seems to me, or to address the question of racial prejudice head-on, as Juan Williams did in an Aug. 4 Wall Street Journal column. In the future, the press would be wise to avoid discussing how ordinary Americans will respond to the size of Obama's ears, the thickness of Obama's eyebrows, and so on.

Is that prohibition too inhibiting? I doubt it, unless you happen to be a political cartoonist, and therefore have no choice but to navigate these perilous waters. Indeed, a few paragraphs into her story, Chozick shifts her topic from Obama's appearance to Obama's eating habits—from something Obama is to something Obama does. The shift was probably necessitated because in reality, people don't think much about Obama's skinniness. Chozick could substantiate her hypothesis with only two quotes, one of which—the "beanpole" quote—she solicited on the Web. ("Does anyone out there think Barack Obama is too thin to be president?" Chozick queried. "Anyone having a hard time relating to him and his 'no excess body fat'? Please let me know. Thanks!") In the vastness of cyberspace, you can always find somebody who will say whatever you want.

Are Obama's eating habits a political liability? The question may be trivial, but at least it's not offensive. The only real objection you can make there is that Chozick's litany of healthy foodstuffs favored by Obama (he "snacks on MET-Rx chocolate roasted-peanut protein bars and drinks Black Forest Berry Honest Tea, a healthy organic brew") echoes a similar litany from the day before by John McCain's campaign manager, Rick Davis. ("Only celebrities like Barack Obama … demand MET-RX chocolate roasted-peanut protein bars and bottles of a hard-to-find organic brew—Black Forest Berry Honest Tea. …") But that possible misdemeanor lies beyond our purview.

http://www.slate.com/id/2196756/

[DirkFTW]

Is Olbermann trying to scare off viewers...

Olbermann Sees '3 Phallic Symbols, 2 Blondes & Barack Obama' in Ad

KEITH OLBERMANN: What about when it backfires? Because it seems like the celebrity ad continues to echo. And Bob Herbert of the New York Times was on this network pointing out something I don't know that anybody noticed before this morning. That not only in that McCain ad where there two underdressed blondes mixed with the black guy in the ad, but there were also images of the Leaning Tower of Pisa, the Washington Monument, and the Victory Column in Berlin -- as Bob Herbert put it, "phallic symbols." Three phallic symbols, two blondes and Barack Obama. So this is not just a sexist ad anymore. This is what they used to called "miscegenation," isn't it? This is what they used against Harold Ford.

JONATHAN ALTER, NEWSWEEK: Well, to suggest that somehow, you know, Obama's going to-

OLBERMANN: He's going to wind up dating those women-

ALTER: Yeah.

OLBERMANN: That's the idea.

ALTER: That's the oldest and deepest racist, you know, canard in American history, really, is that, you know, the slave is going to come after the wife of the plantation owner. I can't, sort of, dissect and decode these ads that way. I just, somehow maybe my media literacy is lacking. I didn't read that out of those ads, but I can see how some people would. And the larger issue, I think, is clear, which is they're trying to portray him as being uppity. Now, is that racist? I'm not sure, you know.

OLBERMANN: Well, if we're playing Password and you say "uppity," the word that comes into my mind, that's racist, yes. Yes.

ALTER: Yes. That is clearly what the larger subtext is. As for the phallic stuff, I'll leave that to others.

OLBERMANN: Well, all right, we'll just drop it there.

Link

1. No Washington Monument
2. No Leaning Tower of Pisa
3. Obama picked the Victory Column in Berlin
4. Freud would be having a field day. "You say you see what in these pictures??"

[DirkFTW]

Oh thank goodness for the Daily Show... Not everyone is nuts.

http://www.comedycentral.com/videos/...videoId=178314

[dude1394]

Any station that would have olberman on it cannot be taken seriously. Lou Dobbs is right there also.

[DirkFTW]

^Aww, I like Lou. =) Wouldn't mind seeing him in a position to actually implement some of his ideas too.

Looks like more people are noticing the strange situation where every criticism somehow becomes racism.

“Happy Days” Are Here Again

August 06, 2008 9:54 AM

The Wall Street Journal's Amy Chozic wrote a piece earlier this month called "Too Fit to Be President?" in which she pondered whether in a country "in which 66% of the voting-age population is overweight and 32% is obese, could Sen. Obama's skinniness be a liability? Despite his visits to waffle houses, ice-cream parlors and greasy-spoon diners around the country, his slim physique just might have some Americans wondering whether he is truly like them."

That elicited a column from a writer at Slate, accusing Chozic of being "clueless" for not realizing that her column about Obama's fitness would be interpreted as a "coded discussion on race."

"When 'Skinny' Means 'Black,''' in fact, is the name of the column by Tim Noah, which notes that a "Slate colleague informs me that an episode of the TV sitcom Happy Days ('Fonzie's New Friend') had its 1950s-era characters nervously discussing the fact that a black man in their midst was so … skinny. Was it true that skinny people liked fried chicken? That they were good at basketball? And so on. …

“The sad fact is that any discussion of Obama's physical appearance is going to remind white people of the physical characteristic that's most on their minds. Better either to leave the whole topic alone, it seems to me, or to address the question of racial prejudice head-on.... In the future, the press would be wise to avoid discussing how ordinary Americans will respond to the size of Obama's ears, the thickness of Obama's eyebrows, and so on.”

Discussion question (throwing it out there, not my opinion necessarily, just here it is, lets have some talk about it):

Some commentators -- not the Obama campaign, mind you, but their supporters in the blabbocracy -- are trying to take entire subjects of discussion off the table by insinuating there is a racial subtext. Discussion of Obama's tremendous self-regard = calling him "uppity." And now the suggestion that we can't discuss the physical fitness of a presidential candidate who works out six days a week without that being seen in some liberal quarters as code.

Bonus questions: Is there any connection between the blue collar appeal of Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-NY, and Happy Days' Leather Tuscadero? Could the new campaign tactics of Sen. John McCain be accurately described as a “Malachi crunch”?

- jpt

http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpu...-days-are.html

[ShaggyDirk]

Originally Posted by dude1394

Any station that would have olberman on it cannot be taken seriously. Lou Dobbs is right there also.

TOTALLY, agree!

[dude1394]

Funny..

Can Obama laugh at himself?

Of course not. That would be racist.

[rabbitproof]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080807/...r/obama_threat

sigh. would love to move on..

[dude1394]

Originally Posted by rabbitproof

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080807/...r/obama_threat

sigh. would love to move on..

I agree, it's been going on 8 years too long.

http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5j...v2IeQD92DLLFO0

A man who authorities said was keeping weapons and military-style gear in his hotel room and car appeared in court Thursday on charges he threatened to assassinate Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama.

Raymond Hunter Geisel, 22, was arrested by the Secret Service on Saturday in Miami and was ordered held at Miami’s downtown detention center without bail Thursday by a federal magistrate.

A Secret Service affidavit charges that Geisel made the threat during a training class for bail bondsmen in Miami in late July. According to someone else in the 48-member class, Geisel allegedly referred to Obama with a racial epithet and continued, “If he gets elected, I’ll assassinate him myself.”

Obama was most recently in Florida on Aug. 1-2 but did not visit the South Florida area.

Another person in the class quoted Geisel as saying that “he hated George W. Bush and that he wanted to put a bullet in the president’s head,” according to the Secret Service.

[DirkFTW]

He was charged only with threatening Obama, the presumptive Democratic nominee, but not for any threat against President Bush.

I love how he wasn't charged with threatening to kill the president, but rather conditionally threatening to kill a candidate. Poor W, so many people want him dead that it's no longer a crime.

[dude1394]

Originally Posted by DirkFTW

I love how he wasn't charged with threatening to kill the president, but rather conditionally threatening to kill a candidate. Poor W, so many people want him dead that it's no longer a crime.

Dubya's enemies highlight his character.

[rabbitproof]

High profile characters get threatened everyday but it's the racial epithet that makes that link relevant to this thread.

[dude1394]

Let's see...if you yell racism all of the time, are you really the bigot?

Howard Dean also says:

"If you look at folks of color, even women, they're more successful in the Democratic Party than they are in the "white", excuse me, the Republican Party."

If they want to push folks away from voting for a black man they are doing a really good job.

[chumdawg]

Did Rosa Parks "yell racism all the time"? MLK? I'm not sure I understand what you mean here.

[dude1394]

Originally Posted by chumdawg

Did Rosa Parks "yell racism all the time"? MLK? I'm not sure I understand what you mean here.

I mean who's the bigot in this situation. The head of the Democratic National Party or the Republican Party Members.

[Underdog]

Originally Posted by dude1394

I mean who's the bigot in this situation. The head of the Democratic National Party or the Republican Party Members.

c) all of the above.

[Kirobaito]

Originally Posted by dude1394

Dubya's enemies highlight his character.

Yeah, it was the same with Nixon....

[dude1394]

I sort of like this drivel. They can keep pushing it out there and it's going to bite them in the ass. White folks have been told they are racists for so long that thinking you can "shame" them into voting for the most liberal ticket in modern memory aint' gonna work brotha'. Hopefully it will backfire greatly. When there's a conservative black person running, they'll get my vote, unitl then fuggedaboutit.

http://slate.com/id/2198397

If Obama Loses Racism is the only reason McCain might beat him.

What with the Bush legacy of reckless war and economic mismanagement, 2008 is a year that favors the generic Democratic candidate over the generic Republican one. Yet Barack Obama, with every natural and structural advantage in the presidential race, is running only neck-and-neck against John McCain, a sub-par Republican nominee with a list of liabilities longer than a Joe Biden monologue. Obama has built a crack political operation, raised record sums, and inspired millions with his eloquence and vision. McCain has struggled with a fractious campaign team, lacks clarity and discipline, and remains a stranger to charisma. Yet at the moment, the two of them appear to be tied. What gives?

If it makes you feel better, you can rationalize Obama's missing 10-point lead on the basis of Clintonite sulkiness, his slowness in responding to attacks, or the concern that Obama may be too handsome, brilliant, and cool to be elected. But let's be honest: If you break the numbers down, the reason Obama isn't ahead right now is that he trails badly among one group, older white voters. He does so for a simple reason: the color of his skin.

Much evidence points to racial prejudice as a factor that could be large enough to cost Obama the election. That warning is written all over last month's CBS/New York Times poll, which is worth examining in detail if you want a quick grasp of white America's curious sense of racial grievance. In the poll, 26 percent of whites say they have been victims of discrimination. Twenty-seven percent say too much has been made of the problems facing black people. Twenty-four percent say the country isn't ready to elect a black president. Five percent of white voters acknowledge that they, personally, would not vote for a black candidate.

I can't believe I kept reading this junk. So now if I don't elect a 4 year senator who has spent 2 of them campaigning and hasn't even convened his own committee then it's a "sign and symptom of a nation's historical decline". Wow...where do these people come from. The arrogrance that maybe, this dude doesn't have anything to offer just is beyond his comprehension. I would say that if we DO elect someone with so few qualifications it would be a sign and symptom of a nations decline, certainly into a lack of seriousness.

You may or may not agree with Obama's policy prescriptions, but they are, by and large, serious attempts to deal with the biggest issues we face: a failing health care system, oil dependency, income stagnation, and climate change. To the rest of the world, a rejection of the promise he represents wouldn't just be an odd choice by the United States. It would be taken for what it would be: sign and symptom of a nation's historical decline.