Hate Speech Makes a Comeback
Well, it sure didn't take long for the Tucson Truce to collapse.
After Rep. Gabrielle Giffords was shot on Jan. 8 by a berserker who killed six others, including a federal judge and a 9-year-old girl, and wounded 13, the media were aflame with charges the right had created the climate of hate in which such an atrocity was inevitable.
The Washington Post story on the massacre began, "The mass shooting ... raised serious concerns that the nation's political discourse had taken a dangerous turn."
Following Barack Obama's eloquent eulogy and call for all of us to lower our voices, it was agreed across the ideological divide that it was time to cool the rhetoric.
This week, however, hate speech was back in style.
After Donald Trump called on Obama to release his original birth certificate and produce the academic records and test scores that put him on a bullet train from being a "terrible student" at Occidental College to Columbia, Harvard Law and Harvard Law Review editor, charges of "racism" have saturated the airwaves.
To Tavis Smiley of PBS, this was a sure sign the most "racist" campaign in history is upon us. To Joy Behar and Whoopi Goldberg of The View, this was pure racism. To Bob Schieffer, CBS anchor, an "ugly strain of racism" is behind the effort to get Obama's records.
Again and again on cable TV, the question is raised, "What, other than racism, can explain Trump's call for these records?"
Well, how about a skeptical attitude toward political myths? How about a legitimate Republican opposition research effort to see just how much substance there is behind the story of the young African-American genius who awed with his brilliance everyone who came into contact with him?
Trump is testing the waters for a Republican campaign. One way to do that is to attract the party's true believers by demonstrating that, if you get nominated, unlike John McCain in 2008, you will peel the hide off Barack Obama. Is there anything wrong with that?
As for the birth certificate, it was The Donald who forced Obama to make it public. Not in two years had anyone else been able to do it. The White House press corps did not even try. The pit bulls of Richard Nixon's time have been largely replaced by purse dogs.
Not since Jack Kennedy has a president had a press corps so protective of the man they cover—though in Kennedy's case, they covered up a lifestyle that could have ended JFK's presidency.
Trump is drawing crowds because he speaks in plain language and appears unintimidated by the high priests of political correctness.
As Rush Limbaugh notes, it was Trump's demands for the birth certificate that turned the issue from a winner for Obama—it had been seen as a young president bedeviled by conspiracy theorists and bitter-enders—into an issue that had begun to cut.
When half of all Iowa Republicans, not a radical group, said they thought Obama was born somewhere else, and a fourth were not sure, the president, who had swept Iowa, was beginning to bleed.
The Donald had gotten under his armor.
As Newsweek's Howard Fineman notes, it was the rising doubts of independents about why Obama still refused to release his original birth certificate that caused him to end two years of stonewalling.
If the president has been hurt, is it not partly his own fault for not releasing the birth certificate and ending the matter after he was elected?
And the demand for Obama's test scores—is that racism?
Well, was it racist of the New Yorker to reveal in 1999 that George W. Bush got a score of 1206 on his Scholastic Aptitude Test (566 verbal, 640 math) or that Al Gore got a 1355? Was it racist of the Boston Globe to report that John Kerry was a D student as a freshman, who eventually rose up to a C and B student at Yale?
Was it racist of The New York Times' Charlie Savage to report that Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor had described herself as an "'affirmative action baby' whose lower test scores were overlooked by the admissions committees at Princeton University and Yale Law School because, she said, she is Hispanic"?
If a White House correspondent stood up at a press conference and said: "Mr. President, Donald Trump is asking for your college and law school test scores. Do you believe you benefited from affirmative action in your academic career?" would that be racist?
Perhaps Obama might begin his answer as he did, two decades before, in a Nov. 16, 1990, letter as president of Harvard Law Review:
As someone who has undoubtedly benefited from affirmative action programs during my career, and as someone who may have benefited from the Law Review's affirmative action program when I was selected to join the Review last year, I have not personally felt stigmatized.
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The birth certificate issue is more problematic in that great pains were made to hide Obomber's past. His college grades, school records and information about Stanley Anne Dunham have all vanished. The conspiracy theorists have plenty of reason to be suspicious. I can't wait for a credible analyst to declare the long form as a hoax, but today's forgers have improved their methods.
"The pit bulls of Richard Nixon’s time have been largely replaced by purse dogs."
Oh I imagine they are still kept around the kennels and fed kibbles and bits by the same jackels that brought down Richard Nixon. The problem is that the GOP still attempts to convince their constituency that they are gentleman hunters looking for upland game when in fact their dogs won't hunt, and when they do set something, it is usually just a meadowlark or a field rat.
I will defer to Pat in matters of national politics but if Donald Trump is the GOP's new red meat, why not just serve chicken nuggets and be done with it. (I know, I know, "ANSWER NO UNASKED QUESTIONS.) That damned silver rule again.
Anyone who asks if the long-form certificate recently released is "real" is asking a truly silly question. I think it's universally recognized that the document has been subjected to extensive digital processing. Someone in the Hawaii registrar's office has dragged-and-dropped a .TIF image of a grimy, creased, 50-year old document onto a directory labelled "process birth certificate" or similar, and that undoubtedly triggered a series of custom-written Adobe Acrobat macros that extracted the text and merged it with a modern template. Do you know why the certificate has a green monochromatic background? I'm no expert on this -- in fact I'm only guessing -- but I'll say it reflects the same "green screen" technology used in movie special effects. Is what you see "real?" Of course it is -- just like everything you see in "Avatar." They're real pixels on the screen -- millions of them.
Instead of dragging-and-dropping that .TIF file onto the Adobe macro, why couldn't that clerk in the registrar's office have simply dropped it on a page on their public web server? Wouldn't that have quieted a few people down? Could it be that Obama wants to prolong the controversy, because the more the barking loons out there make fools of themselves, the more it redounds to his political benefit, no matter how much it degrades the quality of the public discourse?
Donald Trump has done a great favour to Obama by ensuring another re-election for him with this stunt.
I can’t wait for a credible analyst to declare the long form as a hoax
Of what interest would that be to any serious person? Had Obama been found at some point ineligible, our President would today be John McCain, John Edwards, Hillary Clinton or Joe Biden. Of these options only a Clinton presidency would possibly (and I mean POSSIBLY) represent ANYTHING like a marginal improvement over the actual situation.
"Donald Trump has done a great favour to Obama by ensuring another re-election for him with this stunt."
I don't know if this Trump stunt has guaranteed an Obama victory, but it certainly leads down a path in that direction. I believe this entire approach toward BHO - the birth certificate, the grades and scores, the affirmative action benefits - will only serve to rally his crumbling coalition behind him. Many independents and true lefties are upset with him not least because of his foreign policy misadventures, but now they'll likely view these kinds of attacks as the last desperate attempts by the knuckle-draggers on the right to besmirch the president. He's so vulnerable on a thousand other more substantive points it seems almost conspiratorial that some are focused on this nonsense.
None of this really matters. We have no standards, rules and laws are ignored and not applicable. With the exception for white males, particularly those of the South.
Any criticism of Donald Trump is racist.
By the way, a curious question about charges of racism...
Had the President been an ethnic British or French or Canadian person born to recent immigrants to US, would a birth certificate issue have been nearly as big a deal?
If not, maybe these charges of racism are applicable, since there would be a possible double standard. If yes, then there is no racism at all in asking proof of birth. But one doesn't know how that giant group called the general public will react to anything.
Now, supposedly the requirement for Presidents to be American-born was done to prevent the English King's spies from usurping power in America. Perhaps it is an anachronism?
No offense, but "curious question"? I don't find the answer particularly interesting at all. What serious person--besides those working for NAACP, SPLC and other NGOs, who make a living off of trumping up real or imagined "racism"--could possibly be interested in the question of whether any attack directed against Obama were "racist"?
"I don’t find the answer particularly interesting at all."
NGPM,
Yes, this is my problem too. I am not at all offended by a concern for citizenship, but I had just assumed the last bi-partisan immigration bill had included amnesty for almost anyone who wanted to come and could find work. Why is the GOP leadership all at once concerned with illegal aliens? Mr. Bush ran on a ticket that supported amnesty at home and democracy abroad -- for everybody, everywhere! If the GOP true believers really want to pull the hide off the beast why not engage the duopoly in what U.S. citizenship should mean and what its limitations might actually be --at home and abroad!
The platforms of both major parties seem to suggest a complot for world domination, with Washington the capital. It's a battle against the U.N. for which body gets control first. For those of us on the ground there is hardly a dog in the fight.
"Perhaps it is an anachronism?"
The idea is that we have a president who understands, to the degree possible for any one person, what it is to be an American. An amendment requiring both parents to been "natural born" citizens would be a good idea to improve upon this laudable idea.
I disagree with Robert, the amnesty was not just for those "who wanted to come and could find work" - it was anyone who wanted to come - period. Being able to work and support yourself wasn't the goal.
The Founding Fathers would have nixed Obama for a number of reasons.
It does not matter where he was born. His father was a foreigner.
It will be interesting to see the test scores and grades, but remember they probably reflect affirmative action also.
@5 NGPM
When the birth certificate issue first surfaced during the election campaign, there was a Hawaii birth certificate that was a clear forgery -- a very shoddy cut-and-paste job. Of course when it comes to the internet -- believe only half of what you see.
@15 Dr Wilson, Happy Easter! Plus they'll no doubt reflect routine curved grade inflation.
If the yellow press is going to rake a failed oil speculator like Bush over the coals for his "gemtleman Cs," then it's only sauce for the gander that Obama gets the same treatment. The MSM only sneer at birthers because somebody else is actually researching a news story -- something they no longer teach at Columbia, apparently.
@12 NGPM
... with Washington the capital
I deal with DC government on a regular basis. The city used to work when Carter was president albeit with some tolerable corruption, but the new city is now irreparable. I don't care very much because it would be the perfect HQ for the "Free World." I can always learn Spanish and move to Tierra del Fuego. I can also fix plumbing.
Prateek, you ought to know by now than to toss around the old racist card here.
"Had the President been an ethnic British or French or Canadian person born to recent immigrants to US, would a birth certificate issue have been nearly as big a deal?"
Maybe, especially if he acted to conceal it, which Obama clearly did. That this raised eyebrows instead of becoming a formality for his campaign shouldnt be surprising. But as far as ethnic origins go, no. The US was founded by the ethic WASP which shares the same origins as Brits and many Canadians, and there is a French element to upper New England and Louisiana. The bastard son of a Kenyan bigamist (if their marriage was anything more than a sham) on the other hand?
#9
"Now, supposedly the requirement for Presidents to be American-born was done to prevent the English King’s spies from usurping power in America. Perhaps it is an anachronism?"
No it is not. Admitting foreign-born persons or even those with extremely strong ties overseas to the highest offices will lead to a situation where the President can flee abroad to avoid prosecution for alleged misdeeds committed while in office. Alberto Fujimori is Exhibit A. It would also allow the servitors of international finance to be parachuted into high office to act as the gauleiter of the country in question (Alassane Ouattara in Ivory Coast today, and maybe Dominique-Strauss Kahn in France tomorow...).
“Had the President been an ethnic British or French or Canadian person born to recent immigrants to US, would a birth certificate issue have been nearly as big a deal?”
The key to understanding the importance of the birth certificate issue is understanding Obama's role in US politics. Obama was sold as the post-racial left-wing (but not too left-wing) Messiah arrived on Earth to deliver the world from 8 years of Bushian darkness. His African heritage is an indispensable part of that public image. The PR campaign was an immense success and Obama entered office with massive public support. To ensure that Obama played his assigned puppet role, skeletons in the closet (like a questionable birth certificate) are needed that can be used to blackmail him if he deviates. While Obama has revealed himself to be a weak personality completely dominated by the rest of his Cabinet, one never wants to take the chance that a popular President might miraculously find his cojones and try to break the strings that hold him.
As for Obama's prospects for re-election, that largely depends on whether a Republican candidate that excites the same jingoism as Sarah Palin but with visibly higher IQ can be found (General Petraeus perhaps?). Obama's support among the Left, buoyed temporarily by the humanitarian war propaganda surrounding Libya, is still in freefall and consequently his utility as President is also coming to an end.
Think of the great war and espionage movies this daring stunt might trigger. Investors are no doubt already scrambling for production rights. Forget mundane stuff like "I was Monty's Double", the prospect of "I flushed out a Birth Certificate" hitting the big screen is a tantalsing one, n'est-ce pas?
I believe Mr. Buchanan is correct that after so many others failed, it was Trump that forced the administration to at least answer in some way the birth certificate argument. And this demonstrates some real strength in the public forum. And this is why I velieve the Republicans will be the first to undercut any popularity or political momentum that The Donald establishes. He is too independent minded for an office like the modern presidency. That post is strictly reserved for the malleable. Whatever we may think of Trump, and I cannot say I find him particularly conservative in any sense that is meaningful to readers here, he is confident or arrogant enough to stand up to the so-called special interests. Why would the ruling duopoly risk a renegade like him in office? They won't. Either they will convince him to quietly go away and stick to golf courses and reality TV or, failing that, they will muster against him an insurmountable media onslaught.
@Mr. Gervaise: not to probe or be indiscreet, but don't you have UK nationality? Why not come back across the pond? There's some nice isolated communes in France where no one will bother you, there are people who'd appreciate our sort of mentality and heck, plumbers of decent character and competence are in seriously short supply here...
I don't know if Trump has any actual desire for the presidency. Whatever may be his faults, I have to assume that as a businessman he is an inherently practical fellow. I assume that, unlike the seeming majority of American 'statesmen', he has been formed in a world where decisions have real consequences that cannot be masked by a PR secretary or bumper-sticker-slogan shell-gaming. The same world where characters matter where it behoves one to read them.
Will anyone deny that political jujitsu is this president's forte? If he hasn't revealed the birth certificate before now, it is because it was to his benefit not to do so. If he had his way, he would have kept it as a lurking conspiracy theory until just the right moment during the election cycle to discredit his critics.
I think Trump knew full well what he was doing. He smoked out a spade and removed at least one opportunity for the Republicans and tea party birthers to screw it all up next year.
In fact, the nation now has over a year to ponder the fact that, though he may be a bona fide American citizen, our president is the strange product of an African Muslim and a stateless communist. Also that he has surrounded himself with stranger characters all his life.
I could never understand why the supposedly short-fused John McCain didn't just run a good old fashioned character assassination campaign on Obama. He seems like a text-book target for such a thing. It would have been so easy. Perhaps it is true that McCain just wanted to sabotage the election for the Republicans out of spite.
@Mr. George: an interesting theory indeed! McCain's victory in the primaries was apparently due to Democrats voting for him in open primary states with large numbers of delegates, such as Florida.
On the other hand, from where the GOP was, victory was going to be a tough sell and McCain would definitely not have been up to it. I am told that no less than George W. Bush said off the record:
"John McCain! Well, who the h*** voted for McCain in the primaries? He's a wimp! He's toast! They'll cut him to pieces!"
Asked about Palin, Bush apparently quipped:
"I'd never even heard of this woman in my life! Who is she, the president of the Miss USA Universe pageant?!"
Wish I could find the source. Maybe it was a satire. But I would love to believe it.
While Trump would be an improvement over anything else the GOP can currently offer, I cant escape the feeling we'd be creating our own Berlusconi in America.
#19 Jonathan. If defeating Obama depends upon the Republicans selecting a good candidate, then you might as well forget it.
#24 NGPM. It is no reflection on Governor Palin that George Bush had never heard of her. He has probably never heard of 90 per cent of the most important people of the 20th century.
He wouldn't exactly be a Berlusconi.
Berlusconi joined politics right when his business was failing and near bankruptcy and right when scandals threatened to get him arrested. After he joined, he and his business could enjoy the double standards afforded to statesmen, thus saving him.
Trump's empire isn't about to fall apart, he isn't accused of a serious major crime at all, and politics would gain little for his kind of business.
Another thing - protesters in Italy once held a No Berlusconi Day, because they see Berlusconi everywhere. He himself makes the news in media outlets that he owns, and the most famous and advertised TV shows are associated with his conglomerate. It would be much harder for Trump to monopolize attention in the same way in America, where there is a lot of competition among publicity seekers.
#26 Dr. Wilson,
Personally, given the last several GOP candidates for the Presidency in my lifetime, I think conservatives would be better off without the GOP.
But back to hate speech; two black teenage females recently beat up a "transgender" woman at McDonald's in Baltimore, which naturally led to a demonstration shrieking for more "hatecrime" legislation. On WBAL radio a democratic state house member has resisted this ludicrous trend stating, "when did it become illegal to hate?"
A good point, and I take it well. We need to question such Orwellian premises the minute they're proclaimed, or else we can forget about being conservative. As a white, Christian man, I'll take my chances -- even against a negro liberal judge.
In a year (2008) in which a moronic Republican had been in the White House for two terms, unending wars were occurring, the economy lay a shambles, and the worst candidate in the history of humanity was the opponent, Obama should have won by thirty points. He won by seven. Which tells me that anyone who could speak coherently and had a logical program would have won. But then, that lets out the Republican Party, as Dr. Wilson pointed out above. But if, if...
Dr. Wilson,
The Republicans will never select a "good" candidate, but they might find a presentable one. You do not think that the Republican Party would nominate a candidate with epaulettes who could be sold to the American electorate as the anti-Obama?
I am not surprised to be well behind the former Vice President and recidivist Publicity Hound-in-Chief Mr. Gore in SAT score. He does seem like a smart enough fellow, all his faults notwithstanding. But his 2000 election opponent, that witless, overpampered New England carpetbagging silver-spooner George W. Bush? 1206 was his score? I only got 1130! Somebody please reassure me somehow that I don't need to feel embarrassed!
Brock H @32
I don't think there is any reason to feel embarrassed.
I remember seeing a magnet on the refrigerator of a fairly liberal, die-hard democrat that i know. It showed a close-up photograph of W's face, captured at an awkward moment. He looked dopey. On the magnet was written, "Like a rock. . . only dumber."
I wanted to tell my friend, "If you actually believe he is some hayseed bumpkin, then you have been perfectly outsmarted. In fact, you've bought the same bill of goods as all those backward, down-home-values yokels who voted for him."
I figure that if a man gets a go in the executive's chair, it is a safe bet that he boasts significant intelligence no matter how horrible he turns out to be.
Full disclosure:
I voted for him twice.
Also, while I believe my given score was higher, I think the test had gone through at least a couple of iterations of bar-lowering by the time I took it. Meaning my score probably would have been lower than his, too.
Andrew,
His Math score was much higher than his verbal score. It was painful to listen to the poor man but certainly he was not dumber than a rock. He was smart enough to rid himself of several neo-conservatives after he figured out they were no brighter and in fact a detriment to his own instincts. I always thought his finest hour was after the tragedy in New York surrounded by and speaking directly to the decent men and women who were working hard to recover the living and bury the dead.
We also must remember that candidates today are more like the human face of a huge corporation than leaders of a people. A good governnor from Texas or Ohio may not make a good representative for the duopoly at the national level. In fact the exodus from Washington back home is usually a telling sign for the brighter ones. I am thinking of the former Senator, Governor and Rhodes Scholar from Oklahoma as opposed to the former Governor, President and Rhodes Scholar from Arkansas. One left Washington to return home and become President of his Alma Mater, the other moved to New York to become citizen of the world.
Andrew George,
Your point is excellent. I am now inclined to think that perhaps Dubya is not and never was stupid, ditto for the GOP as a whole. What is undebatable, however, is that Boy George was blinded by his far-fetched vision, which included a lust for the power to make it happen. Mental obsession with power and control does indeed make the subjects of such obsessions DO and SAY stupid THINGS, but that does not therefore make them unintelligent people to start out with . . . just like the entire Republican Party.
Perhaps what made Bush seem truly dumb to his critics was his lifestyle. The fellow lives completely shut out from the rest of the world, whether at that big ranch in Crawford, TX or the Bush family palace in Kennebunkport, ME, surrounded by an exclusive little gathering of ideological clones and drones who tell him everything and anything he WANTS to hear.
With your confession that you voted for him both times, it seems we have something in common regarding Emperor George W. He is responsible for our political awakening, I assume. Yes, I also was sick with my GOP affliction in 2004 - my first election I was eligible by age to vote in, and I admit that I would have also voted for him first time around had I been 26 months older.
Why feel bad for voting for Bush, when he did many things that were going to happen anyway?
The Iraq War? Already planned in the Clinton administration.
Bush was no more "dumb" or even "folksy" than he was "evangelical Christian." He just played those things on TV.
He fooled an entire TV viewing populace, for sure, with his deliberate act and pretense.
What is chilling is that his speaking mistakes seemed deliberate.
Once he said, "Our enemies are cunning and resourceful, and so are we. They keep thinking of new ways of harming our people, and so do we." A seeming slipup, but I think that prankster-since-childhood was up to something.
Then, when he joked about his vice president killing someone at a radio and television dinner conference, he showed the same tact Obama did when he joked about murdering Pakistani children in drone attacks.
What do we even say about these people?
What do we say? How about that they're phonies with no manners? They have as much regard for their country the way a criminal with anti-social personality disorder has for his victims. Robert's point about politicians as the human faces of the evil machinery that runs this place is well-taken, though on the presidential level there is plenty of willing complicity. Obama, I think, is genuinely too dumb (despite his speaking skills) to really apprehend the magnitude of the evil of which he has become the figurehead. Bush, on the other hand, has no such excuse. I thunk he is fully conscious of what he is part of. His revealing Freudian slips and oratory inarticulateness do not reflect a lack of intelligence so much as a very non-gifted actor. But then, acting skills are not really necessary to convince the masses. (If they were, Four Weddings and a Funeral would never have become a ubiquitous reference point [to be fair, it is a not wholly unjust one, despite its appalling script and wholly unconvincing performers] in discussions of sexual love or of British culture and the movie would moreover have definitively ended the careers of Hugh Grant and Andie MacDowell.)
I am surprised that anyone would publicly admit to the shame of voting for Bush TWICE. He was not even "the lesser evil."
George Bush resembles the "What, Me Worry" character in the old Mad Magazine.
The Republican party is exactly what it has been since its inception---smart, ruthless managers supported by stupid voters.
It does not matter how intelligent or not Bush is. Like all Republican presidents, he did what he was told by the Money Power.
George Bush resembles the “What, Me Worry” character in the old Mad Magazine.
I'm going to remember that one!
It does not matter how intelligent or not Bush is. Like all Republican presidents, he did what he was told by the Money Power.
Well, yes, to an extent. But our observations on Bush's words and intelligence were meant to insinuate that Bush was actually PART of the Money Power pushing things, whereas Obama is just their puppet. I think it's a valuable use of our time to reflect upon the true nature of those people. Sun Tzu admonishes us to know our enemies.
It does not matter how intelligent or not Bush is. Like all Republican presidents, he did what he was told by the Money Power.
Yes, and I wish more folks would understand the danger of this. The difference between class and wealth is that the authentic ruling class understands its obligations, perogatives and duities whereas so much of the Money Power is simply consumed with power. Christian charity is consistent with authentic aristocracy. In fact it grants the aristocracy its nobility and inspires its true leaders. Groveling before the rich is unseemly and what the GOP minions haved been doing for years. Defrauding laborers of their wages just like sins of unnatural vice are still sins crying to heaven.
In small group discussions, Marines are being asked to consider their reactions to a wide range of scenarios, from seeing a member "hanging around" a gay bar to hearing locker-room jokes from others who refuse to shower in front of gays.
There is nothing wrong with "hanging around" a gay bar, the training materials state.
If a Marine spots two men in his battalion kissing off-duty at a shopping mall, he should react as if he were seeing a man and woman, according to the training materials.
There must be a similar rule for GOP cadidates in regard to the Presidency ---- DO AS YOU ARE TOLD!
Dr Wilson,
NGPM said it better than I could have.
But surely you will agree that after posting my comment at 33, the only responsible thing to do was to admit that I had actually voted for him (associated shame notwithstanding).
I would like to pose a question. If voting for the Republican candidate in the last three presidential elections was not necessarily the lesser of two evils, could it be argued that it was at least the most reversible?
The reversal, of course, would depend on worthwhile candidates eventually being elected into the positions that matter. That may depend on some long odds, but it is all we can pray for.
Foolish wars, excessive spending, industrial bankruptcy, neglecting the border. . . all these things could conceivably be eliminated with the stroke of a pen. But the creation of a dependent class of citizens through social security, food stamps, medicare, universal health care, and now homosexuals in the military will probably prove to be irreversible except through revolution or civil war (an actual one this time. Not a 'foreign war in disguise').
I have no love or respect for the Republican party, but these days it appears that their worst influence on society lies in enabling the party that actually turns idiotic policy into entrenched social institutions.
I submit the above as an honest question with which I have been wrestling.
Robert @43
I did not see you post until after I posted mine.
I am no longer active duty, but in my current job I was required to attend some of the training to which the Marines are being subjected.
Most ominous to me was the vignette about chaplains not being restricted from preaching according to their faiths. I looked at the fellow sitting next to me and we said to each other, "Sure, see how long that lasts."
I did take heart in the sheer incredulousness of the audience, although we all know that our opinions will mean nothing in time.
For most fellows I know, the thought of the impending scenes at birthday balls is enough to bring on a fit of vomiting.
Mr.George,
I spoke with a friend of mine who is still in the Corps.He is an old Warrent Officer, fought in every major occupation for the last twenty one years, bronze star with combat V for valor, purple heart,etc,.. He is eyeing the door. Said he stopped himself in mid sentence a month ago while providing this training and said, "This is not the Marine Corps I joined." In a certain sense it never is for the older enlisted types, but there comes a time when the necessary and the permissable are one and the same.
The U.S. military is no longer an acceptable place for a Christian to enlist in. The sooner "conservative" Americans accept this, the better.
I am glad I am not the only one who noticed a pronounced pro-African-American political correctness (a pure load of crap) of Tavis Smiley, who to this day uses a perfect form of ghetto speech (South-Central Los Angeles, NYC's Harlem, and coins words popularized by rap "artits", c'mon where is the English language in that language. Behar and Goldberg suffer from an acute self-centered paranoia. Their demonstrative "walk-off the show during the airing" is nothing but a well staged performance of a decent actor. Being "anti-white" has reached new heights (or lowest depths) since this country has been on the map. Nobody in their right mind would have found such overt racism against the non-African-Americans. Racism cuts both ways and to some feeble minded persons it is the turn of the whites to "see what it's like". Out of sheer boredom I counted TV commercials one evening during the prime time news. The results were not surprising, there were Afro-American lead characters (actors) in 8 out of every 10 TV commercials. Don't you hate when even the Geico Insurance, Proctor and Gamble, Shell oil, etc. etc. have to cave in to "political correctness"?
As much as G. W. Bush tried to appear "folksy" and wear rolled up long sleeve shirts - Tavis Smiley is trying twice that much to tap into the Afro-American audience with his topics, vernacular, syntax, views and all else - and, sadly enough he has some clout. Behar and Goldberg are just trying to build their future "I was in the civil rights movement with MLK" stands, betting on a wrong horse.
Jonathan, 29 April, writes:
"Obama was sold as the post-racial left-wing (but not too left-wing) Messiah arrived on Earth to deliver the world from 8 years of Bushian darkness."
Obama was also sold, if subliminally, as the first post-American president. His election was the most devastating blow to American identity, sovereignty, and the concept of citizenship so far landed by the one-worlders. Now, a Fujimori, or, more likely, a covertly dual citizenship Chinese, Mexican, or Jew, as, for instance, a certain recently elected big-city mayor, moves from an outside possibility to a strong likelihood of taking over the government within the next two or three election cycles.
Submitted, with apology for lateness, due to failed logic board in computer (though the writer has been known to have a few of those himself).
Mr. Jacobi,
You are right that he was also sold as the first post-American President. However, I think that part of his image was primarily designed for overseas rather than American consumption. After 8 years of Bush, large swathes of world opinion had come to truly detest the US government. Obama needed to be presentable as the figurehead of a rebaptized Free World bloc to face off against a rising China. The primary targets of this aspect of his PR campaign were probably Europeans (on account of his cosmpolitanism)alienated by Bush and Black Africans (on account of his African heritage) seduced by China.