Wednesday October 3, 2012, 2:02 pm

It's rather amazing that Barack Obama has been on the national political stage for more than eight years and the far-right media, committed to hating the president with a peculiar passion, still haven't figured out the race angle. Or specifically, they haven't figured out which race-baiting angle they prefer to play against him.

The jarring dichotomy played out yesterday. That morning, conservative George Will argued in his Washington Post column that Obama's race would shield him from a re-election defeat because Americans will vote for himbecause he's black.

Then in the late afternoon and evening a media kerfuffle broke out after thehabitually untrustworthy Drudge Report hyped a five-year-old video of Obama speaking at Hampton University. The unmistakable message from the overly excited members of GOP Noise machine on Tuesday was that the video "could dramatically impact" the election because it would showcase Obama as an angry man beset by racial grievances (it doesn't). The clear inference being that Americans won't vote for him because he's revealing his true black nature.

Here's how MSNBC's Rachel Maddow decoded the right-wing attack last night: "People didn't actually know [Obama] was this black, and if they had known he was this black they never would've elected him."

So which is it? Will voters excuse Obama's faults and give him a second term based on his race? Or will voters penalize Obama on Election Day based on his race?

The utter confusion and contradictory allegations shouldn't be surprising given that Obama's harshest opponents have been grappling for years, unsuccessfully, with the issue of race and how best to try to deploy it for political gain. They've alternately declared Obama a "racist" and have wallowed in the worst kind of ugly race baiting, while pre-emptively condemning any critics who dare call them out.

The us-versus-them cauldron of bigotry was purposefully reignited last night with the non-news of an Obama speech given in 2007 to an audience of African-American clergy. It was a speech that was open to the press at the time and was widely reported on, including on Fox News.

Yet here was just one of Matt Drudge's predictably race-baiting headline:


"FOXNEWS TONIGHT: OBAMA'S OTHER RACE SPEECH - THE ACCENT... THE ANGER... THE ACCUSATIONS..."

In reality, here's a small sample of Obama's supposedly "anger"-filled "race speech":




Scary stuff, indeed.

But Sean Hannity and Fox and Drudge and Daily Caller and a brigade of seething bloggers wanted to push the Obama's-a-scary-black-man meme again (2008 nostalgia?), and so the entire GOP Noise Machine staged a faux freakout over Obama's alleged racist ways. Salon's Joan Walsh accurately described the on-air meltdown that Hannity and Daily Caller editor Tucker Carlson suffered last night as "the most rancid racial fear-mongering" she had seen in a very long time.

That fear-mongering was widespread last night. From blogger Doug Ross:


SETTING BACK RACE RELATIONS 40 YEARS: Tape Released by Daily Caller Reveals Obama Channeling Jeremiah Wright

From Jim Hoft:


Barack Obama Plays Race Card Against Whitey - Praises Reve. Wright in 2007 Speech

Meanwhile, Instapundit noted with glee that a screenshot of the lengthy address showed Obama "pounding" the lectern! (He's angry!)

You get the idea.

The convoluted message? Obama's a race-baiting monster who's (still) black!

All of this though, came on the same day conservative George Will complained that Obama's minority status might secure his re-election because, as Rush Limbaugh put it yesterday, Obama was an "affirmative action hire." Appearing on Sean Hannity's radio show last week, conservative columnist Michael Barone made the same point, suggesting people don't want to be seen as rejecting the first African American president. And they don't want to admit that he's a failure, as Will argued.

Aside from the immensely condescending opinion that Will expressed, claiming unserious voters will punt an entire presidential election in order to not "give up on" the first African-American president, the columnist suggested race remains the dominant issue when evaluating Obama.

Will cynically claimed race is a huge asset for Obama, while Hannity and company clearly hope race will be used to drive the president from office next month.

Confirmed: When it comes to the right-wing media and race-based attack politics, they just can't keep their stories straight.
*********

Media Matters for America / By Eric Boehlert | alternet |

Wednesday October 3, 2012, 2:08 pm

Here are the dire comments by Obama that created such a furor of nonsense:

"Right here in this room, we believe that God is big enough to overcome the smallness of our politics; that He is big enough to overcome our doubts and our cynicism and our worries; that He is big enough to love children of every color and creed and political label.

Ministers, it's time to unite behind our faith and help all of God's children around the world and here at home realize that we are all surgeons. Our faith, the word and his will are the instruments we need to take the bullets out. "

I think it's time some people started to grow up, or leave politics to the grown ups. This is such silly nonsense, did some one not know that our President is a black man? Was it just discovered this week by Drudge?

Wednesday October 3, 2012, 2:15 pm
The President's hypocritical and dishonest speech at Hampton University reveals his willingness to exploit racial themes and falsehood to advance his narrative. To condemn that behavior is not to condemn his skin color.

To suggest that some Americans may be so enamored of the idea of having a President who is a racial minority that they are willing to overlook his faults is a critique of the judgment of those Americans, not a criticism of the President's skin color.

I wish that Progressives would stop wildly slinging accusations of racism at anyone with the temerity to oppose the President's policies. Every time a slur of racism is carelessly made for political gain it dilutes the strength of the charge against real racists.

Wednesday October 3, 2012, 2:17 pm
And here are the comments that are creating an entirely justified furor:



Down in New Orleans, where they still have not rebuilt twenty months later, there’s a law, federal law — when you get reconstruction money from the federal government — called the Stafford Act. And basically it says, when you get federal money, you gotta give a ten percent match. The local government’s gotta come up with ten percent. Every ten dollars the federal government comes up with, local government’s gotta give a dollar.

Now here’s the thing, when 9-11 happened in New York City, they waived the Stafford Act — said, ‘This is too serious a problem. We can’t expect New York City to rebuild on its own. Forget that dollar you gotta put in. Well, here’s ten dollars.’ And that was the right thing to do. When Hurricane Andrew struck in Florida, people said, ‘Look at this devastation. We don’t expect you to come up with y’own money, here. Here’s the money to rebuild. We’re not gonna wait for you to scratch it together — because you’re part of the American family.’

What’s happening down in New Orleans? Where’s your dollar? Where’s your Stafford Act money? Makes no sense! Tells me that somehow, the people down in New Orleans they don’t care about as much!




As explained in this article: http://www.care2.com/news/member/605579978/3463563 , this statement is patently false:


But as the Daily Caller points out, by January 2007, six months before Obama’s Hampton speech, the federal government had sent at least $110 billion to areas damaged by Katrina. This was more than five times the money that the Bush administration pledged to New York City after 9/11.

Moreover, says the DC, the federal government did at times waive the Stafford Act during its New Orleans reconstruction efforts. On May 25, 2007, just weeks before Obama’s speech, the Bush administration sent an additional $6.9 billion to Katrina-affected areas with no strings attached.

So here’s what Barack “No Red America, No Blue America” Obama, the great racial unifier, did at Hampton. He charged the U.S. government with racism based on false claims about the response to Hurricane Katrina.

Wednesday October 3, 2012, 2:40 pm
Paula, If New Orleans didn't have the match for Stafford, then the funds you are talking about were designated differently and non-comparably.
There are different funds limited to specific purposes--some call for match, some don't. Please do not try to compare apples to oranges and then claim that apples were good enough for the patient with rickets.

Wednesday October 3, 2012, 2:59 pm
J.L. A., the article I cited makes it clear that it is the President who deceptively mixed apples with oranges by suggesting that the Stafford Act was the universal standard that was heartlessly kept in place due to indifference for the plight of the people of New Orleans - and that he was wrong even by that misleading standard.

Wednesday October 3, 2012, 3:59 pm

Thanks Paula for proving the point of this article. You are attempting to prove something that is simply not true, no facts no truth.

You don't like Obama, fine scurry off and vote for Romney, your kind of guy!

Wednesday October 3, 2012, 5:05 pm

Paula is great at doing that Kit. She doesn't seem to be able to stop herself from proving the points of their opposition, in my opinion also...that's why I call their loutlandish lies and B.S..... InsaniTea ...donche' see :-)

Thanks for the article and your comments kit..and especially for those of Paula and for her taking the time to prove the point of the article...I've copied/bookmarked them for future referrencing...the article also.

Wednesday October 3, 2012, 5:25 pm
Noted. Thanks.

Wednesday October 3, 2012, 5:55 pm
Great article thank you Kit.
Thanks for J.L. and Jae for your voices of sanity too.

Sorry for going slightly off topic but Paula's take on New Orleans disaster reminded me of the unfairness, the inhumanity.
I'm an Australian and I watched the New Orleans disaster as it happened - housebound at the time so my viewing was uninterrupted. I was amazed and horrified that I knew what was going on half way across the world, well before President Bush did. Or so it seemed as nothing was organised for an outrageously long time. Even Australian and other international reporters were rescuing people in New Orleans, but not Pres Bush and company.

Prejudice raised its ugly head in certain reporting of New Orleans victims scavenging for food. Photographs of people carrying boxes of food, walking waist-deep in water... if they were white they were 'heroes' taking care of their families, if they were black they were 'looters' taking advantage of shopkeepers' misfortunes.

I despair!

Wednesday October 3, 2012, 8:21 pm
The Bu$h League purposely dismantled all the safeguards & planning FEMA had in place during Clinton's Admin. - just as they methodically put incompetent & HOSTILE people in positions of authority everywhere they could.
What RepubliCONs really Fear is that Their women will vote & follow a black man - because Next step is that there may be a Woman President!;) But Obama is a black MAN, which is why I believe some RepubliCONs crossed sides last time - given that the RepubliCONs threw the 2008 election, knowing whoever was elected would be totally screwed by Bu$h League Bankruptcy, by dragging in a *gasp* Woman to be Vice Pres. candidate. The fact she was Totally Cluele$$ Barbie was Their idea of the Ideal Woman and Proved their own point to Themselves - women are not smart, not to be trusted, and Never Leaders! RepubliCONs get SO confused & vicious when blood is in the water that they eat their own! So the War on Women goes on... and that brings me back to one of their other pet peeves, minorities in high places... they forget Which way to attack - usually try carpet bombing, which alienates their Own minorities, which makes it harder for them to find that "special" minority to do their bidding. I mean, how many Clarence Thomas's can there be?? ;)

Wednesday October 3, 2012, 8:36 pm
Paula M. , what can I say? Another propagandist with an almost empty page. No real facts, only cherry picked quotes to shore up a weak right wing agenda. Paula, it's quite ok to disagree with the President's ideas and policies IF you know what your facts are. And if you want to deny that racism exists, go for it. You know deep down that just under the surface IT IS THERE. I don't fault you for being a conservative, but I do fault you for your mindless anti Liberal blather. We are ALL Americans with the same rights and with differing opinions, but basically we all want fairness, equality and happiness.

Wednesday October 3, 2012, 8:48 pm
Robert, you're so sweet to think we ALL want fairness, equality, & happiness - even after seeing what CONservatives have done lo these many years to Prevent & Destroy those very things!;)

Wednesday October 3, 2012, 8:55 pm
No one is denying that racism exists, Robert. It exists in people who voted against Obama because he is half black and it exists in people who voted for him because he is half black. And if you are really that interested in fairness, then I would expect you to also fault Yvonne for her mindless anti conservative blather. I expect that might be a bit much to ask of you.

Wednesday October 3, 2012, 9:10 pm

Half black? What does it matter if you are not interested in race? I have found that most curious since Obama first began running for national office. The man considers himself a black man, that should be the end of that.

What is a liberal?

"“If by a "Liberal" they mean someone who looks ahead and not behind, someone who welcomes new ideas without rigid reactions, someone who cares about the welfare of the people-their health, their housing, their schools, their jobs, their civil rights and their civil liberties-someone who believes we can break through the stalemate and suspicions that grip us in our policies abroad, if that is what they mean by a "Liberal", then I'm proud to say I'm a "Liberal.” John F Kennedy

Wednesday October 3, 2012, 9:22 pm
It matters only to Obama whether he considers himself black, or whether he considers himself white, or whether he equally embraces both sides of his heritage. The math remains the same. His heritage is half white, half black.

Wednesday October 3, 2012, 10:46 pm
Kit, who cares about the color of Obama's skin when he is just does not fit to be a President. He may be a great professor, a social activist or organizer, but looking at what he did, everyone knows that US should get someone better.

It cannot be worse.

Thursday October 4, 2012, 7:36 am
The Republicans are just lost in their mess, and falling into their own swords. I pray that there are enough people who see through the lies and racism that is just one deeply ingrained rot that is their ruin, finally. When will this evil empire fall already!? All the words they try to use to distract and inflame cannot hide the stench of their being, but only further reveals who they all are! The critics need to shut up and take a look in the mirror.

Thursday October 4, 2012, 7:43 am

I could not expect any thing but that response from you, Bob. Have ever considered that your opinions are not the only ones that count? Many of us think he is a fine president confronted with more than one person has been asked to tackle since the days of FDR. Things could be much worse, he could have followed a republican theme, not prevented total collapse of the financial markets, not adopted new a better regulations to attempt to stop this new group of robber barons, he could have ignored the realities of people struggling in this country. He chose to be a president for the whole country, not just the few.

Thursday October 4, 2012, 8:47 am
I don't think the right wing media is confused. I think they are complicit.

Do not feed the trolls. ;-)

Thursday October 4, 2012, 10:04 am
I love laughing at the comments by persons who prove this article, just as Kit and Jae pointed out......however, I agree with TomCat, I believe the media is complicit ---- close elections sell more especially SuperPac adds.....

A vote for any Republican is a vote only for the white, wealthy, corporatist religious fanatics/zeolots who live in fear and with greed....... who act in ways that are anti-Christian, anti-US, anti-future, anti- world...

Thursday October 4, 2012, 10:14 am

The best part of all of this was Jon Stewart last night showing the Obama video and then the G W Bush speech side by side. Hilarious.

Thursday October 4, 2012, 12:21 pm
Kit B., I’m afraid that this thread demonstrates more than anything else the willful ignorance of the progressive movement. I have presented evidence that then-candidate Barack Obama accused the Bush Administration of not caring for the citizens of New Orleans because the government had not waived the Stafford Act for aid to New Orleans, when in fact the government had waived the Stafford Act.

Being unable to dispute these facts you and other commenters on the thread have elected to ignore them. Incredibly, you attack me for “attempting to prove something that is simply not true” without raising any evidence to support your self-serving claim.

In fact, the evidence puts the President in an even worse light than I indicated.

It turns out that then-representative Barack Obama voted AGAINST Stafford Act exemptions to New Orleans. The bill passed despite his nay vote, but this did not stop Obama from falsely claiming that the government had refused to allow any exemption for New Orleans and that this was an sign that the government did not care about them.

(You can find a reference to this story here: http://www.care2.com/news/member/605579978/3464190)

The President knew or should have known that the very explosive charge of disparate treatment he made to the audience at Hampton University was untrue. This was demagoguery plain and simple, unfitting to American politics.

Thursday October 4, 2012, 12:32 pm
Ignorance is a Republican product that no one apparently wants to buy.

Thursday October 4, 2012, 12:56 pm
What happened in the aftermath of Katrina had nothing to do with race. Our inept governor and New Orleans mayor Nagin are to blame for what happened in New Orleans. Oh and BTW Nagin is about to go to prison for misuse of Katrina funds.

Thubten, I live in Louisiana about an hour away from New Orleans...the only reason race was an issue is because the majority in that area were black. They refused to leave when directed to. That's on them. Don't believe everything you see on TV

Thursday October 4, 2012, 1:21 pm
When all else fails play the race card? C'mon Kit. NOT THE RACE CARD!!!!

Thursday October 4, 2012, 9:41 pm

Or if you have some humor you can watch Obama's super-duper video next to Bush saying the same things. Oh my, not that! http://www.thedailyshow.com/full-episodes/wed-october-3-2012-rand-paul

You guys are so silly. Much Ado About Nothing!

Friday October 5, 2012, 4:57 pm
This collection of ridiculous attacks would be laughable if it wasn't largely malicious and ignorant. Maybe part of the confusion is related to the fact that Barack Obama is AS WHITE AS HE IS BLACK!

Friday October 5, 2012, 5:00 pm

Or reverse that, the point is he is an American, and the duly elected President of the United States.

Tuesday October 9, 2012, 7:37 pm
Paula I’m afraid that your posts demonstrate more than anything else the willful ignorance of the conservative movement. Once again I have been able to witness not only constipation of the mind but diarrhea of the mouth in action.

Let's look at this in a different light shall we?

Tuesday October 9, 2012, 7:41 pm
Three theories still exist that attempt to describe the American experience. Assimilation, amalgamation, and the pluralistic or multicultural theory. The latter is the closest to the truth as it states that there is a combination of many subsocieties. Each group retains customs and traditions. But let’s point out the obvious in noting that certain groups and values dominate our culture, while other groups are marginalized, devalued, and repressed by them intentionally in an effort to preserve the status quo.


The dominant sub-society is comprised of white males whose values can be labeled as androcentric, misogynistic, patriarchal and christian. Over the past decades since Nixon and Reagan acknowledged them, the silent majority associated with christian beliefs has been laboring to recraft this nation as a christian nation by their rules and definitions.


They are the white wealthy, and they are largely in power (just look at the congressional breakup according to race, class and gender). Dominant groups act in ways to maintain their dominance.


They are christian in name only and only demonstrate christian values when it suits their purposes and serve their ends towards maintaining the dominance. They are very incensed over movements and legislation within the past several decades that sought to balance the playing field by enacting laws regarding civil rights, equal rights and women’s rights.

These laws have put them off balance and has angered them over the past 50 years. They are trying to reclaim their dominance based on religious and political views. They craft and establish social institutions that serve their interests. And this current phase is their backlash for the movements in the past 50 years to make American better and more equal for all.


As it has become obvious, they prefer to regulate social behavior, but refuse regulations that would provide balance and fairness economically as that would allow subcultures to achieve parity, and that would threaten their dominance. Such people, will not, unfortunately, die out in our lifetimes. They will eventually, but not soon enough. And they have been grinding away at the insult delivered them by the Civil Rights Acts and other legislation.


There continue to be 3 ideological principles that underlie the embodiment by these groups of social Darwinism. The first is eurocentrism/ethnocentrism which is the assumption of supremacy of European Americans and their values and traditions. They are monotheists and they are pushing America toward their version of a theocracy. They already believe the United States IS a theocracy, and should be, and are advancing this belief and defending their right to lead it and legislate it as if it is.


The second principle is one of a patriarchy. This ideology is supported by their brand(s) of monotheism. This patriarchy is a hierarchical system of social organization in which the structures of power, value, and culture are male dominated. Males are seen as the “natural” heads of household, presidential candidates, corporate executives, college presidents etc. Women are men’s “natural” subordinates.


And while this has been under attack over the past few decades, we can observe that they are making moves to resist it as they believe it is their “natural” right.


Lastly is the belief in the economic system of capitalism which advocates individual ownership. As more and more of the citizens of our country have had the blinders to this removed they now see that it leads to poverty for the majority in the midst of wealth for a few. Capitalism does this via the social Darwinist model, still taught at Harvard and Yale business schools, supported by (Ayn) Randian literature, by holding each citizen accountable and responsible for her/his own welfare while making the deck staked in favor of a few, rather than making the priorities of life in America one of cooperation and mutual responsibility.




This of course creates divisiveness and inequality and are used to rationalize prejudice, negative attitudes and to justify discrimination towards the subgroups that are not eurocentric/ethnocentric which further results in racism, sexism, and classism.

President Obama did not create the class war. Nor did the dwindling middle class against whom it has now been waged against. That's the thing about it. It was okay as long as only those guys over there were hurt by it. But now, it is happening to everyone, save those waging it and the serfs who don't know any better and who are supporting them.

It is naïve to think that their representatives can simply be done away with by voting them out of office, because there is still a large culture of Americans who believe they are part of this dominant group, and that this group will take care of them. Nor have superPACS or mainstream media, or their church leaders, been willing to disenfranchise them of this opinion, and instead continue to promulgate and foster these pernicious and un-American views. Anything outside of this dominant view is quickly labeled feminism, socialism, and communism with largely negative connotations in an attempt to cause anyone doubtful to quickly get back in line to avoid being so labeled. We must oppose their efforts for the next several decades until the rest of American has awoken from the effects of brainwashing through echo chamber media and political speeches that are laden with lies.

Tuesday October 9, 2012, 7:41 pm
The whites are merely ganging up on a non-white, someone who is not one of their dominant sub-society and are behaving towards him in ways they would not to each other. You are seeing the anthropological application of racism. It is no longer the behavior that was once tolerated in the south. It is not as overt as calling the non dominant by names or hanging them. This is 50 years after the passage of the Civil Rights Act so the demonstrations of racism have altered.

On day 8 of his presidency right winged news reporters were already talking the failure of his policies as a president. They were doing it again 24 weeks later, 168 days into his presidency. His credentials must satisfy criteria the dominant sub-society will never be faced with.


Every success is always deemed a failure or that it falls short of what the dominant sub-group would have accomplished facing the same obstacles. The failures are judged even more harshly. Even if it isn’t true.

No matter what he does, ever, he will never quite measure up to the criteria of the members of the dominant sub-group who are acting this way and which they are applying to him, but not to Romney, who flubs left and right and they keep making excuses for him.

This racism remains pervasive in our society, in our social institutions causing the non-dominant sub groups to remain close to each other for safety. But those of you who are filled with hatred, bigotry and racist beliefs will always paint a skewed picture.

Tuesday October 9, 2012, 8:05 pm

Thank you, Michael very well said, Very well indeed.

Wednesday October 10, 2012, 10:45 am
Funny, the only people I hear ranting about race are on the left. The left see everything through race colored glasses.

Obama's failure has nothing to do with the color of his skin. He is just not a leader.

Wednesday October 10, 2012, 1:57 pm
Doesn't nano mean small? I guess voter suppression, buying an election, and lying through your teeth about everything and then flip flopping on your position, while having a stake in most of the companies that provide computerized voting machines and a monopoly on the media is the sign of what you call a leader and a leadership party? Yeah, I think nano means small. this prefix denotes a factor of 10−9 or 0.000000001