Shortly after the first Tax Day tea party, last April, political scientist, American historian, and noted psychologist Janeane Garofalo appeared on the suitably high-brow news analysis show “Countdown with Keith Olbermann” to give her learned assessment of the protesters and their motivation.
“Let’s be very honest about what this is about,” she intoned with grave studiousness. “This is not about bashing Democrats. It’s not about taxes. They have no idea what the Boston Tea party was about. They don’t know their history at all. It’s about hating a black man in the White House. This is racism straight up.”
And to prove her own intellectual maturity and fair-mindedness, she dismissed the protesters as “nothing but a bunch of teabagging rednecks”—borrowing a pejorative term for a rather obscene sexual act popular among some homosexuals.
Since that time, Republicans, conservatives, independents, and even, one presumes, moderate Democrats who have expressed reservations about the job Barack Obama has done as president have been branded racists. Is it possible that those of us who claim to find fault with the Obama presidency (which increasingly is gaining such unlikely adherents as lefty commentator Maureen Dowd, who slammed Obama hard again today in her New York Times column) simply find fault with the Obama presidency? No! shout back the acolytes. You’re a racist for even asking!
How is it that Democrats are so adept at sniffing out the racism in seemingly innocent comments? Could it be that they know the brand so well because at least some of them smoke it themselves?
That theory would seem to explain as well as any the unfortunate portrait Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid painted of Barack Obama, whom Reid praised for being “light-skinned” (for a black man) and for not using a “Negro dialect, unless he wanted to have one.” Negro? I haven’t heard that term since Samuel L. Jackson’s character used it whimsically in addressing his black boss in Pulp Fiction. I’ll bet Joseph Conrad couldn’t have gotten away with using the word Negro.
“I deeply regret using such a poor choice of words,” Reid said when called out. Blah, blah, blah. Afterward, when the cameras were off, he went on to allow as how some of his best friends were black people (although none of them dark-skinned—perish the thought).
Obama subsequently issued a statement absolving Reid of any wrong-doing. Then again, who is Obama to talk. This, you may recall, is a man who described his own grandmother as “a typical white person” and jumped to unfortunate conclusions about the Cambridge, Massachusetts police—immediately after declaring that it was too early to reach any conclusions about the case involving Obama’s friend (and fellow racist) “Skip” Gates.
When you get down to cases, it doesn’t matter whether Obama thinks Reid’s remarks were racist. Any rational observer would have trouble seeing them as anything other than racist—and the ugliest kind of racism at that that: the backhanded compliment. But not to worry. Harry plans on showing his benevolent intentions by inviting the Obamas to dinner. He has even hired for the occasion a cook famous for her fried chicken and has ordered a whole mess of watermelon for dessert.
Cross-posted at Manhattan Conservative Examiner
Comments 39
But, but Howard. Haven’t you been vehemently denying that there’s any white racism in this country?
January 10th, 2010 at 4:35 pm
Wow ! Excellent post. But me thinks the much vaunted Janeane Garofalo owes some devalued green backs to you for such a glowing review;
“political scientist, American historian, and noted psychologist Janeane Garofalo appeared on the suitably high-brow news analysis show “Countdown with Keith Olbermann” to give her learned assessment of the protesters and their motivation.”
January 10th, 2010 at 4:38 pm
Reid is the hapless gambling commissioner, wined and dined by Casino’s Sam Rothstein, played by the serious Smothers brother, who climactically chose to Go “Captain Renault”
January 10th, 2010 at 4:42 pm
@ fuster:
White Conservative racism I believe is what you reference, it is alive and well in the Democratic ranks.
January 10th, 2010 at 4:46 pm
@ Christopher:
I’ve noticed something very much like that, Christopher. There seem to be a fairly abundant group of people who’re willing to believe that anything reprehensible can only be found in the political party that they don’t favor.
When I was in high school, I believe that I was taught that the medical term for this is “idiocy”.
January 10th, 2010 at 5:14 pm
No let’s examine that Frogman, the only former Klan organizer in the US Senate is Cornelius Sales Jr, who changed it to Robert Byrd. The
longtime Senator from South Carolina, Mr. Holllings, was the one who first raised the Confederate battle standard in the 50s, when he was Governor, those are just two notable members.
January 10th, 2010 at 5:27 pm
@ fuster:
The main reason you won’t find many Republicans talking this way is that they don’t produce candidates – black, white, dark-skinned, light-skinned, blue-skinned, flayed, whatever – about whom they have any reason to speculate in this way.
I tend to agree with George Will on this one: Setting aside the obsolete and objectifying terminology, Reid’s calculations themselves are politically sound, unfortunately. He describes precisely the kind of tactical considerations that the liberal plantation party naturally and inescapably falls into, though I think something similar might actually have happened on the R side if the stars and genes had aligned properly, and that such conversations occur there as well, just not as often at as high a level or for any important purpose.
January 10th, 2010 at 5:49 pm
@ fuster:
No. I’ve been denying that gibberish like what comes out of the mouths of Garofalo and company is racism.
January 10th, 2010 at 6:46 pm
Racism is so yesterday. The term has no meaning with respect to every one of the citizens of the United States, they having been absolutely and forever absolved of any residual taint of it on November 4th, 2009.
January 10th, 2010 at 7:06 pm
narc, CK, see comment #5. and kiss my Earl Butz.
January 10th, 2010 at 7:28 pm
Howard Portnoy wrote:
I argue further with you except that I think that Garofalo is so utterly stupid that she swallows her saliva because she couldn’t be taught how to spit.
January 10th, 2010 at 7:39 pm
Well there’s a point of commonality, on Garofalo, but you’re not going to compare a bad joke, to a life time of bad policy choices. Hollings earned some points as a budget cutter, and even a cameo role as a Presidential candidate in 1984, but he’s as malaprop as Biden,
January 10th, 2010 at 7:52 pm
Pas de racisme a gauche, Howard my man. Pas de racisme a gauche.
January 10th, 2010 at 8:05 pm
Sully wrote:
not Howard. he didn’t give in until Obama sent him $40,000 and a loose, fuzzy-insoled pair of mules. until then he went around like Limbaugh humming that witty ditty “Barack the Magic Negro”.
January 10th, 2010 at 8:08 pm
Origin of the “Magic Negro” theme used in the Shanklin parody played by Limbaugh:
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-ehrenstein19mar19,0,3391015.story
This had only been cited about 100,000 times.
January 10th, 2010 at 8:21 pm
it matters more who picked it up and ran with it and why.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barack_the_Magic_Negro
it’s the pig that’s popular, not the lipstick.
January 10th, 2010 at 8:34 pm
Fus the magic amphib,
Lived by the link,
And frolicked in the Limbaugh mist,
In a land called Zombie C.
But watchful J.E. Dyer,
Caught that rascal up,
And handed him his Limbaugh point,
With a Times link and a taunt.
January 10th, 2010 at 8:39 pm
@ Sully:
Fus, the magic Twanger
—— get with the program, Sully
January 10th, 2010 at 8:49 pm
@ fuster:
Really,,Wikipedia????? This is your source for facts!?!? Now I understand.
In an earlier post you claimed to have attended high school but did not state as to completion. Wiki must not be the source for filling that void.
January 10th, 2010 at 8:59 pm
@ Christopher:
Well, Chris, I was mostly just braggin on myself. We used to shuffle past a high school, leg irons and all, on our way to the rock pile.
(BTW, for reasons unknown to a po’ boy like me, on this site you can’t but post more’n one link/comment so’s sumptimes ya gotta ‘valuate things and there’s times that aggregation beats authority.
January 10th, 2010 at 9:03 pm
@ fuster:
Oooo. . .Kay. . .
A Twanger lives forever,
But not so little frogs,
Wiki links and webbie jinks,
Fall prey revealed as fogs,
In one fine thread it happened,
His hopping worked no more,
And fus the magic twanger,
Was seen to voiceless roar.
January 10th, 2010 at 9:10 pm
@ Sully:
nicely wrought, indeed.
January 10th, 2010 at 9:12 pm
da limit is two, and it’s so we don’t get more anne hathaway nude and buy tramadol and hey you’ve got a real nice blog on-line poker casino spam breaking through the outer defense perimeter.
Keep in mind that when you use the Reply-dealiebob, that counts for one link. Keep in mind that you can put up as many individual comments you like, and no one (cep maybe narciso) will complain very much (or maybe Sully, but it may rhyme so that’s something). Keep in mind that things don’t always work the way they should. Keep in mind that when you go over the limit, your comment isn’t lost forever, but instead put under observation in the virtual rubber room awaiting the appearance of a moderator – so far 100% moi, though others have been given super-awesome magical comment-okaying powers.
January 10th, 2010 at 9:21 pm
@ CK MacLeod:
I kinda got a ADiddleDiddle sorta ‘tension span so that six hours in moderation takes a touch o’ the tang out the ray-partay for me.
January 10th, 2010 at 9:28 pm
Hewy I won’t complain so much about the quantity as the quality of the remark, is that what happened to those comments on the Iran thread, about two weeks ago, This thread gets old, Reid isn’t racist, he’s just not that bright, hence the Casino reference. Truth in labeling
they should call it “Spoiled Game” or something because it smells like
(what’the Rhino like creature from Pandora) droppings. Who edited this book, David Axelrod, would it make any difference if he had
January 10th, 2010 at 9:33 pm
narciso wrote:
I oncet made a new years revolution like that, but I was so damned fitshaced when I did that I didn’t remember it till two weeks later and well by then by golly it’s best be bygones
January 10th, 2010 at 9:42 pm
@ Sully:
there’s at least three really clever things in that little ditty.
but we’re still breathlessly awaiting your ineffectual vocal styling debut.
January 10th, 2010 at 9:52 pm
@ fuster:
Danged if I can figger what I said in my George Will-referencing comment that might have buthered a hopping-on-again-off-again pseudo-lib like you. I sed the R’d probably have backroom chatter like Reid’s going on, too, if they had much reason to. They just don’t. There may even be some of this going on Newt’s weird or maybe just weirdly frank statements of lukewarm support for Chairman Steele the other day, about him making old-line Rs uncomfortable, including because he’s African American.
January 10th, 2010 at 10:11 pm
Hey, I was but making merry, mostly. But I do object to any idea that the R’s haven’t been the party of preference for the white racists since the late sixties purge of the Dixiecrats.
Didn’t think that it was anything much open to question either.
January 10th, 2010 at 10:28 pm
@ CK MacLeod:
The public R big men are much more careful than the D big men because of the mortal danger from the press; which is a big plus for our side. Despite fuster’s point re the adherence of more racists to the Republican party because of its opposition to clearly unconstitutional (and foolish) things like racial quotas; the Republican big men are probably more fair minded in practice re race than the Democratic big men because they have to be.
Only a Democrat can get away with having no blacks in key positions on his staff, for instance, as was revealed about Teddy Kennedy (I believe it was him) a few years ago. Riffing on Teddy as an example, only a Democrat can get away with tampering with a murder investigation and being present in the vicinity of a rape.
That seems an advantage to the Democrats, and it is in the short run. But in the long run that advantage allows fools like Harry Reid and Joe Biden to survive as big men in the senate and it allows Pelosi and Dodd to survive as big wo/men in the house despite corruption scandals that would have sunk a Republican in a couple of week news cycle.
January 10th, 2010 at 10:50 pm
@ Sully:
And what is the “but” doing in the point articulated here?
January 10th, 2010 at 10:57 pm
BTW, Czar, have I mentioned lately how over the moon I am about the toolbar? The happiness knows no bounds.
January 10th, 2010 at 10:58 pm
@ J.E. Dyer:
It was meant to indicate that the short run advantage leads to doom for the Democratic Party in the long run at the national level, at least mostly, because the evidence of stupidity and stink of corruption accumulate and eventually overbalance the public’s natural preference for a message of bread and circuses over one of blood, tears, toil and sweat.
Republicans get cleaner, smarter leaders out of the deal, although not always articulate ones. That fact cannot be hidden all the time even by a fawning press.
January 10th, 2010 at 11:48 pm
@ fuster:
If I didn’t know better, little buddy, I’d say I’ve touched a nerve again. To clarify my position, I never said there isn’t white-on-black racism. There is. It just isn’t as prevalent as some (mainly liberals) like to pretend it is. To call this idiocy is to deny differences that genuinely inhere among followers of the two parties. Liberals claim to have the corner on tolerance, for example. Again, they are hypocritical in this area, but that’s a subject for another post.
@ J.E. Dyer:
J.E., I love it when you speak French!
@ Sully:
Sully, time for an e-book “Selected Poems of Sully.”
January 11th, 2010 at 6:16 am
It’s the party of rabblerousers like Jackson and Sharpton, Rangel who doesn’t pay his taxes. much like Geithner, preening popinjays like Kerry, deranged lunatics like Dean, dinosaurs like Dingell and Byrd, and the whole clueless Hollywood wannabe culturati typified by “King of Pandora, anti technologist Cameron, and anti obesity activist Michael
Moore. Yet we’ve ceded them way too much power, as they endeavor to shutter our power planets, free the terrorists, hobble our remaining
industrial capacity, ‘mostly harmless,’ ha
January 11th, 2010 at 6:41 am
@ Howard Portnoy:
Howard, the line you’re quoting was addressed to Chris.
And my question to you, I had thought, was introduced broadly enough to suggest that I was less than fully serious.
I was mostly amused by your little essay, finding some interest in your interest in pointing out the “eating-it’s-children” zealotry of people consumed by a quest for purity.
January 11th, 2010 at 8:35 am
@ narciso:
You forgot “rape our children and sell them into bondage”. Omitting that shows how half-hearted and uncommitted you are.
January 11th, 2010 at 8:39 am
@ Sully:
Well, yeah, Sully, I did understand why you used the “but” in your argument. My perhaps-too-subtle point was that the Democrats don’t see it as a “but” proposition at all, but rather as a big, joyful “and!” with fireworks and cash-register sound effects.
It remains to be seen how much of a “but” it will turn into in the long run. Here’s hoping we’re both here to see the emergence of the “but.”
January 11th, 2010 at 11:33 am
narciso wrote:
Hate to keep beating the same drum/dead horse, but I gotta say that of all the criticisms directed at Avatar’s auteur, that one is the silliest. If there were any serious basis to it in the film itself, it would be highly ironic, but it’s more indicative of how conservatives reflexively read their paranoid presumptions into whatever “the left” happens to throw up on the wall.
January 11th, 2010 at 12:11 pm