OMG Carly Fiorina

[Content Note: Racism; Islamophobia.]

Corporate power-failure Carly Fiorina was doing a cool townhall in New Hampshire when one of the people with whom she was speaking, a white man, called President Obama a "black Muslim," and Fiorina, like Donald Trump earlier in this campaign, declined to correct him. When she was subsequently criticized for failing to push back on that mischaracterization, this is how she defended herself during a Fox News interview:

Fox Anchor, a young blond white woman, whose name I don't know: I also want to hit on— There was a moment in New Hampshire, ah, where a gentleman approached you in a diner and made a reference to President Obama. We have that clip, and I want your response to it, if you could please.

Cut to clip: An older white man sitting in a booth at a diner (not "approaching" Fiorina, as the anchor suggested; Fiorina is standing beside the table where he is sitting and eating) looks up at Fiorina and says: "He doesn't want this country to get ahead. He doesn't. He's a Muslim. He's a black Muslim!" Fiorina starts to move away from him and says: "Well— It's time to—it's time to do something different in many ways." The man responds: "Absolutely!" Cut back to studio.

Anchor: He made a reference to the President being a Muslim, and you're being criticized because you didn't respond to that.

Fiorina: Well, I've responded to that over and over again—and, you know, at that diner townhall, I went through substantive question after substantive question, so. I've said on many occasions that President Obama tells me he's a Christian; I take him at his word. But the truth is: President Obama isn't on the ballot. The person who's on the ballot, who's gonna be on the ballot on the Democrat side, is Hillary Clinton. And so I talk about the issues that face our nation, and I talk about how it is that I can beat Hillary Clinton, because, in the end, we have to win the White House. But I also think it's time to do something different now. We simply cannot replace a D with an R, because we've had Rs in the White House over 40 years, and yet the things we say we care about haven't gotten fixed. We haven't ever slashed spending, we haven't ever limited the size and growth of government.

So, because Obama isn't running, there's no need to treat him with even a modicum of fucking decency. Hot take, Fiorina!

I am absolutely rage-exhausted with conservatives using this "Obama says he's a Christian, and I take him at his word" line, which I can only assume was conceived by Grover Norquist having a fever dream of Karl Rove making sweet love to a photograph of Frank Luntz moderating a focus group.

It's so cynical. It's basically a way of calling Obama a liar, but without calling him a liar.

And even if Fiorina has pushed back on that shit a million times (pix or it didn't happen!), that doesn't give her a free pass to not push back on it every time she's confronted with it. And the reason she didn't is because it's useful to her that people think this stuff, and believe she shares their convictions. And that guy clearly did—and no wonder, since her reply was essentially: "Yeah, we need to get a white Christian in there!"

So, basically: Blah blah Obama's a liar blah blah pivot to Clinton.

Rinse and repeat for however long this asshole retains her seat in the clown car.