And starts by recommending a march on the headquarters of the National Republican Party in Washington to protest the GOP having "spent the last 40 years insulting, disenfranchising and otherwise stomping on the interests of black Americans." Don't hold back, Bob: Tell us what you really think...
At the same time that the Republicans were killing Congressional representation for D.C. residents, the major G.O.P. candidates for president were offering a collective slap in the face to black voters nationally by refusing to participate in a long-scheduled, nationally televised debate focusing on issues important to minorities.
The radio and television personality Tavis Smiley worked for a year to have a pair of these debates televised on PBS, one for the Democratic candidates and the other for the Republicans. The Democratic debate was held in June, and all the major candidates participated.
The Republican debate is scheduled for Thursday. But Rudy Giuliani, John McCain, Mitt Romney and Fred Thompson have all told Mr. Smiley: "No way, baby."
They won’t be there. They can’t be bothered debating issues that might be of interest to black Americans. After all, they’re Republicans.
Ouch.
We've had the occasional conservative who's tried to defend the GOP against charges of racism (specifically with regard to black Americans), and I've seen similar defenses on rightwing blogs, and every time I read about the GOP candidates refusing to participate in Smiley's debate, I wonder if the great defenders of the GOP Big Tent are at all frustrated with their major candidates making their protestations sound just that much more ridiculous.
Anyway, back to Herbert, who goes on to talk about the Republican "Southern Strategy," and shares a 1981 quote from dead conservative scumbag Lee Atwater, which I'd never heard before:
"You start out in 1954 by saying, 'Nigger, nigger, nigger,' " said Atwater. "By 1968, you can’t say 'nigger'—that hurts you. Backfires. So you say stuff like forced busing, states' rights, and all that stuff. You're getting so abstract now [that] you're talking about cutting taxes, and all these things you're talking about are totally economic things, and a byproduct of them is [that] blacks get hurt worse than whites."
And there it is.
Given that the results of the policies haven't changed, are we really meant to believe the motivations have…?
[Thanks very much to Blue Girl for turning me onto Bob Herbert. He is as precisely as splendid as you said.]
A supporter of Rudy Giuliani's is throwing a party that aims to raise $9.11 per person for the Republican's presidential campaign.
Abraham Sofaer is having a fundraiser at his Palo Alto, Calif., home on Wednesday, when Giuliani backers across the country are participating in the campaign's national house party night.
But don't expect this former State Department adviser, fellow at the Hoover Institution, and fundraising member of Teh Party of Responsibility and Teh Ownership Society to take any responsibility for or own his actions.
Sofaer said he had nothing to do with the "$9.11 for Rudy" theme.
"There are some young people who came up with it," Sofaer said when reached by telephone Monday evening. He referred other questions to Giuliani's campaign.
…Giuliani's campaign had no immediate comment.
Of course they didn't.
Realistically, what could they say? That Giuliani took one look at the smoking ruin of the World Trade Center, decided it was his ticket to the White House, and has been exploiting the tragedy for his own gain ever since? Just because it's as obvious as a hooligan at the Queen's tea doesn't mean they're going to admit it. I mean, that would just be disrespectful. It's one thing to dance on a grave, but you don't sing while you're doing it.
If you could have dinner with any living person this evening, whom would you choose?
I'm going to go with Diane Keaton, because she's a wonderfully funny woman whom I deeply admire and has always struck me as a great conversationalist, all of which suit my mood at the moment.
Transcript (paraphrased): "I'm honest and direct. Before, I wanted to strengthen gun laws. Now, I want to pander to the NRA. This is Mitt Romney and I approve of being a huge douche. Honestly and directly."
UAW officials said the 73,000 UAW members who work at about 80 U.S. facilities for the nation's largest automaker didn't strike Monday over what many thought would trip up the talks: A plan to shift the retiree health care burden from the company to the union. They said they also didn't strike over wages.
They said union members walked out because they want GM to promise that future cars and trucks such as the replacement for the Chevrolet Cobalt small car or the still-on-the-drawing board Chevrolet Volt plug-in electric car will be built at U.S. plants, preserving union jobs.
The strike puts GM, which is restructuring so it can better compete with Asian automakers, in a bind as some of its new products begin to catch on with consumers. But it also means workers are taking a big risk — giving up pay and slowing down GM in an uncertain economy.
The Teamsters transportation union also said this afternoon that it wouldn't cross UAW picket lines to deliver GM cars and trucks.
"It's our duty. It's the only power we have."—Eric Lehtonen, 50, of DeWitt Township who works at the Lansing Grand River assembly plant, where the Cadillac CTS, STS and SRX are made.
A Bavarian boy takes a nap in the hand cart pulled by his parents during the tradtional folklore parade on the second day of the Oktoberfest beer festival in Munich, Sunday, Sept. 23, 2007. (AP Photo/Diether Endlicher)
"In Iran we don't have homosexuals like in your country. We don't have that in our country. In Iran we don't have this phenomenon. I don't know who's told you we have it."—Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, earlier today.
(With regard to Bill's earlier post about how the American Right views Ahmadinejad, it's just hilarious that they've failed utterly to notice how much they have in common with him—like the belief that same-sex attraction can be contained—nay, obliterated—with strict social rules, for a start.)
The visit of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to New York has stirred up a lot of controversy and emotions. It has forced Americans answer some hard questions about what kind of country we are and what message we want to send to the rest of the world.
Ahmadinejad's plans to visit Ground Zero and lay a wreath there evoked outrage from many. "Assisting Ahmadinejad in touring Ground Zero -- hallowed ground for all Americans -- is outrageous," said former New York mayor Rudolph Giuliani. If anyone should know how sacred Ground Zero is to Americans, it would be Giuliani, who was there just as much as, if not more than, the rescue workers were, taking such dignitaries and celebrities as Saudi Arabia's Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Bin Abdul Aziz, Uzbekistan President Islam Karimov, Donald Rumsfeld and many others on guided tours of this consecrated burial ground. Of course, it is unconscionable for a politician to use Ground Zero for a photo op or to try to score political points on the tragedy of September 11 and I am glad the New York Police Department listened to Giuliani and denied Ahmadinejad permission to go there. What kind of a message would it send the world if we let someone like that use Ground Zero for a publicity stunt? Even though most of the hijackers were from Saudi Arabia and Iran has not been conclusively linked to the 9/11 attacks, I am sure that there are people working on making a connection and one will be revealed before we declare war on Iran.
Then Columbia University sparked new outrage by inviting Ahmadinejad to speak there, defying President Bush's stated policy of not having any dialogue at all with our enemies. Although Columbia President Lee Bollinger said that he would "introduce the event with a series of sharp challenges" about Ahmadinejad's views on the Holocaust, Israel and terrorism, many people believe that a university, which is full of impressionable young minds, is not the place for this sort of discussion. Michelle Malkin pointed out the hypocrisy of Bollinger's refusal to punish students who stopped a member of the Minutemen from speaking by rushing the stage and allowing Ahmadinejad to speak. How could the university let one group stop someone from speaking and not let another group stop someone from speaking? That kind of double standard makes a mockery of the First Amendment.
In what might be the most rapid fulfillment of Godwin's Law on record, some compared Ahmadinejad to Hitler. "Why are they inviting the Persian Hitler to Columbia?" said Columbia alumnus and conservative writer David Horowitz. "Would Columbia have invited Hitler to speak?" asked others.
Although I believe this was probably intended as a rhetorical question, Columbia Dean John Coatsworth decided that he would try to tamp down some of the heightened emotion surrounding this debate by going ahead and answering the question on Fox News: "If Hitler were in the United States and he wanted a platform from which to speak he would have plenty of platforms to speak from in the United States. If he were willing to engage in a debate and a discussion, to be challenged by Columbia students and faculty, we would certainly invite him."
But Coatsworth's attempt to inject some thought and rationality into the debate over whether Columbia should let Hitler speak just raised more important questions: If you were a doctor and Hitler had a life threatening illness, would you treat him? If Hitler knocked at your door and he was bleeding and he said he had been in an automobile accident, would you invite him in to use your telephone? If you were a Catholic priest and Hitler told you in confession that he had killed six million people, would you keep your vow of silence or report him to the authorities? And finally, a question that I think would stump a lot of conservatives, if Hitler's mother wanted to abort him, would you drive her to a Planned Parenthood clinic or counsel her to keep the baby?
Although Ahmadinejad's visit has forced us to confront a lot of difficult questions, it has also given us a chance to show the rest of the world what kind of a country we are. If some people in the world have gotten the mistaken impression that America can be pushed around, I think our response to Ahmadinejad's threat to visit Ground Zero shows that we are not as weak as they may think. And though Columbia continues to defy the government by giving Ahmadinejad a forum (we'll see how they feel when they lose federal funding and alumni donations), the protests that will greet him and the number of people who called for Columbia to deny him an opportunity to speak shows that though we value the First Amendment in theory, it is not a suicide pact. Maybe they just let anyone speak at universities in Iran but that's not the American way. In America if our enemies want to spout their propaganda, first they have to get through a phalanx of very loud protesters who will try to shout them down.
People in the Middle East respect strength not weakness. By insulting Ahmadinejad and rebuffing his attempts at dialogue, we gain his respect. If we want to have peace in the Middle East, humiliating their leaders and refusing to talk to them is a good first step.
You know, it's bad enough when beautiful women are retouched and reshaped and redrawn to sell magazines or movies or cola or floor wax, but when Jennifer Lopez isn't considered beautiful enough (by herself? by the label?) to appear as herself in the marketing for her own album, we've just seriously gone off the deep end as a culture.
Click image to embiggen.
Tell me I'm not the only one who finds a painful irony in J-Lo having been Photoshopped into something vaguely resembling an alien Real Doll to promote an album entitled "Brave."
"Brave" marketing v. candid shot on Sept. 6 at the Fashion Rocks Concert at Radio City Music Hall in NYC
And, yeah, I'm aware that there are arguments made in favor of highly stylized shots like this one from an artistic standpoint, but isn't it funny how women's images are always "stylized" in precisely the same ways as run-of-the-mill mag covers? It's like if you throw in some gloss and a wacky background, we're not supposed to notice (or care) that it's just more of the same "Impossibly Beautiful" bullshit.
According the War Room, the White House thinks Sen. Barack Obama wouldn't cut it as president.
A "senior official" in the White House of George W. Bush tells journalist Bill Sammon why Barack Obama won't be the next president of the United States: Obama is intellectually "capable" of the job, the official says, but he relies too much on easy charm. "It's sort of like, 'That's all I need to get by,' which bespeaks sort of a condescending attitude towards the voters ... and a laziness, an intellectual laziness."
I admire the "senior official" for getting through that without laughing. I know I couldn't.
Oddjob passed along this link with the note: "Looks like the wingnuts have found themselves an unexploited wedge issue." Oh, goody!
Suggests [pollster and author Frank Luntz]: Because the Republicans want to win in Iraq, and they want a "strong military," the issue they can use to keep the White House in 2008 is the United Nations.
The UN, says Luntz, "has not supported the American position" and was "hostile" in Iraq.
…[Luntz pointed] to the United Nations as the GOP "sleeper issue," as determined by research done for Fox. Telling the UN "Enough is enough," says Luntz, is an issue the GOP can use to rally its base in the upcoming election.
Now, I don't think the UN is perfect, and I don't think it's above reform, but I cannot begin to express how profoundly irritated and disgusted I will be if the GOP tries to turn "the UN sucks!" into a national campaign issue. Exposing (yet further) to the world the deep, ugly strain of xenophobia that runs throughout this nation is the last thing in which a country in search of restoring global good will ought to be engaging, even if it were more than just a stunning bit of mendacious disingenuousness—which it isn't. There's not an infinitesimal chance that America's relationship with the UN would substantially change under any credible GOP administration, and to pretend differently merely to exploit a largely untapped reserve of hatred among the conservative base is just appalling.
So expect it to come soon to a GOP platform near you.
Scott Adams, creator of Dilbert, lets loose in the Iranian president.
I was happy to hear that NYC didn't allow Iranian President Ahmadinejad to place a wreath at the WTC site. And I was happy that Columbia University is rescinding the offer to let him speak. If you let a guy like that express his views, before long the entire world will want freedom of speech.
I hate Ahmadinejad for all the same reasons you do. For one thing, he said he wants to "wipe Israel off the map." Scholars tell us the correct translation is more along the lines of wanting a change in Israel's government toward something more democratic, with less gerrymandering. What an ass-muncher!
Ahmadinejad also called the holocaust a "myth." Fuck him! A myth is something a society uses to frame their understanding of their world, and act accordingly. It's not as if the world created a whole new country because of holocaust guilt and gives it a free pass no matter what it does. That's Iranian crazy talk. Ahmadinejad can blow me.
[...]
Those Iranians need to learn from the American example. In this country, if the clear majority of the public opposes the continuation of a war, our leaders will tell us we're terrorist-humping idiots and do whatever they damn well please. They might even increase our taxes to do it. That's called leadership.
If Ahmadinejad thinks he can be our friend by honoring our heroes and opening a dialog, he underestimates our ability to misinterpret him. Fucking idiot. I hate him.
Judging by the comments Mr. Adams received on his blog for this post, it's apparent to some that satire is lost on them, because he had to explain it to them later.
It was a Clinton-fest on the Sunday talk shows yesterday, as Hils appeared on all five of the biggies: "Her trip through the Sunday gantlet was designed to solidify the impression that Clinton is strong, indomitable and all but inevitable as the Democratic nominee and next president."
Did it work? Well, CNN notes this morning that my senator, Evah Bayh (D-IN) will endorse Hillary (*cough* wants to be veep *cough*) and that author John Grisham is campaigning with Hillary, which ought to secure her that all-important "voters who swing with their favorite best-selling author of southern legal thrillers" demographic. I mean, if that doesn't clinch the nomination, I just don't know what will.
Meanwhile, Bush thinks Clinton will be the eventual Democratic nominee, but won't win the general election. Given his predilection for being totally fucking wrong about everything, this can only bode well for progressives.
In all seriousness, the thing I love most about Clinton's candidacy is how truly, deeply, madly pathetic it reveals the RNC to be:
Clinton showed her lighter side, laughing uproariously when asked by Fox News's Chris Wallace why she and her husband have such a "hyperpartisan view of politics."
"Well, Chris, if you had walked even a day in our shoes over the last 15 years, I'm sure you'd understand," Clinton said. Her answer drew swift condemnation from the Republican National Committee, which issued a statement saying that "apparently Hillary Clinton believes the serious issues facing our nation are a laughing matter."
Wow. Just wow. They spend more than a decade distracting the nation from serious issues—most notably by digging into the Clintons' personal lives, culminating in former President Clinton's impeachment—making the entire American political scene viciously partisan and turning it so firmly on its head that it now matters more if a politician says s/he's a Christian than if s/he behaves like one is meant to, and now they have the hilarious audacity to accuse Hillary Clinton of treating "the serious issues facing our nation" as "a laughing matter," because she laughed—and rightfully so!—at a question asking why she and Bill have a partisan view of politics. Hypocrisy Meter pegged.
As I mentioned yesterday, Newt Gingrich is threatening to throw his enormous hat into the ring, and Steve Benen catalogs the Gingrich Groundswell among conservatives still desperate for a savior.
Sure, some of us may think of the former Speaker as the ethically-challenged, unhinged conservative who shut down the government (twice) and was driven from Congress by his caucus. Or who includes among his "big ideas" getting laptops for the homeless. Or who raised concerns about women in combat roles because, "males are biologically driven to go out and hunt giraffes." Or the man who was so outraged by President Clinton's personal indiscretions that he sought impeachment during his own extramarital affair.
But that's apparently all in the past. Now he's the GOP Savior of the Week.
Of course he is. And I'm sure given his recent lamentation of unconstructive "attack politics," he'll be running a positive campaign chock full o' integrity and honor with nothing but "serious dialogue" and "serious citizenship," and none of the snarling personal attacks that were the hallmark of his campaign to misdirect attention away from the business of running the country to the business of blowjobs.
The Thin Black Duke: "Pointing out that the women behind this movement are being ignored doesn’t diminish anyone else’s efforts, but for reals, let's give credit where credit is due." (Kevin's got a great round-up of other posts to read at this link.)
Rachel: "[W]hen people try to frame the discussion around only the fight or only Jena, Louisiana, don't let them. The case itself is much broader, and the issues of our criminal (in)justice system are way bigger than Jena, Louisiana."
Elle: "Do you ever wonder why this picture of Elizabeth Eckford remaining composed in the face of Hazel Massery's vitriol was such an important image to promote?"
David Neiwert: "I'll be the first to admit that I, like a lot of other journalists, really fell down on the story of what was going on in Jena, Louisiana. Fortunately, it didn't matter one bit."
and
Paul Krugman: "Many press accounts of the march have a tone of amazement. Scenes like those in Jena, the stories seemed to imply, belonged in the 1960s, not the 21st century. The headline on the New York Times report, 'Protest in Louisiana Case Echoes the Civil Rights Era,' was fairly typical. But the reality is that things haven’t changed nearly as much as people think. Racial tension, especially in the South, has never gone away, and has never stopped being important. And race remains one of the defining factors in modern American politics."
Please add any other posts you'd recommend (including your own) in comments.
Your can get your own personal presidential candidate, a Family Values-endorsing adulterer, Contract With America-hawking miscreant, and all-around douchehound, for a starting bid of merely $30 million. What a bargain!
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Wow. Just wow. They spend more than a decade distracting the nation from serious issues—most notably by digging into the Clintons' personal lives, culminating in former President Clinton's impeachment—making the entire American political scene viciously partisan and turning it so firmly on its head that it now matters more if a politician says s/he's a Christian than if s/he behaves like one is meant to, and now they have the hilarious audacity to accuse Hillary Clinton of treating "the serious issues facing our nation" as "a laughing matter," because she laughed—and rightfully so!—at a question asking why she and Bill have a partisan view of politics. Hypocrisy Meter pegged.
As I 
