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The racers may not win this race — 55 Comments

  1. A point regarding Obama’s campaign reference to racism.

    …They’re going to try to make you afraid. They’re going to try to make you afraid of me. He’s young and inexperienced and he’s got a funny name. And did I mention he’s black?

    Last year I tracked at least THREE such utterances from Obama: one in Florida, and two in Missouri ( Rolla & Springfield). Very sneaky to inform the public that the Republicans ARE GOING to do it. From the recent articles on Valierie Jarrett in the NYT and in FrontPage, I get the impression that she was instrumental in Obama’s playing the race card during the campaign.

    I agree that while Obama could play good cop, bad cop, with regard to the racism charges, he most likely will not. After all, it has served him well this long.

    He will wake up to late to realize that the more that his minions play the race card, the less effect it will have. It may even be counterproductive. Recall the sign from the Washington 9/12 march: “It doesn’t matter what this sign says, you will call it racism.”

    A further point about the racism charge is that it is uncivil and discourteous to charge someone with racism when there is instead a policy dispute. As such, playing the race card poisons the well of public discourse.

  2. On his show today, Rush Limbaugh said that Obama could easily defuse this if he wanted to. He could give a speech on TV in which he tells his supporters and the media to knock it off. He could say that every President faces criticism and opposition, and that by itself is not evidence of racism.

  3. Jimmy Carter says that the only reason persons oppose Obamacare is because B.O. is black. Does that then imply that the only reason Carter supports Obamacare is also because The Won is black?

  4. What makes you, neo, think zero is profiting from the racers’ antics?
    IMO, net, he’s losing.

  5. Richard,

    The way I read the sentence from Neo, “condemning them for their charges while profiting from them at the same time, knowing they won’t stop.

    is that he profits while condemning them for their charges while profiting at the same time.

    So… they continue.

    He condemns..

    He profits…

  6. Crying “racism” is a long-standing tradition for Democrats. It’s part of the basic slander narrative which serves as the foundation of most Democratic election campaigns. The special interests which make up the lefty coalition are so diverse that the only way to bring them together is to create widespread fear of the GOP boogeyman — the mean-spirited, hate-filled, racist, sexist, homophobic monsters who want to roast the planet, despoil the environment, exploit workers, and deny people health care.

    For a Democratic politician, labelling Republicans “racist” comes as naturally as breathing.

  7. I’ve always told my wife that if she ever accuses me of infidelity, she’d better be damned sure. After all, if I’m going to get the label anyway, I might as well enjoy the benefits.

    If I am to be called a racist for daring to disagree with the most far left president we’ve ever had, I might just decide that I have nothing left to lose.

  8. The accusation is out there, articulated in no uncertain terms by Jimmy Carter. Once upon a time, I heard that silence implies assent. The president will be on television more often than a GEICO commerical this weekend. Unless the question is pre-emptively verboten by the administration, somebody’s got to ask about all this racism talk, because the heat’s gone past the warning line and something’s gonna blow.

    The most frightening possibilty is that he doubles down again. Then what?

    Most likely? Don’t ask, don’t tell.

    And some think that interesting times are fun. Some fun, this is.

  9. Its not so simple as we are all sitting here tire of it.

    there is quite a large block of people who are not so considered, and long after this mud is made, they are going to stew and act out because of it.

  10. Richard Aubrey: Obama profited from their antics during the election. It helped him especially against Hillary, and it helped him later, too.

    It may be backfiring now. But that’s a recent development. And I’m not sure whether Obama and his team realize that yet. When he does, he will probably start the “good cop” game.

  11. he will probably start the “good cop” game.

    From your lips to God’s ear, neo. If something ugly happens in the midst of this, things could get a lot uglier really fast. Game or not, it’s what he needs to do. Now.

  12. mezzrow: the problem with the “good cop” game is just that: it’s a game. It’s possible that any call by Obama for the racers’ attacks to cease will be understood by them as a “wink-wink” sort of thing, and that the racers will continue them anyway, but Obama will then be on record as opposing them.

    We’ll see how it plays out; I’m not really sure about this one. Not sure whether he’ll play good cop at all; not sure how sincere it will come across if he does, after his relative silence on the subject so far; and not sure what the backlash to the racers’ charges will be over time.

  13. Re: game. Understood. He could be genuine and talk from his heart, but “we can’t handle the truth.” And he’s right about that. I think we all have his heart pretty well scoped out by now, thank you. That said, his articulating those sentiments would be fatal for him and us at this specific time.

    We just need some leadership and some oil poured on troubled waters. If he should be so reckless as to not see this, I fear for the events of the immediate future. This could spin out of control. All it takes is one lit match, and the tinder is dry.

  14. Hot air is taking the good cop bad cop angle now that gibs has made his speech as to the president and what he thinks. (carter is under the bus). however now its

    Lots of people who voted for Obama believed that his election would reflect the extent to which Americans had moved beyond racism. That was part of why some people voted for him. Little did we realize that it would turn every criticism of the President into an occasion to make an accusation of racism. Racism is revolting, but so is the notion that we aren’t allowed to criticize a President! althouse

  15. Too bad that Sgt Crowley agreed in advance not to say publicly what he heard from Obama during his beer-for-four meeting at the White House. That, after all, was Obama’s “teachable moment,” and I still haven’t heard what teaching too place. Can anyone still believe seriously that Obama is our post-racial president? F

  16. We just need some leadership and some oil poured on troubled waters.

    I don’t think that’s what we will get. I would be glad to be wrong, and I hope I am. But at every turn so far, given the opportunity to pour the oil, Obama has, instead, lit a match. In the campaign, he played the pre-emptive race card (“Oh, and did I mention, he’s black?”) When he made his famous race speech in the wake of the Wright affair, he chose to go for blaming and divisiveness by understanding Wright while labeling his own white grandmother a racist. In the Skip Gates affair, he widened and worsened racial divides that he could have narrowed and healed. Yes, he needs to tell us that criticism of him as President is not racism – but I don’t think he’ll do so, because I think he believes that it is.

  17. I don’t usually mention my ethnic background because I dont usually see it as relevant. As an individualist, I want to judged based on my own worth and not on some convoluted connection to where my family came from.

    But, for what its worth, I happen to be what some call Latino, and others call Hispanic, and others call Spanish surnamed. And for what its worth: I am sick of this divisiveness created by the left based on how different one group is from another. I am actually eager to see this create “push back” from those not in the fave groups of the left (as well as from those ostensibly in those groups who are sick of the divisivness themselves. )

    In other words, I really do hope that next time someone uses the “race card,” someone has the courage to say… uh-uh, that doesnt work anymore. The fact that your ancestors were slaves, or segregated, or immigrants, or poor, or whatever, doesnt mean you can act any way you wish, break the rules of civility, even break the law, and not have consequences to pay for it.

  18. The “good cop” part of the routine works as long as the suspect thinks he’s actually a good cop.
    Nobody will believe zero means what he says. About this, I mean. Not just about everything.

  19. So then, were Carter’s comments part of a pre-planned White House strategy in order to allow Obama to play the “One Who Transcends Race” this Sunday, when he gets to make the rounds of all five of his major network enablers?

    They were able to talk their ex-prez trained chimp into sharing a VIP box with Michael Moore at the convention. Surely old Jimmah would intentionally make an ass of himself yet again in order to give Obama another desperately needed bump. I put nothing beyond this bunch.

  20. Thoughts on Obama from Anne Wortham
    http://www.notoriouslyconservative.com/2009/09/thoughts-on-obama-from-anne-wortham.html

    Dr. Wortham is author of “The Other Side of Racism: A Philosophical Study of Black Race Consciousness” which analyzes how race consciousness is transformed into political strategies and policy issues..

    This article by her is something.

    Fellow Americans,

    Please know: I am Black; I grew up in the segregated South.. I did not vote for Barack Obama; I wrote in Ron Paul’s name as my choice for president. Most importantly, I am not race conscious. I do not require a Black president to know that I am a person of worth, and that life is worth living. I do not require a Black president to love the ideal of America.

  21. One of my major problems with B.O. is that he is half honky, like Mr. Jones and Rev. Wright have said, you just can’t trust those white ass holes, why can’t we have a real black president if we’re going to have one? There may not be a chance in a million years, but who we reallly need in the White House is someone like Allen West.

  22. Victor David hansen has an excellent posting at NRO on The ‘Racism’ Canard . Its here.

    An excerpt from the VDH post:


    . . . the larger question is why the Left is now nearly unhinged about criticism of a black liberal president, when it was silent (well, there was always Harry Belafonte . . .) about the racial implications of the constant and vicious anger directed at Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice, not to mention the rather personal, condescending attacks on Alberto Gonzales. For that matter, the ubiquitous Pete Stark once said some particularly unkind and racist things about former health and human services secretary Louis Sullivan (who is black).

    Also, please read this article about Jimmy Carter’s truly racist 1970 campaign for Georgia governor.

    I had posted the Carter article in the comments to Neo’s post about Carter’s “racism” comments, but I wanted to re-post it here… its a must read to know just what a hypocrite Carter really is.

  23. I smell utter desperation from the Democrats now.

    They are unable to articulate any coherent arguments for health care, nor can they manage any sensible defense for the Van Jones and ACORN debacles, nor do they have any response to the massive 912 Tea Parties.

    August was a terrible month for Obama and his supporters, including the MSM. September has been worse.

    So, what’s left … playing the race card and sending Obama out for personal appearances almost every day.

    More cowbell!

  24. If the domestic front isn’t bad enough, foreign affairs has been a no hoper too.

    Afghanistan, the “war of necessity,” the “good war” that Democrats could get behind, is now clearly a much more difficult undertaking than they expected and will require blood, guts and treasure that they do not have the belly for.

    Iran has snubbed Obama’s “Smart Power” overtures for months, while enriching more and more uranium, and Obama has nothing to show.

    We now know that Scotland and Britain colluded in a deal with Libya to release the Lockerbie bomber. The Obama administration was in the loop and did nothing to stop it aside from weak protests.

    All of Obama’s “Smart Power” and “3-D chess” have brought the US nothing. Our enemies shrug, our allies bring nothing to the party, and Israel and tiny Honduras ignore Obama’s demands, as well they should.

  25. If something is going right for Obama beyond his resoluteness in dismissing Kanye West as a “jacka**”, I’d like to be reminded of it.

    All this focus on Joe Wilson and the slandering of anyone who disagrees with Obama as angry, ignorant, lying or racist demonstrates that Obama and his supporters are losing their grip and they know it.

    It makes no sense to them. This was supposed to be their time to remake America and its position within the world, but it’s all slipping through their fingers.

    They can do nothing but hurl insults and pretend that they are blind to all that is going wrong.

  26. neo: Good catch! I saw that but it got so little press it didn’t stick in my mind.

    I’m sure most Republicans and conservatives can get behind the killing of a high-value al-Qaeda target. I suspect that it’s not the sort of thing Democrats and the media want to celebrate.

    It’s so George W. Bush, doncha know.

  27. “In the best of all possible worlds, B. O. has no color.”

    Yeah, but it sure does stink.

    I sent an article to a listserv, and one of the subscribers (we all know each other) shot back a heat-seeking missile accusing me of linking to a site that “spews racist filth about our President.” She said that my sending this link (about a 9-11 survivor’s story) was like sending a story about a Japanese fighter pilot to everyone on Pearl Harbor Day.

    I mean, Whisky Tango Foxtrot?? This chick is white, and knows me, and knows I’m no racist, but the fact that the blog apparently had a conservative blogroll (I hadn’t noticed that, actually) made her go off like an IED rolled over by a dump truck.

    My point: the people who shout these accusations are many times quite serious, and perfectly deranged. They’re out of their minds. No reasoning with them is even possible.

    Two friends defended me on the listserv (one of them is a black man), and she sorta, but not really, apologized. Not for what she said, but for saying it ON THE LIST and not privily.

    They’re nuts, I tell you. Out Of Their Minds. Three bricks shy of a load. Kool-Aid quaffers. Barking mad. Batsh*t crazy. Looney tunes.

  28. Oh, and JL: I read the link about Goober Carter’s run for the Governorship of Georgia. I didn’t realize he was endorsed by the loathsome Lester Maddox, for cripes’ sake. Wow.

    My aunt and uncle, Atlantans, have always despised Goober Carter. They’d see that simpering, smug mug on tv, and hurl invectives at the set.

  29. I’d suggest you stop excusing President Obama, and cease attributing this campaign to his “supporters.”

    This is his chosen strategy. He’s directing the assault.

    It’s not going to get better. It’s going to get worse.

  30. Beverly:

    I hope everyone reads the Carter link about his 1970 campaign. It just shows how clearly hypocritical the man is. If Carter wants to talk about seeing racism, he needs to look in the mirror.

    I seem to remember that Jimmy also made a show of carrying his own luggage, and then it turned out that his luggage was really empty and it was all just a stunt. What a hypocrite.

    Beverly said:
    She said that my sending this link (about a 9-11 survivor’s story) was like sending a story about a Japanese fighter pilot to everyone on Pearl Harbor Day.

    This reminds me of something I saw on TV back in the ’80s. A certain TV station had a special showing the movie “Tora, Tora, Tora,” about the attack on Pearl Harbor. It was sponsored by . . . (wait for it) . . . Mitsubishi !! Incidentally, the very same company that made the aircraft used in the attack itself. I was amazed.

    As for racer subscriber to the listserv… just take reactions like that as evidence that were having an effect. I read an article recently that compared what was happening to the Dems as being like a nervous breakdown. Thankfully, other members of the listserv had the integrity to stand up for you.

  31. On Carter’s racist behavior in 1970: I wonder how much of any progressive’s public posturing should be seen as a combination of Atonement and Fear of the Evil Eye. It is a matter explained by anthropology, not political philosophy. No wonder they invoke the power of their greatest taboo–racism–as a charm against evil.

  32. 3-D Chess Dept: Obama won’t meet with the Dalai Lama

    Tibetan prime minister-in-exile, Samdhong Rinpoche, accused the United States and other Western nations of appeasing China.

    More 3-D Chess: U.S. Shelves Nuclear-Missile Shield

    The White House will shelve Bush administration plans to build a missile-defense system in Poland and the Czech Republic, a move likely to cheer Moscow and roil the security debate in Europe.

    Predictions: We will certainly get nothing from Russia for scrapping missile defense in Central Europe. Just as certainly, we are betraying loyal allies once again.

    One might argue that we will get economic considerations for appeasing China. Possibly but the economies of China and America are so intertwined, that economic decisions are too crucial to be affected much by diplomatic symbolism.

  33. My Irish friend told me yesterday that he dates the beginning of Obama’s lame-duck presidency to Carter’s racism charge.

    I would place that date a few days earlier to the 912 Tea Parties.

    Though perhaps we’re both getting ahead of ourselves.

    The beast of the Obama presidency has been wounded but still has plenty of thrash left in it.

  34. Asking a glib, smug race-baiter like Obama to give up the race-baiting is like asking me to give up bacon. In other words, it ain’t gonna happen!

  35. It’s not just Obama.

    As in the Peter Wehner article J.L. linked earlier, American liberals are in the midst of a nervous background.

    These liberals imagined that they had just voted the “West Wing” TV show into reality with a sexier, more charismatic president than Martin Sheen. Better yet, he was even black!

    Liberals imagined that now that the stupid, evil cowboys had been thrown out of the White House and now that Democrats had massive majorities in Congress, that all their liberal visions — so obviously smart and superior in all respects — were now going to come true.

    Instead, it’s all going off the rails, and when any of them, including the fabulously super-brilliant Obama, tries to make the case for New Deal II, the arguments never come out well and their opponents keep pointing out obvious absurdities and demanding real facts and numbers.

    How can this be? There can be no questioning the moral and intellectual superiority of liberals, therefore it must be the insidious racism of their opponents. That’s the ticket.

  36. All this emphasis on race by an obviously floundering and failing Obama & Co. will have the effect, I believe, of making it that much harder for any future black candidate for President and by extension, perhaps, for any other elected office (how many of the top black elected officials in office today, for instance, preside over corrupt, failing cities) to ever be free of the heightened suspicion of them being deceptive and incompetent, or to be seriously considered solely on their merits.

    Blacks have made great strides in America in the last decades but this is a giant step backwards. On the broader level, this race card business will inflame race relations, and possibly inflame them to the point of combustion.

  37. John McWhorter and Glenn Loury had a discussion about zero running.
    Loury, older, said that when Jackie Robinson broke the MLB color barrier, he was JACKIE ROBINSON.

    The implication was that it was fortunate wrt the future, and smart of Rickey to pick Robinson and not some utility infielder with a bigamy charge hanging over him and a lifetime average of 155.

    The latter, it appears, is what Loury feared and which, it appears, is what has come to pass.

    That’s bad for us now and, as another commenter noted, bad for future black candidates on the national stage. ’cause we sure didn’t get Jackie Robinson here.

  38. this were the obamanites in oregon
    http://www.moonbattery.com/obama-o-oregon.jpg

    at the very end of the music, at 4:58
    kanye gives the obama sign…
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bWeHRLKaeQU

    and here again
    http://www.swamppolitics.com/news/politics/blog/2008/11/03/Obama%27s%20O.jpg

    and again
    aftermathnews.files.wordpress.com/2008/11/obama_o_sign.jpg

    then again, one can look to the origins of the ideas coming together today

    The hands of the Fé¼hrer organize his speech. This picture captures Hitler’s hands as he speaks of the unity of the National Socialist and socialist ideas.
    http://www.bytwerk.com/gpa/images/hoff1/hitler5.jpg

    same old same old…

  39. OBAMA KILLS MISSILE DEFENSE FOR POLAND, CZECH…

    Makes announcement on 70th anniversary of Soviet invasion of poland…

    today is the day we signed the constitition…
    its constitution day!!!

    In October 1939, Molotov reported to the Supreme Soviet that the Soviets had suffered 737 deaths and 1,862 casualties during the campaign, though Polish specialists claim up to 3,000 deaths and 8,000 to 10,000 wounded.[e] On the Polish side, between 6,000 and 7,000 soldiers died fighting the Red Army, with 230,000 to 450,000 taken prisoner.[1][43] The Soviets often failed to honour terms of surrender. In some cases, they promised Polish soldiers freedom and then arrested them when they laid down their arms.[4]

    The Soviet Union had ceased to recognise the Polish state at the start of the invasion.[9][10] As a result, the two governments never officially declared war on each other. The Soviets therefore did not classify Polish military prisoners as prisoners of war but as rebels against the new legal government of Western Ukraine and Western Byelorussia.[n] The Soviets killed tens of thousands of Polish prisoners of war. Some, like General Jé³zef Olszyna-WilczyÅ„ski, who was captured, interrogated and shot on 22 September, were executed during the campaign itself.[44][45] On 24 September, the Soviets killed forty-two staff and patients of a Polish military hospital in the village of Grabowiec, near Zamość.[46] The Soviets also executed all the Polish officers they captured after the Battle of Szack, on 28 September 1939.[38] Over 20,000 Polish military personnel and civilians perished in the Katyn massacre.[4][35] About 300 Poles were executed after the Battle of Grodno [3].

    Torture was used on a wide scale in various prisons, especially those in small towns. Prisoners were scalded with boiling water in Bobrka; in Przemyslany, people had their noses, ears, and fingers cut off and eyes put out; in Czortkow, female inmates had their breasts cut off; and in Drohobycz, victims were bound together with barbed wire. Similar atrocities occurred in Sambor, Stanislawow, Stryj, and Zloczow.[47] Also, in Podolian town of Czortké³w, a local Polish uprising broke out in January 1940, brutally suppressed by the Soviets. According to historian Jan T. Gross:
    “We cannot escape the conclusion: Soviet state security organs tortured their prisoners not only to extract confessions but also to put them to death. Not that the NKVD had sadists in its ranks who had run amok; rather, this was a wide and systematic procedure.” [48]

    I bet poland and the slovak states are not too happy…

    During the two years following the annexation, the Soviets also arrested approximately 100,000 Polish citizens[54] and deported between 350,000 and 1,500,000, of whom between 250,000 and 1,000,000 died, mostly civilians.[b][55] In 2009 the Polish IPN lowered this estimate to 320,000 deported and 150,000 dead [14].

    Soviet censors later suppressed many details of the 1939 invasion and its aftermath.[62] The Politburo had from the start called the operation a “liberation campaign”, and later Soviet statements and publications never wavered from that line.[63] On 30 November 1939, Stalin stated that it was not Germany who had attacked France and England, but France and England who had attacked Germany;[64] and the following March, Molotov claimed that Germany had tried to make peace and been turned down by “Anglo-French imperialists”.[o] All subsequent Soviet governments denied that there had ever been a secret protocol to the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact; but when the document was “found” in the Soviet archives in 1989, the truth was finally acknowledged.[7] Censorship was also applied in the People’s Republic of Poland, to preserve the image of “Polish-Soviet friendship” promoted by the two communist governments. Official policy allowed only accounts of the 1939 campaign that portrayed it as a reunification of the Belarusian and Ukrainian peoples and a liberation of the Polish people from “oligarchic capitalism.” The authorities strongly discouraged any further study or teaching on the subject.[16][35]

    Come all and learn our new anthem….

    the Obama National Anthem
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l46t_nrySg4

  40. I just got this week’s Die Zeit and read the table of contents. One head stuck out: Since Obama’s election, radical racists have been on the rise.

    Yep, Barry and friends sure know how to improve our image in the world. CNN World also had a piece on the topic yesterday, showing some of the battier posters from Saturday.

  41. It’s amazing how racers Joe Klein, Maureen Dowd and Jimmy Carter have the ability to read the minds of people and know what they are thinking. Perhaps they could work for the CIA and get a fix on the location of Osama bin Laden the next time his spirochetes get active.

  42. Am I a sexer if I accuse folks of being sexist. There is a person on this thread who held double-standards against Sarah Palin.

    ‘nuf said. 🙂

    No, I am not a sexer. Because the double-standard existed.

    The people who are racers have ZERO evidence of double-standards or pre-judice or anything when they make their claims of racism.

  43. Nice work. That is the perfect catch phrase. I knew it was only a matter of time before Jimmah Carter had to garner some attention. The concept of retirement hasn’t quite dawned on him yet. He is safer with a hammer in his hand rather than a microphone and camera in front of him.

    I have enjoyed reading your blog for a few hours. You were referred to me on our blog by a fellow contributor. Keep up the good work.

  44. The MSM insists that criticism of Obama or his policies must surely be motivated by racism. Some commenters above note that if they keep pushing this view, it could lead to “match in the tinderbox” results.

    Tonight Rachel Maddow was focusing on protesters’ behavior and signs at the Town Hall meetings and the 9-12 March on Washington: “the tree of Liberty needs to be watered” (understood as “with the blood of tyrants”), the 3 incidents in which protesters were armed, etc. She declared she was alarmed by the possibility that conservative demonstrations could overflow into violence. (Oh, yeah, I’ll never forget the Presbyterian riots in Des Moines. So typical of conservatives. /sarc) This follows Nancy Pelosi’s lamentations that civil discourse has become impossible and “this kind of rhetoric is … frightening and it created a climate in which … violence took place (in San Francisco 1978)”. (Her reproach on declining civility comes after several years of Democrat heckling of all things Bush, but heck, who’s keeping track, right?)

    Does anybody wonder if perchance Obama’s puppet-masters are just waiting and hoping for some such civil crisis to occur, a crisis which might justify a declaration of national emergency and a takeover of vital functions? Paranoid people want to know….

  45. Huxley at 11:05 am.

    Perfectly said. I think I’m going to copy and paste that comment for future reference. I only wish I had the guts to throw it up on my Facebook page. But, then I hate when people get political on the FB.

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