Wednesday, July 29, 2009

Wingnuts: Southern Strategy Redux

David Kurtz:
Colin Powell tells Larry King: "The problem I'm having with the [Republican] Party right now is that when [Rush Limbaugh] says something that I consider to be completely outrageous and I respond to it, I would like to see other members of the party do likewise, but they don't." That and the day's other political news in the TPMDC Morning Roundup.
via Daily Kos' Abbreviated Pundit Round-up

WaPo behind the numbers: But can she cook? "Homemaker" seems to be the best suited job for Pain, according to the public. Yes, that's right. Only 12% of Republicans think President's her best next job, and only 4% of independents (6% of the public overall thinks that President should be her next job.)

But, hey, conservatives love her!! That's worth something, eh?

Kleefeld (TPM): Obama-Haters Becoming Increasingly...Racial In Their Rhetoric
An interesting pattern has emerged in the last few weeks, as President Obama's ratings have started to come down to Earth: You can really see a type of Obama-hatred out there that really does cross over into a purely racial territory.

This has gotten especially worse in the aftermath of Obama's comments and subsequent mea culpa on the Henry Louis Gates arrest, but the pattern has been there all the same. You can look back to the 2008 campaign, with the Jeremiah Wright controversies, the phony rumors of a tape of Michelle Obama defaming whites, and the slow but steady emergence of the Birthers. And these days, the Birthers seem to be getting more and more bellicose.

So let's take a look at some of those recent racially-charged attacks that have circulated against Obama, both right before and after the Gates incident.

• Above all others, the real celebrity here has been Rush Limbaugh. He's done this kind of thing before -- remember the "Barack, The Magic Negro" song? But in the wake of the Gates incident, he's managed to become even more hard-edged about it. "Here you have a black president trying to destroy a white policeman," Limbaugh declared this past Friday. Yesterday, he shared a dream he's had about the dangers to capitalism: "I had a dream that I was a slave building a sphinx in a desert that looked like Obama." And he joked that food-safety advocates will go after all the unhealthy foods people like to eat, one by one -- but they'll have to wait until Obama is out of office to ban Oreos.

• Glenn Beck said this today on Fox News: "This president, I think, has exposed himself as a guy, over and over and over again, who has a deep-seated hatred for white people, or the white culture. I don't what it is. You can't sit in a pew with Jeremiah Wright for 20 years and not hear some of that stuff, and not have it wash over."

• During his new crusade of Birtherism, Lou Dobbs suggested on his radio show this past Wednesday, right before the Gates flare-up, that Obama could be an illegal immigrant, tying this into his usual preoccupation. "I'm starting to think we have a document issue," Dobbs said. "You suppose he's un-- no, I won't even use the word 'undocumented,' it wouldn't be right."

• As we reported last week, a high-profile conservative activist against Obama on health care was circulating an e-mail that photoshopped Obama's face onto a witch-doctor's body. This e-mail had been circulating before the Gates incident, but still fits into the overall environment of Obama's ratings having started to flag.

Sudbay: Rush and his fellow right wingers not even subtle about race-baiting anymore

It's getting really ugly out there in right wing whacko world. They went nuts over the nomination of Sonia Sotomayor. That seemed to open up the floodgates of racism and hate-speak. Rush and company aren't even trying to hide it anymore:


Benen: BECK'S LIMITLESS IDIOCY....
One of the problems with Glenn Beck's propensity for madness is the sheer volume. The unhinged Fox News personality is so far gone, and spouts so much nonsense on a daily basis, it's difficult to separate the routine absurdities from the uniquely offensive idiocy.

Yesterday, Beck shared some thoughts that probably fall into the latter category. Appearing on "Fox & Friends," Beck weighed in again on the Gates/Crowley incident, and this week's social gathering at the White House. He told his national television audience that President Obama has th "a deep-seated hatred for white people or the white culture."

Reminded of the many white people on the president's team, Beck added, "I'm not saying he doesn't like white people, I'm saying he has a problem. This guy is, I believe, a racist."

Don't even try to consider the logic of the argument. Beck believes Obama has "a deep-seated hatred for white people," but Beck isn't arguing that Obama "doesn't like white people."

A TPM reader, a media professional, suggested this was a game-changing exchange for Rupert Murdoch's propaganda outlet. "This is not Kanye West saying Bush doesn't care about white people, or Michael Moore saying something provocative while a guest on CNN (though I challenge anyone to find Moore saying anything this ugly on anyone's program)," the reader noted. "This is Rupert's prized employee appearing on his channel, and doing the equivalent of shouting 'fire' in a crowded movie house. This is the sort of comment that I might expect to read about in some SPLC missive concerning neo-Nazi websites, or the like. But as uttered by the paid employee of Fox News, on one of the network's shows?"

Of course, the Republican network doesn't see it that way. Bill Shine, Fox News' Senior Vice President of Programming, said Beck's anti-Obama tirade "represented his own views, not those of the Fox News Channel." Beck, Shine said, "is given the freedom to express his opinions."

Karl Frisch translated the response: "Beck doesn't speak for Fox News, but we'll keep paying him to say anything he wants."

The network's response needs some work, because by the logic of Bill Shine, any Fox News personality could say literally anything on the air, and so long as it doesn't run afoul of FCC regulations, the network brass is unconcerned.

So, here's the follow-up for Shine or anyone at the propaganda machine: is there a line that can't be crossed? And if so, how much further do the network's paid hosts have to go to get there?


Committee approves Sotomayor July 28: The Senate Judiciary Committee voted to approve Sonia Sotomayor with only one GOP vote. Now the vote to confirm her will come before the entire Senate. What political repercussions might Republicans expect from the Hispanic community? Rachel Maddow is joined by Congresswoman Loretta Sanchez, D-CA.
Marshall: More Than Fascinated
I think I'm basically snarkless on this one. But I'm watching Chris Matthews do a lengthy interview with Congressman Thaddeus McCotter (R) of Michigan about the resolution he's introducing in the House calling on President Obama to apologize for his comments about Officer James Crowley of the Cambridge Police Department. I'm not even sure what to say about it other than that McCotter is really managing to talk at great length about how this is a critical fight against abuse of executive authority.
Marshall: We Lost a "Great Freedom Fighter"

Tea Party Activists bewail the loss of doctor who sent racist Obama witch doctor email.

As they say, only the good ones withdraw from active anti-health care reform advocacy young.

Secret C Street sect goes global July 28: More information is coming out about "The Family," the organization that runs the secretive C Street House. A new report says they've spent almost $100,000 on lawmakers' foreign trips since 2000. What other information is coming out? Rachel Maddow is joined by Harpers contributing editor Jeff Sharlet.


C&L: Frothing Town Hall Birther Identified, Described As Too Crazy For Right Wing Radio
By Logan Murphy Tuesday Jul 28, 2009 5:00pm

It's no secret that a large chunk of what remains of the Republican Party base is made up of under-informed, far-right extremists and the like. Take for instance, the above now-infamous video of a woman who went berserk over the Birther conspiracy at a town hall meeting last week in Delaware. We're now learning more about her, and as it turns out she's well known in certain circles in her hometown and is so far out of her skull that even a conservative leaning radio station has banned her from calling:

When a woman in a red shirt stood up in a Georgetown senior center on June 30 and began yelling at U.S. Rep. Mike Castle about President Barack Obama's birth certificate, her rant was caught on video and has since become a TV and Internet sensation.

The star of the show -- known as "Crazy Eileen" to callers of a Sussex County talk radio station -- has gone into seclusion, declining interviews and avoiding publicity, even as previous statements by her have emerged referring to Obama as "the antichrist" and speaking of aliens and angels.

...According to another WGMD host, Jared Morris, she has been banned from calling the station -- known for its conservative leanings and hosts -- on several occasions. Read on...


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