A Little Historical Perspective …

Harry Reid shouldn’t lose his job for his comments. He should lose his job because he is an ineffectual, corrupt clown.

Isn’t it about time we let this “scandal” go away` and die? There is no legitimate story here.

http://www.political-buzz.com/

I was wondering when Buchannan’s name would come up. Needless to say I wasn’t curious enough to seek out his opinion to start with.

It does highlight the fact that Reid’s comments and the reaction to them are far more generational than they are racial. Many of us are old enough to not only remember when “Negro” was the ‘correct’ term for Blacks but when tokenism was a much discussed, common phenomenon.

It wasn’t that long ago…..

… as opposed to truly racial politics in the present, which look a lot like the Republican Party – lock, stock, & barrel.

(Yes, it’s an Oxford comma, and I’m proud of it. The AP Stylebook went out with the AP reporting quality.)

When in doubt, and the “blame it all on Bush” won’t work, dig out some good ‘ol Dick Nixon dirt and throw that in their face!!
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Simply amazing.

This was released just yesterday, which I found to be a bit ironic, given the current controversy.

Thanks, KT! I’ll read all the Nixon stuff you have …although given your youth no doubt you couldn’t have covered Pres. Nixon directly? Did you write about post-presidency Nixon often or even interview him directly? BTW to others, I highly recommend Joe McGinniss’ The Selling of the President 1968 covering his campaign in gruesome detail. I think it’s still on Amazon (don’t know if on kindle).

Give me a bread newfreedom. If the GOP didn’t want to become part of the story they shouldn’t have invested so much energy trying to blow it up. They thought this issue was perfect to switch attention away the daily gaffes coming from “Fire me or shut up” Steele and to possibly derail health care by damaging Harry Reid or at least distracting him. They thought by comparing this to Trent Lott and charging Democrats with a double standard would be just the ticket because no one would notice that it was really the GOP that had the double standard were the only ones using race to play political games. Now they want this story to go away as fast as humanly possible because the new angle is about how the GOP is so overtly cynical and devoid of character that they would use such a sensitive issue as race and try to make “hay” out of deliberately — come across as political opportunists much? Now KT’s segue is absolutely perfect to further the message. But of course I would have preferred that she lead up to the ultimate race baiter by focusing more directly on what the GOP is doing rather than just blaming pundits — but it’s okay every body get the imagery.

What kind of bread, dee? I love asiago cheese bread (just kidding). Actually, thx for praising KT’s work. Feel better for doing so? The race and culture pigeonholing during Nixon’s ’68 campaign defies description today, such as blatant token “group reps” during his highly scripted teevee programs (the farmer, etc) I hope KT has LOTS of teevee campaign stories for us. And to think Roger Ailes was part of the Nixon team? Surprise!

Remember a while back when they released a tape of Nixon talking about Roe V. Wade. He was generally against abortion. Unless in the case of rape or a ‘mixed race’ child. Nixon, truly a humanitarian for the ages.

Just weighing in on this – Reid is 70 years old. He was around in the 1960s when we were still saying “Negro” and it wasn’t an affront to those to whom it was intended (better than that other N word!) If it was his intent to say that people would vote for an articulate guy, that’s a whole lot different than implying that “all you dark-skinned people aren’t articulate.” Biden said the same thing in a just-as-clumsy way.
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Reid is getting vilified because he simply used a term that we just don’t use anymore. Would you have felt offended if he had said “that mulatto” was qualified? Besides, if the subject of his PRIVATE, supposedly off-the-record conversation has already accepted Reid’s apology, who keeps dredging this up? The appropriately-named Drudge? Rush? Shannity? Blech?

I think now would be a good time to begin a blogger ethics panel on the meaning of the phrase ‘deep background’ and why Mark Halperin is happy to profit from what most reporters will willingly go to jail to avoid doing.

I read the article yesterday and went through some of the previous related threads this morning. There were some interesting and thoughtful comments so I’ll balance it out by posting mine.

We’re as fractured as we’ve ever been, if not more. The parties seldom work together anymore. Every little mis-spoken thought or action is immediately followed by a demand for a resignation by the other party. Most people deliberately refuse to concede that malice was not the intent behind a statement.

In the past the democrats have pandered to minorities without truly addressing the concerns that drove them to the party in the first place. The republicans pandered to a fearful white voting segment hoping to play on their fears and unite them. The southern strategy worked pretty well in the past.

Changing demographics point to whites being a minority by 2050. 40 years seems like a long time but many of us were around 40 years ago so we know how time flys. 40 years will pass and then we’ll be on the short end of the stick. A funny thing happened in 2008. We didn’t wait for the demographics to make the change for us. We did it willingly ahead of schedule and it scared the crap out of a lot of people that took some comfort about a sea change in the political landscape being a part of a nebulous future.

The story doesn’t surprise me about the research paper. It was interesting and I’m not convinced that the same thinking wasn’t a part of the 2008 presidential race strategy. Hillary couldn’t catch a break in the press and they might have thought that with Hillary out of the way that Obama would be incapable of defeating McCain in the general election. Ha Ha. Fooled em’.

Thx SH. Conversely we’ve got to figure out a way to get *this* out in the open: I say Obama won the nomination and the support of blacks because, well, he’s BLACK AND ARTICULATE, not because he would’ve made a better president than Hillary. Then her husband stuck his nose in it and that drove the majority blacks completely over to BO’s side.

I haven’t a clue what their ground rules were, but I’m happy to describe mine. I think there is very little understanding of what “background” and “deep background” and “off the record” mean–even among reporters and their sources. Often, a source will declare something “off the record” when what they really mean is that they don’t want their name used. So I will usually have a conversation clarifying the ground rules. For instance, I will say: I can use this information, right, just not attribute it to you? Or, I can call you a “government” official, but not a “White House” official? Or, if something is declared “off the record,” I will ask, can I shop this around for confirmation?

OMG you mean you’d actually be doing some REPORTING?? (No offense, just saying that distinguishing between the shades of on- and off-the-record is totally lacking as a whole.)

nfl: actually, as i recall it, there was an interesting dynamic among black leaders with regard to obama. at the beginning, there was actually some resistance to his candidacy. it wasn’t until he won in iowa–a very white state–that he got the kind of outpouring of support that we later saw in places like south carolina.

Deconstructiva, my issues with KT isn’t personal — it’s about her comments, especially on health care. Whenever she indulges in henny-penny journalism I will call her on it, but that doesn’t mean if she does something right that I won’t say that too. And look I did it without calling attention to your considerable suck-up to KT over not being old enough to have covered Nixon.

KT: The win in Iowa was huge, but I don’t ever recall a campaign being as well run as Obama did his. I don’t think we can discount the fact that during a time of great economic upheavel that he was the candidate that appeared calm and acted presidential. At a time when we needed reassurance the most, Obama delivered.

KT, let’s not forget that you yourself saw racial politicking with respect to that McCain ad with Franklin Raines in it, so I really don’t think it lies in your mouth to pooh-pooh what Harry Reid said. (Funny I should mention Franklin Raines, given recent revelations that Fannie & Freddie were overrating the mortgage paper they were selling.) Moreover, “inartful” is a bit of a euphemism. I don’t there’s any question that “Negro dialect” is offensive. (Would you use that term in the workplace? Case closed.)
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And really, citing Buchanan? He of the “more American” point of view? He’s a fringe guy in GOP circles (IIRC, he got less votes than Nader did in the 2000 election.) He’s got an axe to grind–he’s not credible.
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As for the brouhaha–well, what about Geraldine Ferraro? Her comments were basically the same as Harry Reid’s, and she got savaged by Obama’s people. And there was a media brouhaha over it.
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And what of Harry’s history? His comments about Clarence Thomas–he singled out the black Justice, compared him falsely (remember, Reid was woefully off on the facts) and unfavorably to Scalia.
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Finally, there’s the double standard, which any fair discussion of Reid’s comments has to include. Had a GOP pol made the same comments, he’d be getting a lot of heat from you, KT (I say that because of the shot you took at the McCain camp over the Franklin Raines ad). And even worse, with respect to the double standard, Reid himself has compared opposition to Dem HCR with the opposition to the civil rights movement. Certainly, KT, you can mention that . . . .
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I think the word in your title should be “Historical” instead of “Historic”.

The question I’m really asking of course is did Harry Reid have a reasonable expectation that his quote would not be made public and what does this tell us about Mark Halperin’s character?

http://mediamatters.org/blog/201001120012

Thx K for weighing in. I think most people wanted to support him if he were proven qualified, not necessarily electable. The qualifications for any candidate should include more than just “1) he/she can put more than two sentences together without assistance and 2) he/she looks like me.” My fear is that we still haven’t come far enough race-wise to get to the heart of the matter: does this guy/”gal” have the right stuff?

am fixing the historical. thanks. also, i continue to believe that mccain ad had intentional racial messaging, which makes it very different from what i think was going on here with reid.

I’d say Halperin is a twit for doing so.

Keeping more things in “historical” perspective indeed.
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“James Strom Thurmond (December 5, 1902 – June 26, 2003) was an American politician who served as governor of South Carolina and as a United States Senator. He also ran for the Presidency of the United States in 1948 as the segregationist States Rights Democratic Party (Dixiecrat) candidate, receiving 2.4% of the popular vote and 39 electoral votes. Thurmond later represented South Carolina in the United States Senate from 1954 to April 1956 and November 1956 to January 2003, at first as a Democrat and after 1964 as a Republican, switching parties as the conservative base shifted. He left office at age 100 as the oldest-serving and longest-serving senator in U.S. history (although he was later surpassed in the latter by Robert Byrd, another former Dixiecrat).[1] Thurmond holds the record for the longest serving Dean of the United States Senate in U.S. history at 14 years. He conducted the longest filibuster ever by a lone U.S. Senator in opposition to the Civil Rights Act of 1957, at 24 hours and 18 minutes in length, nonstop. He later moderated his position on race, but continued to defend his early segregationist campaigns on the basis of states’ rights in the context of Southern society at the time,[2] never fully renouncing his earlier viewpoints.[3][4] After his death it was revealed that Thurmond and a black maid, Carrie Butler, had a daughter whom Thurmond never publicly acknowledged.[5] He is the only U.S. Senator to reach the age of 100 while still in office.”

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Skeltons abound in both parties closets, now don’t they Karen?

He’s a fringe guy in GOP circles…
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You can’t deny that. After all he opposed the Iraq invasion from the start.
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But the fact that he still has a job, just as the fact that it took Lou Dobbs years before he lost his, reminds us that racism and xenophobia is still widely tolerated here in America. You just have to know the code. Harry’s problem is that he used the regular whistle instead of the dog-whistle.

I see that the other stuff, i.e., Obama’s reaction to Geraldine Ferraro and the double standard issue aren’t answered.
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You’re certainly entitled to your opinion re: Raines ad, but thinking something is different from knowing it. And if you’re going to “think” racial appeals, then perhaps you should be more even-handed about that. Barack Obama used the term “just-us” system in a debate at Howard University–was that a racial appeal? And his comments about Jena–characterizing a vicious six-on-one assault by black assailants on a white victim as a “schoolyard fight” seems pretty sketchy from a race perspective. If McCain’s ads are fair game, I note that those little things escaped your attention.

Also (again), I was just struck by the irony of these Nixon papers being released on the very DAY that everyone is talking about Reid.

Segregationists left the Democratic party en masse after Johnson’s support helped push through the Civil rights act. And rusty interprets this as a stain on Democrats?
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Fascinating.

nflfoghorn: I share your fear on this. When it comes down to it, we have the disturbing propensity to go for the superficial. I think Bush Sr. choose Dan Quayle because he was more photogenic than many other more qualified candidates. If Sarah Palin had looked like Candy Crowley (I have a great deal of respect for Candy), Sarah wouldn’t have been able to get the time of day out of McCain and the NASCAR crowd would have shunned her.

But, really I think out of the same book where Bill Clinton allegedly said….
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“You know Teddy, just a few years ago this guy would have been bringing us our glass of water”…

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Now this is much more relevant to now-a-days, is it not?
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How does a 2008 statement from Clinton compare with a Nixon statement in 1971. Does that have any “historical” comparison at all?

Real weak, Rusty, even for you. Republicans didn’t gain ground en masse until, during the 50s and 60s especially, many folks who called themselves Democrats started rebelling against the civil rights movement.

” .. the shot heard around the world. ..”

Gee.

Shouldn’t most hardworking, very-hardworking Appalachians hear it – before it is heard around the world?

Sorry – wrong blog.

Wavelength, PD!

i think clinton got a lot of criticism in real time on some of his comments, especially the “fairy tale” one, and when he dismissed the significance of obama’s win in south carolina. here’s what i wrote back then:
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http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1717925,00.html

Ditto on Ms. C. We could also use Erin Andrews and Shelley Smith, couldn’t we!

Not to go too far OT, but speaking of dynamics…
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KT: I believe that a seriously undercovered story is just how difficult it is and continues to be for a woman to become POTUS.
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It amazes me still how a woman with as high a name recognition factor as HRC lost to the relatively unknown Obama.
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And, looking ahead, is there any woman in politics who stands a chance in the next 20 years? Pelosi, Boxer, Feinstein, Napolitano, HRC have all been savaged by the VRWC and the MSM. Who’s left?

…sacred, good points. I found a blogger that agrees with you about Quayle and Palin. He notes the power structure of the R’s: three factions fighting for power, all needed to win (I sorta have them as two) – http://www.dailygotham.com/blog/dan_jacoby/quayle_hunt

My point ‘zactly, K. After BO established himself as a legit candidate, BC shoulda stuck to the issues. He got a case of the “canthelpits.”

sacredh: I think Bush Sr. choose Dan Quayle because he was more photogenic than many other more qualified candidates.
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My feeling was that Bush Sr. was about a “3″ on a 10 scale when it came to personality and being able to convince others that he was in touch with the concerns of regular Americans. (Remember his amazement at a laser price scanner during a campaign shopping trip?)
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In Quayle, he managed to find someone who made him look relatively good by comparison. Danny was a ditz.

Oh I almost forgot about your “scathing” report at that time, Karen about Bill Clinton. Please forgive me!!
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It was…..was it? Again, point me to the part where you did reveal something like “carrying water” again?

sacredh: by the same token, If Obama wasn’t light skinned and really have the Negr0 dilaect (as dirty Harry rightly pointed out), he wouldn’t be the first “black” president of the US. It’s easy to detect bullsh!t in somebody’s arugument if s/he doesn’t share your own political views, isn’t it?

…kbang, I’ll guess the first woman POTUS will come from the business community (after serving as gov or in Congress). This could mean either D or R, not automatically an R. I remember the earlier shredding here of Carly Fiorina (and KT for posting it), but I’m really watching (but not betting on) Meg Whitman. If she wins CA gov or finishes close, she could inspire others. Indra Noori at Pepsi and Andrea Jung are quite powerful as ceo’s. KT would know other top picks. There still aren’t many women and minority ceo’s, esp. on wall st., but there’s some improvement.

How does a 2008 statement that out-of-office former president Clinton was alleged to have said via a third-person report compare with an actual statement by then-president Nixon in 1971? Does that have any “historical” comparison at all?
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There, Rusty, fixed that for you.

“Had a GOP pol made the same comments, he’d be getting a lot of heat from you, KT”

Yes, if a politician from a party with a history of racial demagoguery and a history of embracing segregationists like Strom Thurmond had said this, you’re right, the spin might have been different.

But since it came from a guy with high levels of support from the NAACP, civil rights leaders, and the CBC, it was taken differently.

Context matters. If Dick Cheney and John Kerry made the same joke about gun owners, which one do you think the media would pounce on harder?

I bet Dirty Harry (or any other HomoCrat for that matter) can kill an innocent puppy on live TV, this WH will commend him/her for the “great service” they did to the “society”.

Harry called it like it is, we did have our first “affirmative action” president, the experimentation didn’t work out as we expected it to be, let’s all move on!

I don’t think Reid should step down for saying something he truly believes in!

deconstructiva: Thanks for the link. Just out of curiosity, how do you manage to remember where you read things over a year ago? I have problems remembering where I left my car keys from the night before.
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afguy: I remember that very well. He went on about “this amazing new technology” that even our local grocery had been using for about a decade. I seem to recall that he picked Barbara up a pair of socks or something ridiculous like that. If I was worth millions and gave my wife a pair of socks as a gift I’d be using the socks to transport my severed bloody nuts into the emergency room.
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darkskinned: It’s not even remotely the same argument. Obama was clearly the more intelligent and informed candidate regardless of skin color or looks. Palin and Quayle are intellectual featherwieights with looks but no substance.

Rusty: I didn’t “reveal” them, but I did write about his comments.
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Here’s something else I wrote at the time:
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http://swampland.blogs.time.com/2008/01/27/more_on_south_carolina/

sacredh: “Obama was clearly the more intelligent and informed candidate regardless of skin color or looks.”

Why are you comparing Obama to Quayle and Palin? Does the above statement hold true if you compare him(Obama) to Hillary or Other Democratic presidential candidate? I hope you don’t actully believe that!

darkskinned: The fault was mine for not making myself clearer. I was comparing Obama to McCain and Palin and Quayle to other VP candidates.
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I was a Hillary supporter from the start and felt that both she and Barack were clearly the class of the fields in either party. I gave money to Hillary’s campaign until it became clear that she couldn’t overcome Obama and then switched my financial support to Obama.
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I felt then and still feel now that either Hillary or Barack was the best choice. I don’t believe that any of the other candidates from either party came close to being in their class.

True.
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But as long as we’re looking for historical perspective on Obama, this study by Congressional Quarterly is fascinating:
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http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=122436116

I honestly do not understand all these much ado about nothing concerning what Harry Reid said. He was simply stating what the vast majority of people think. In other words, he was saying Barack Obama is not Jesse Jackson so he has a good chance of winning a general election in the U.S. today. I don’t think many people would argue with that. Now, would he have said it the way he did publicly, probably not, but that he is some closet racist because he holds this commonly accepted opinion is just absurd.
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The truth is, a sizable portion of the U.S. populace will have a problem with voting for folks of a different skin color, an even larger group would find the decision difficult if you are of a different race and have acted crazy in the past or seem to have a propensity for being extreme. The Governor of Pennsylvania stated this publicly in plain terms during the elections and I didn’t hear all this noise about his stating the obvious.
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Are Americans racist?, thankfully, the vast majority are not. Is there a racial undertone to the political position of many people?, certainly!, and this will most probably always be the case. Is race the over-riding factor in political decisions in the U.S.?, no!, the election of a black man to the highest office is resounding proof of that.
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Please stop all these silly race talk, I immigrated from an African country where we are all the same race, yet people discriminated and made political decisions based on the part of the country you come from.
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The bottom line is this, if people think you are different from them (whether rightly or wrongly), the will have a “pause” in associating with you and especially putting you in charge of their affairs. If you then validate their reason for thinking you are different, or even live and thrive based solely on that perceived difference, it is no wonder they don’t want you to lead them. Obama is the first minority president who the majority of Americans perceived as one of them, it is that simple.

sacred, my short-term memory is terrible. I’ve left car keys at banks and grocers. Long-term is better (I try a lot of pattern recognition to keep track of things) but not photographic at all. I’m working hard on improving “Jeopardy” play and Buzztime trivia at B-Dubs.

Watch it, KT, you are guilty of committing journalism.

My problem about Buchannan is that he is still used as a respected pundit by MSNBC. His history is filled with what he finds amusing poitical viciousness. Also, he continues to write essays that reveal his xenophobia and bigotry. I do not find Uncle Pat amusing. I am not for censorship, but MSNBC using him as their right wing balance is shameful. They just laugh along with old dottering Pat.

deconstructiva: I’m always misplacing my keys, wallet and checkbook. A couple of years ago (maybe 5…who knows?) my wife bought me a keychain that beeps if you clap your hands. I feel like an idiot when I walk around the house clapping my hands but it works. On the other hand, when the MIL is walking around the house clapping her hands and singing her gospel crap, we always hear beep beep.

Clap clap, beep beep, praise the Lord and STFU. My life is a joke.

Karen, as much as I enjoy the dirt on Palin and other Republicans, I too wonder about the definition of deep background.
My confidence in Halperin is limited. After all, he considers Drudge a good source. His shameful comments about Mary Landreau were disgusting. He is not my idea of a journalist.
What is most disturbing is the foaming at the mouth by the pundits, jumping on the “gossip” without doing their own investigation as to the truth of the allegations. Harry Reid has admitted his conversation with them but no real concern by the villagers whether it was off the record.
How many confirmations did the authors get before writing events and words as facts? What is their “special relationship” with their sources? What axes did their sources have to grind? Did they speak to Senator Kennedy about the statement attributed to him about Bill Clinton before or after he died? When will the echo chamber ask these questions of the authors?
The traditional press handles Woodword’s books in the same fashion. Never questioning his sources or his access. After all, if a book is written by one of the journalistic chosen, it must be true. If it is not, well by the time that is revealed, it is too late and reputations may have already been ruined.

apr2563: “I am not for censorship, but MSNBC using him as their right wing balance is shameful.”

MSNBC wouldn’t have to use a nut like Buchanan to do it’s balancing act, if they were not so far to the left.. Even a mighty Pat couldn’t provide the “balance” they need IMO

Thanks Karen. The other strange thing, there were no comments made on that date for that blog post from you. I haven’t checked, but maybe it was Super Bowl day or something.
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But, kudos for writing it none the less!
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But, moving forward as I like to do, I do not think Harry Reid is guilty of anything short of a mere stupid comment. I do however believe it is time, as Obama himself has said in the past to move forward regarding race, racism and racial comments from either party.
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As I wrote the other day in a comment after it became known that Harry had made this unfortunate gaffe, Republicans would be well served to stay away from it, and simply allow Democrats to beat themselves up over it if that was the case, and they so chose to do so. To even make an attempt that the Dixiecrat comparison with Strom the Racist Thurmond was in anyway similar to what Reid said is rediculous and stupid. No comparison in my mind.
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In a perfect world, we can denouce, condemn and forever say what our forefathers did was wrong. How blacks were treated after the Civil War up to and shortly after the Civil Rights Act of 1964 is horrible and dispicable. Not to say their enslavement before was nothing short of an abhoration. Thankfully there were enough people at the time to see it end.
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But, again moving forward, is everything construde as Conservative met with a racist accusation simply because someone disagrees? I think not. I believe it is what it is, a very weak argument.
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Obama is black, he is the first elected black President of this country. Something that says alot about the people of this country overall given our beginnings.
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Maybe this is a time when we can move forward into the future, and not dwell so much on “historical” things of the past that simply rely on proving any point at the moment for the sake of winning some argument or even finding it ironic for that particular day.
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Sometimes when someone from the past is dead and buried, we should just let it remain, buried forever. Not that we should forget that it ever happened, that is not my point. But, if we ever want to move forward in race relations, this certainly will not make that happen.
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I simply ask it not for myself, but my own 2 nieces and a nephew, just like Barack who are biracial. They will never be fully accepted in our society if we cannot let the past go, and move forward.

When will spob and others confront the fact that it wasn’t the Dems who were out to get Lott. It was the Bush administration and Frist supporters. I don’t recall any Democratic Senator calling for Lott to resign.
In fact, it was the White House machine that went out and ginned up the outrage with the press to remove Lott from his position.

Huh??? This is some sort of defense Rusty?

Rusty, did the authors question Senator Kennedy about the Clinton quote before or after he died?

We must be in a slow news pocket. The mostshocking thing about MSM’s handling of this non-issue is that MSM can Roledex African-Americans to opine on this nonsense, but on issues of national defense, health care, housing foreclosures, climate change, etc, African-American opinions are not heard.
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Look at the Time bloggers on Swampland. Seems to be a pretty homogeneous group. Americans get help in pigeon-holing African-Americans as only interested in race by the MSM. Americans get exposed to a limited frame of reference on non-Whites.
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sacred, any chance of rigging up home theatre, lights, hidden speakers, and “the clapper” to create a “poltergeist” haunted house tokeep the MIL in line? I wouldn’t go so far as a “Beetlejuice” style “bio-exorcism” to “rid a house of the living” like Michael Keaton tried to do, but extra laughs would be worth it.

rusty: actually, there were lots of comments, but as you may recall, we had a huge server crash about a year ago that required us to switch blogging software (from typepad to wordpress). so we’ve archived the posts from back then, but apparently weren’t able to retrieve the comments.

Now that Kennedy is gone apr, who knows. It is now nothing but “he said/she said”, isn’t it?
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And I will add, in the relevancy of it all, Clinton I believe can be commended for his actions against racism, and promoting more for black interests than probably any other President before him. Again, actions speak louder than words.

sacred & decon:
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It sounds like both of you’d get a kick out of Steve Martin’s essay collection “Pure Drivel”.
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Chapter 4, “Changes in the Memory after Fifty” begins thusly:
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Bored? Here’s a way the over-fifty set can easily kill off a good half hour:

1. Place your care keys in your right hand.
2. With your left hand, call a friend and confirm
….a lunch or dinner date.
3. Hang up the phone.
4. Now, look for your car keys.
(For answer, turn to page 21 and turn book upside down.)

As I mentioned yesterday in another post on this topic, I wish we could take a moment to remember Miep Gies who passed away yesterday. She is the woman who sheltered Anne Frank, her family and friends. A brave woman who ranks in the pantheon of all those that have fought bigotry.
Tolearance is more than words. It is witnessed by action.

Lessee here:
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Reid’s comments inartful; Ferraro’s racist.
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Opposing Ronnie White racist; “wise Latina” not racist, calling Clarence Thomas stupid not racist.
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Ads mentioning Franklin Raines racist; Barack Obama “typical white people” not racist.
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Can someone please explain?

Remarkable isn’t it that the only time you see the media search their rolodex for black opinion is when the issue is race. Funny, during the presidential campaign every network had their black representation, and sometimes they were so desperate to make sure they had at least one black among their cadre of pundits they often ended up expecting someone to defend Obama whose perspective was politically in tune with McCain. It happened on MSNBC often because they could only find one and Michele Bernard is definitely on the right. CNN had more choices but they also had this problem on occasion. I forgot her name, you know one of those who is too perky to remember but she worked for Bill Frist. It was laughable to black people to watch the exercise in tokenism in 2008. Now fast forward to this brouhaha and the msm still hasn’t learned how to handle race and for two days we are forced to deal with Republican outrage over blacks not being angry enough to suit their political purposes. It’s pathetic!

spob: I know you can come up with something better than your constant whine than “mom liked you best”.

It’s called context spob and since you don’t seem capable of understanding context no matter how many time its explained to you why do you keep asking?

Well said.

The self-interest calibration on spob’s outrage-ometer dictates that he be outraged by the discovery that self-interest calibrate’s everybody’s outrage-ometer.

The fact that this rivets everyone’s attention while truly important events go unnoticed represents a big problem.

An Iranian scientist was assassinated. You would think that would draw a little more attention than a year-old gaffe…..

An Iranian scientist was assassinated. You would think that would draw a little more attention than a year-old gaffe…..
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Paul,
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It was an Iranian scientist, not one of ours . . . you know, one of “them”, therefore not really newsworthy.

deconstructiva: I’m pretty good at hooking up electronic toys and things like that but my wife would kill me if I started messing with the electronics upstairs. She doesn’t care what I do with the stuff downstairs but the MIL is forbidden from even entering my rooms. She broke a $300 lamp in my living room a couple of years ago and whined for months when I made her pay for it. She was snooping around down there while I was at work. She’d have tried to get out of it if my wife hadn’t heard the crash and went to investigate. She knew I had a built-in safe and thought it was behind a picture on the wall. She can’t figure out how to set the time on the dvd player so I can’t imagine her being able to open a safe combination. Picture falls, lamp breaks. I haven’t pulled any haunted house stunts for months. I’m overdue.
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kbanginmotown: I’m a Steve Martin fan. I’d like to say that advancing age has something to do with my forgetfulness, but I’ve always been a little absent minded. I’m easily distracted and have a tendency to go off on tangents.

Dee has responded. The point is that many of have explained the perception that Conservatives, Birchers, tea-baggers, and the GOP have in the African-American community. Collectively, thir views on race are dismissed.
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Yes the GOP is the party of Lincoln. but it is now the Party of Barry Goldwater, the Dixiecrats, and now the John Birch society. Martin Luther king Jr loathed the politics of Barry Goldwater so much that King wrote that men of good conscience could not vote for a race-baiter like Goldwater. The Southern Strategy also came from the GOP
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The Democrats went from the party of the KKK to a party with the Black Caucus and an African-American President. Robert Byrd went from a Klan Kleagle to a Senator with a high grade on Civil Rights voting handed out by the NAACP Legal Defense Fund. Byrd apologized for his past views and has a record to support the apology. Jesse Helms and Strom Thurmond (who denied his African-American daughter), contemporaries of Byrd, are held in low regard by African-Americans.
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No one expects you to change your views. Our views of you and your cohorts will not change. However, there is the opportunity to have a little diversion in the day by posting on the blog. It’s better than watching a sitcom.

As to the statement in Game Change attributed to Clinton –
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On page 218 of their book Game Change, John Heilemann and Mark Halperin write:

But Bill [Clinton] then went on, belittling Obama in a manner that deeply offended Kennedy. Recounting the conversation later to a friend, Teddy fumed that Clinton had said, A few years ago, this guy would have been getting us coffee.

Note the lack of quote marks around the statement attributed to Clinton. That means it’s a paraphrase, not a direct quote. That means that Heilemann and Halperin did not or could not verify that Clinton said those exact words — their source is not Kennedy or Clinton, but someone else who was supposedly aware of a later, alleged conversation between Kennedy and a “friend.” As The Plum Line’s Greg Sargent points out, the authors do indeed admit in their book: “Where dialog is not in quotes, it is paraphrased, reflecting only a lack of certainly on the part of our sources about precise wording, not about the nature of the statements.”

As Sargent notes, Clinton may have said something along those lines, but: “In cases like these, when people are hinting at racism, the precise wording is everything. And in this case, the whole claim is based on an anonymous source’s recollection that someone who has now passed away told him or her that Clinton said something like this.”

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Why on earth would Bill Clinton think he could persuade Ted Kennedy with a racist remark? He would likely have said something about Obama’s inexperience or his lack of foreign affairs knowledge. An unsourced remark treated now as a direct quote. Drudge indeed rules everyone’s world.
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I know the subject of Karen’s post was point up the irony of the Nixon tapes release while the beltway is so busy repeating the Republican trashing of Reid, but since this came up…

Dee: I think I know who you’re talking about but I can’t remember her name either. Was she relatively young (compared to us) and good looking? If we’re thinking of the same person it seemed to me that she was more alligned with the Malkin school of thought than anything on the left.

Dee, how does context explain the attribution of racism to an opposition to Ronnie White? Surely you don’t think that opposing someone who failed the bar the first time around (in Missouri, with a 92% passage rate) is necessarily racist if he’s black. (By the way, Dee, you cannot win this argument with me–unlike you, I’ve actually read what Ronnie White has written and said.)
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And what’s the context that makes Sotomayor’s comment non-racist?
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And what, pray tell is the context that makes “typical white person” not racist?
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Saying “context” doesn’t get it done.

KT:

“I was just struck by the irony”

Since you seem fascinated by irony during all this uproar of who wears the mantle of racist; why have we not heard anything from the MSM about the Federal judge in Kansas imposing sanctions on 2 members of the Civil Rights Division for making broad accusations of discriminatory conduct in a complaint but then refused to provide examples or actual evidence.

This is the same Civil RIghts Division that spiked the Black Panthers case. And the last word is the Obama administration is still refusing to allow lawyers to respond to a subpoena by hte US Commission on Civil Rights.

I guess irony only applies to Republicans

Answer: Amy Holmes.

RE your last sentence: Not irony – cast-iron one-upmanship.

KT, any comment on your colleague Halp’s new book?

Thanks nfl: That’s the lady I was thinking about. She is a hottie but that “true believer” eye glaze thing she had going on was a little scary.

That’s something else I always liked about Candy Crowley. She had that “I don’t really give a sh!t either way” kind of reporting. It was like she knew we were getting fooled into thinking there was a real difference and she knew better.

Wow!! The comments in this blog are soooo off base it’s almost comical! Forget Harry Reid’s alleged racism. This is about good, old-fashioned politics and the way many in the MSM (as you call them) skew the argument whenever similar comments are made by politicians and commentators on the right!

All the indignation about Republicans calling Reid a racist doesn’t pass the smell test. What is being said is, if you are going to persist in throwing people under the bus for every ill-conceived statement or act it better come from both sides of the aisle.

I don’t have a dog in this fight, but I find the bluster entertaining.

rmrd0000:
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You and I don’t see eye to eye on much, but this is a very interesting comment, and gave me something important to think about going forward. Thank you.

Early on in this discussion about THE BOOK, I noted I was thrilled to hear of the the Palin/McCain dirt. However, I wish the book would be carefully vetted for accuracy. It is all annonymous sources. Now the authors are saying they can’t really say they talked to Reid, even though he said they did and he admitted the comments. (Chris Matthews show today) This is so they wont have to answer if Reid’s comments were off the record.
Karen, remember a few years back Kitty Kelly did a book on the Bush family. It was very critical. She had written many books and had found friendly interviewers to promote them. However, she was universally banned from all the cable and network outlets. She couldn’t even get on Larry King.They did not feel her book was sourced well. Too many anonymous sources. There was never any liable suits about any of her books. But, she was not one of the annointed ones. And, it was about Bush and his family history. This was during the period the press was still awestruck by their hero President.