Bullied by sociopaths
April 27, 2011 at 10:25 am
I have very little to say about President Obama’s decision to release his long-form birth certificate, but I will offer this: No white president would have been pressured into this. And my gut tells me Obama shouldn’t have done it, as it makes him look like he’s been bullied by sociopaths.
Although I don’t hold out much hope, I do think this is a splendid occasion for executives at mainstream news organizations to think about the consequences of “covering the controversy” as opposed to calling out people like Donald Trump as the lying jackasses that they are.
Yes, there’s been some of that. But not nearly enough.
Tags: Barack Obama, birther, birthers, Donald Trump
To clarify my previous post, I dare say that a majority of this country’s citizens are not racist.
Hi Dan,
You should read the Howler today. He’s talking about you. Don’t you work with the Duke? I wonder if he would agree that this issue isn’t important and would never happen to a white president. Considering what happened to him in the 88 campaign, I doubt it. Dukakis was the first presidential candidate I ever voted for. I was 18. I’m now 44 and I remember the way they tried to make him seem unamerican like it was yesterday. I’m sure you do too, that’s what makes your appraisal of this ugly mess so depressing.
@Rob: Just checked it out. Somerby’s not talking about me personally, so that’s a relief. Yes, I remember the Dukakis takedown well. The right uses what it’s got. With Dukakis, it was his liberalism. With Clinton, it was sex life. And with Obama, it’s his race.
Dan, in the Duke’s case, it was racism too. Read Atwell’s own account in Prof. Stephen Wayne’s “The Road to the White House.” Willie Horton was picked because he would be considered threatening to white America.
@Mike: Yes, but not racism directed at Dukakis, who was white the last time I checked.
Dan, don’t you think “vote for this guy, and scary black thug will rape your wife and kill you” qualifies as racist?
@Mike: Of course. I don’t think we disagree.
Hi Dan,
So with Gore and Kerry it was….? I think you’re being overly simplistic. You said it yourself, the Republicans use what they have. Sure it ended up being all about sex for Clinton, but that doesn’t explain Whitewater, Travelgate, the Licoln bedroom mess, the Vince Foster mess, the Russian spy accusations, the murderer charges, the drug smuggler charges, and the list goes on and on. It wasn’t all about Dukakis’s lberalism either, he was painted as different than most Americans because of his Greek heritage. They also tried to insinuated that he had mental issues. He’s a veteran but somehow got painted as anti-military! One of the biggest charges agains Obama is that he is anti-free enterprise, a socialist even. That’s not about race, that’s about the Republicans using whatever they can to paint a Democrat as out of the main steam and even radical. It’s an old trick and it works very well for them. Replying that all of those poor souls that got duped into believing this crap are racists won’t change a single vote, and will more likely harden their views and confirm to them that they were right all along.
“Replying that all of those poor souls that got duped into believing this crap are racists …”
@Rob: And where, exactly, did I ever say that? I’m talking about the activists, the leaders. Some of their followers are racists and some aren’t.
With all due respect Dan, it’s me who thinks, for the most part, that people are being duped. You have stated many times without qualification, until now, that the birthers are racists. You have said that for Obama it’s all about race. That’s where we differ. I believe people are being conned, and you have stated mutiple times in this thread, without supporting facts or qualification of any kind, that the birthers are racist. There is a VERY BIG difference between calling birthers racist and calling leaders and activists racist. To be sure, I wouldn’t necessarily agree with you on the leaders and activists either. They use what works.
@Rob: Show me where I’ve said all birthers are racists — links and quotes.
Hi Dan,
I thought my argument was pretty clear: you should be very careful who you call a racist. You may not have ever said ALL birthers are racist, but you cleary implied it. If you’re going to claim racism you should have some very solid facts to back-up the assertion. I didn’t see that in this thread and frankly there weren’t a lot of qualifiers used with the charge either. Sunday’s Globe had a letter from a reader that stated how upset he was that it took Obama so long to show his long-form birth certificate and how Obama could have saved everyone a lot of time and effort if he had just shown the form back in 2008. Then he expressed his extreme annoyance at the fact he was being accused of racism, when in his mind the issue had nothing to do with race. Is it possible he’s telling the truth?
Below are some of the statements you made in this thread:
No white president would have been pressured into this.
With Obama, it’s all tinged with race.
Don’t worry about what birthers hang their hat on.
But birtherism is clearly rooted in race.
And with Obama, it’s his race.
@Rob: So I didn’t say all birthers are racists. I knew I didn’t. Rather than listing statements that you think sound sort of like it, maybe you ought to post a retraction.
@Rob Goodwin: The Globe letter writer was incredibly short-sighted and naive. The problem with Obama responding to the birthers is that it opens the door to every other Crazy L.K. with a screw loose and an agenda. It’s like a publicly traded company responding to every rumor in the market: If they pick and choose which to respond to, they run the risk of looking like they are hiding something when they don’t respond. So public companies (rightly) don’t respond at all, except to say they won’t respond. Same thing here.
Hi Dan,
A retraction? I don’t think so. For some reason you have avoided my argument like the plague, and I stand by everything I wrote. You can make this an argument about weather you used the term ‘all’ or not, but I’m not interested. The first time you qualified the racist charge was May 6th at 2:22 pm. And for the record, I didnt accuse you of claiming ‘all’ birthers were racist. My statement was “You have stated many times without qualification, until now, that the birthers are racists”. I’m sorry we weren’t able to engage in my argument, but at least it wasn’t for lack of trying. Thanks.
@Rob: It’s because I know what I think and I know what I’ve said. I take great pains to distinguish racial insensitivity from racism. So when I see someone write that I’ve said “the” birthers are racist, I have no interest in engaging, because it strikes me as such a willful misreading of what I wrote. Here is a small but characteristic example. On the other hand, I don’t think there’s any question that the birthers play on racial fears. Here are some new findings that you will definitely want to chew over.
You and the blind squirrel still in a staring match, Mikie?