| This is not the first Republican to say this kind of thing. I could not find the clip but sometime last week on Hardball with Chris Mathews one of his regular, Republican strategist Ron Christie (the only person in the world my wife would shout "You Tool" at on TV) made the same point. It is pretty galling to see an African American who has probably felt first hand racism being willing to doubt that it was expressed against African American politicians.
This is going to be the meme that we are going to see from Republicans. They are going to give weak lip service to the idea that people should not say racist things but deny them as long as there is no audio or video tape of the incident. Even then we will hear the lame and tiered "isolated incidents" trope when they are caught red handed.
All of this just goes to show that the Republican Party has finally become so insular, so wrapped up in their echo chamber that they can not or will not see the reality of their base. How many of these inducements do we need before the evidence is overwhelming (personally I think we are already there, but apparently not). We have seen the signs at the rallies. We have seen the racist jokes that Republican Party officials have sent via e-mail, we have seen legitimate Civil Rights heroes and sitting United States Representatives being called n**gers, and being spit on.
These are not isolated acts when they happen on a weekly basis and the Republican Party is verifying its status as a racist organization by calling the veracity of people like John Lewis and Emmanuel Clever into question.
The thing is there is video, of the spitting incident at least. It is on Huff Po and you find it here. Anyone want to claim the $10,000 from Rep. Bachmann? It is not like something like proof will matter to them They have gone where not even light returns from, they are in their own private universe. No new information can come from anywhere but Fox News, Limbaugh and Beck. It is a sad thing that we have lost any chance of a loyal opposition and have to also give up on a sane one as well.
I don't like to be a doom and gloom kind of person, but where this ends is ugly in the extreme. The last time we had Republican officials talking about the treason of the Democratic Party it culminated with the Oklahoma City bombing. While we are seeing the FBI act to roll up small groups of fools like the Hutaree Militia the lesson of Tim McVey is that a small number of fools can do an incredible amount of damage. This willful winking at the extremist in their base and the false equivalency comparisons to the Left allow this kind of cancer to grow. I fear that we are in for a few very tough years if the Republicans do not return to sanity. Tragically there is no indication they will do so.
The floor is yours. |
