This is the latest in a series on the use of the race card for political gain:
And on the 75th episode of the Saturday Night Card Game, we again ponder how we have reached the point where words or expressions which have no connection to race have become a tool by which the race card players stalk Republicans, conservatives and Tea Party supporters.
For those of you who are new to these parts, here are some prior words or terms which have caused problems:
- Baa Baa Black Sheep
- Black Friday
- Black Hole
- Providence Plantations
- Rejigger
- Gobbledygook, and
- “No Asians,”
The latest example is the nontroversy over Mitt Romney’s play of the common phrase to “hang an albatross around his neck.” That metaphor was used frequently during the 2008 campaign as commenters throughout the left-blogosphere wanted Democrats to hang George W. Bush around John McCain’s neck.
Romney used this metaphor yesterday in New Hampshire when referring to our economic misery index, which he substituted for the word albatross, and then applied it to Barack Obama:
http://abcnews.go.com/assets/player/walt2.6/flash/SFP_Walt_2_65.swf
http://abcnews.go.com/assets/player/walt2.6/flash/SFP_Walt_2_65.swfYou can guess the rest, media buzz and cries of racism because in the games of the race card players, hanging the misery index around Obama’s neck or hanging Obama with it, just like it was hung around Carter’s neck, is exactly the same thing as saying “let’s lynch the black guy.”
Really. Here is some media/blogosphere reaction to what is being portrayed as a major “gaffe”:
- HuffPo: “Mitt Romney’s camp is attempting to do damage control after the presidential aspirant made controversial remarks in criticizing President Barack Obama during a stop in New Hampshire on Friday night.
- Boston Globe: Romney clarifies as he proposes to ‘hang’ Obama with misery index.
- Raw Story: “In a speech at the pro-GOP Americans for Prosperity dinner, former Massachusetts governor and contender for the GOP presidential nomination Mitt Romney said he would “hang” Obama, then immediately realized his gaffe and tried to smooth over his mistake.”
- Politico: “Any reference to hanging — however unintentional — would be especially loaded in a campaign against the country’s first black president, as Romney apparently recognized.”
- Daily News: “Mitt Romney scrambled to do some damage control after he suggested it was time to “hang” President Obama in a speech in New Hampshire Friday night.
What lunacy. It’s become a mind control game. These people are not addressing actual racism, they’re just playing word games and gotcha.
The Obama campaign doesn’t need to do a thing, it just needs to sit back and let the media do its job for it. Fairy tales do come true when you are up against the media’s love affair with Obama. (By using the term “affair” I do not intend any subtext or tinge.)
Romney should not be apologizing. He said nothing wrong. He was not suggesting a literal hanging of Obama and he did not use racial terminology. But recognizing the way in which race-neutral words would be twisted against him, Romney clarified the remarks on the spot. There is no story here.
Oh, by the way, the phrase I used in the title to this post is taken from the quote attributed to Lenin (although it’s not clear if he actually said it) that:
“The capitalists will sell us the rope with which to hang them.”
No offense intended to capitalists, or to Obama.
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Comments
LibertyAtStake said…This will blow over. PC is howling out its death groan.
Let's see how the latest Pearls Before Swine strip fares.
@Tony Katz
Rule #6 for Liberty Guerrillas is "always Offense". Trump has Teh Won on the run. Now is not the time to let up on multiple avenues of pressure and dissent.
Demands for school records and more documenation, gas pump stickys, support for school vouchers, taking on the unions — all serve to keep the Admin busy and undermine their Agenda.
They are not "invincible" and Teh Won's re-election is not "inevitable". The opposition just needs you to believe that.
@CorkyAgain . . . You say "it's silly for our side to have made such a fuss about whether or not Obama actually meets the Constitutional requirements . . ."
Our side? Tell us, did you assign yourself to the role of playing "control troll" on this thread?
Once again, it was the Clinton team that started the "not born in America" meme. And, in the past several months, it was the bearded Democrat Governor of Hawaii, Neil Abercrombie, who suddenly breathed new life into the moribund issue on Christmas Eve, claiming he was going to go get a copy and release it — then later mysteriously claimed it was "lost." He was throwing chum in the water! It has been the Democrats who have wanted this to be an "issue," and who could blame them with the economy going in the tank?
Serious, thinking Republicans have not paid any attention to that sideshow (as birthers) since the Obama team tried to bait them with the issue by releasing only the Certificate of Live Birth several years ago.
Many may have been legitimately curious about what information was or was not contained on that long form . . . assuming that perhaps something contained therein was prompting the President to be so reluctant to release it.
But very few thought there was anything at all to the wacky "belief" that he was born elsewhere!
Most recently, it was only when frequent Democrat contributor Donnie-come-lately decided to publicly harp on the issue as a way to garner quick attention and play leap frog in the GOP pack, that Obama feel compelled to release it now, rather than later on in the season when it might have had an impact.
I'll tell you . . . something about the whole scenario just doesn't smell right to me. Donald Trump is just not a serious candidate for the nomination, under any circumstances whatsoever. The Republican Party is NOT going to nominate as their candidate a man who has "led" his flagship businesses through 3 or 4 bankruptcies over the years! And that would be true whether or not fixing the economy was the primary issue! The idea is preposterous.
But his presence in the race could potentially affect the primary race itself. In fact, when he first jumped in, he claimed he would run as an independent even if he lost the Republican nomination. Then he backed off that gaffe.
Perhaps we'll be in a position to better see what his real game is once the debating begins.
As for the lefty race baiting, none of those idiots have any idea at all what an albatross is, nor why the allusion to having the consequences of his crazy policies hanging around his neck, so clearly applies to Obama. His Administration has literally killed the economy, and placed our future at great risk with a mountain of debt.
Of course the Ds will scream about race . . . what else do they have to talk about? Certainly not providing for our future!
Remember leftist icon Susan Sontag's statement:
Mozart, Pascal, Boolean algebra, Shakespeare, parliamentary government, baroque churches, Newton, the emancipation of women, Kant, Balanchine ballets, et al. don't redeem what this particular civilization has wrought upon the world. The white race is the cancer of human history.
Supposedly she retracted the remark, stating that it slandered cancer patients (huh?), but it was not an offhand statement: she made it in an article published in a major leftist journal.
(In the context of Sontag's overall record as I understand it, I view her statement as silly rather than evil. However, it expresses a political attitude that continues to do enormous, perhaps worsening, damage.)
Apparently, the Left got tired of celebrating the deaths of tornado victims who had the audacity to live in Red States … and have moved onto this.
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