Mike Huckabee finally put the lid on the GOP ignorant trash can for me. Huckabee's recent reference to the Mau Mau revolution and Obama's imaginary "Kenyan" heritage is the classic race baiting, ethnic alienating sleaze that defines much of today's GOP political strategy . What is so disappointing is watching Huckabee stoop to the level of Limburger, Becky, Salvage, Palinista, BatShitBachman, and host of other Nouveau Riche trash propogandists that now lead/define the Republican party.
Why? First, because Huckabee knows better. Second, and more importantly, Huckabee's cache is one of a "reasonable" Republican with a serious outlook regarding legislation and leadership. Yes, he has a right wing ideaology but it's usually softened with a mix of "down home" likability, bass playing hip, and common sense, practical problem solving. Huckabee is just as comfortable "smoking and joking" with John Stewart and Bill Mahr as he is discussing the detailed minutia of state Medicaid programs in a C-Span interview or on his Fox show. Sure much of it is marketing towards the middle, but as a two-term Governor of Arkansas and someone who won numerous bi-partisan awards for his leaderhsip, Huckabee never came across as a GOP bottom feeder. My how times change.
His recent discussion concerning the Mau Mau uprising under British colonial rule was an astonishing face turner and it had nothing to do with the Mau Mau revolution of the mid-fifities. It had everything to do with three words...Obama, Kenya, and Mau Mau. The historical reference was simply framework and window dressing for delivering those three words. Mau Mau was / is a highly derogatory word used as a substitute for n....r especially in the South. Yes, I realize there are entire dissertations and books regarding the Mau Mau revolution and the evolution of the term Mau Mau as a racial slur. So what. It's not about intellectual fire power. It's really about dog whistle politics and race baiting. And as Governor of Arkansas and a son-of-the-South, Huckabee knows DAMNED well what tune he was playing and it has nothing to do with Obama's imaginary "Kenyan" outlook regarding the British. In fact, the term Kenyan is thrown in just as reinforcement of Obama as the "other." Its a meme the GOP has been stroking since his election. In fact, you could simply write Huckabee's quote as:
Obama..............................................Kenyan........................................Mau Mau.
Huckabee further embarrassed himself the next day in an interview with Bryan Fischer (RW AM talk show) in which he apologized for the Kenyan reference because "...what I have never done is taken to position that Obama was born in Kenya or Indonesia or anywhere other than Hawaii where he claims to have been born." The operative dog whistle word being "claims" and then states:
And I have said many times, publicly, that I do think he has a different worldview and I think it is, in part, molded out of a very different experience. Most of us grew up going to Boy Scout meetings and, you know, our communities were filled with Rotary Clubs, not madrassas.
The dog whistle code words "not madrassas." Again, the entire interview translates to:
Obama.........................Kenyan...................Indonesian...................Madrassas.
You can just about see every Southern GOP truck driver put down his beer, down-shift, and swear under his breath about Huck being right and needing to donate if he runs.
Sadly over the decades we've become almost immune to this kind of blantant race baiting coming from the GOP. Maybe because guys like Rush and Glenda do it over and over again. Remember Rush repeatedly calling Obama a "man-child" and a "little boy" but always trying to massage the meaning of both slurs as simply Obama living a life of "leisure." But you sure as hell don't need an Enigma machine to de-code Rush's real meaning. But guys like Rush and Beck are simply Nouveau Riche ignorant trash cashing in on the ignorant, bigoted, trash GOP base. They're grifters working the "long-con" so they become a daily fixture of race baiting and tabloid partisanship thus acclimating many to their sleaze and making us numb to their ignorant rants.
What is disturbing is witnessing GOP leadership not only allowing and encouraging this kind of race baiting and ignorance but now many are actually participatiing in it. Welcome to the Klan Mike.
Cross posted from my blog at RepublicanSwine.com