So apparently Elizabeth Hasselbeck and her Fox Friends have some advice to give Oprah because she had the temerity to say something like this...
“There is a level of disrespect for the office that occurs,” Winfrey said in a recent interview with BBC. “And that occurs in some cases and maybe even in many cases because he’s African American. There’s no question about that, and it’s the kind of thing that nobody ever says but everybody is thinking it.”
And "Maybe" even in many cases because he's African American. Wow, that is a truly stinging indictment of
Maybe some people
possibly somewhere. So naturally Fox & Fools had to get all
butthurt about it.
http://www.rawstory.com/...
“Do you see racism when Harry Reid called President Bush a loser? Is that respect for the office?” co-host Brian Kilmeade asked. “Bill Clinton was impeached for his actions in the office? Is that racist?”
“I don’t know that Barack Obama could have been elected president if he was living in a racist nation,” co-host Steve Doocy opined. “Are there racists out there? Absolutely. Is it a majority of people? No. A majority of the people, according to the polls, simply don’t like his policies.”
Yeah, cuz when one white guy Senator calls another white guy President a "Loser" that's exactly like when a bunch of different white guys say "You Lie" and "Kenyan Muslim Welfare Thug in Chief" and "Food Stamp President" and "Socialist" to the first African American President. Yeah, sure - that's
the same.
Kinda Not.
Yet of course, they went on claiming that what Oprah said would undermine efforts to combat actual racism, because clearly none of the criticism of President Obama -NONE OF IT - could Possibly, Maybe, even slightly be inspired by bigotry or racism.
“And certainly throwing around racist accusations, calling someone a racist certainly for disagreeing when they are indeed not, would undermine racism when it does occur,” Hasselbeck chimed in.
“That’s right,” Doocy agreed.
“There’s so much rude stuff toward 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. in my lifetime,” Kilmeade said. “Reagan was dumb, remember. George Bush was incompetent and illegitimate. Bill Clinton, we know where he ended up with the Monica Lewinski stuff. Where was the racism there? This, to me, is a situation where you’ve gone six years with almost no criticism of the president.”
“But this is someone as powerful as Oprah instilling fear in those that may come to critique policy under a cloak of racism when it may not be there,” Hasselbeck declared. “So again, it undermines racism when it does occur.”
Instilling fear in those who may critique policy under a cloak of racism?
Uh huh.
First let me admit that - in general - they have a point when it comes to false accusations of Racism. It's true that when you presume someone is Racist without sufficient proof or evidence it does undermine the overall ability of people to address legitimate cases of Racism. The problem with that however, is that Real Racists tend to hide and deny it. Let's take the case of the High School Kid who was recently assaulted for flying the Confederate Flag on his Truck, and claims that it was a "Hate Crime".
The teen said it hadn’t been a problem until earlier this month, when another student confronted him, and the two wound up in a fight that led to five-day suspensions for each of them.
The school also barred Green from displaying the flag on his truck when it’s on campus.
“I’ve done nothing wrong,” Green said. “I’ve flown a flag on my truck (and) somebody fought me because of it. I didn’t fight him. I was walking around like a normal person (and) he confronted me. He hit me first; I was defending myself.”
Green insisted he’s not a racist and researched the flag’s history and found nothing offensive.
“The flag means basically more independence, less government,” Green said. “It didn’t mean racism, it didn’t mean slavery — it didn’t mean any of that. It basically meant what they were fighting for was their right to be independent and not have the government control them.”
A whole lot about his story stinks. First off he says he "researched" the Flag and that he found "nothing offensive" about it. That it just means "more independence, less government"? Yeah, sure - took me 0.0032 seconds to find this on the Google machine.
It kinda doesn't matter what that flag means to Mr. Green, it matters what it means
TO THEM. His pretense of ignorance of the connection and use of the flag
by racists is just not credible. "Independence" from WHAT exactly? What was the "Less Government" they sought? Could it have been a rejection of the 13th Amendment? (Not to mention the 14th and 15th) He knows what it means otherwise he wouldn't be so defensive about it. He's like the guy who sticks his finger in your food, and then pretends he's "done nothing wrong" when you haul off and DECK HIM for it.
"Hate Crime" my left butt cheek.
This guy is a Racism Baiter, he's deliberately doing something intended to be offensive just so he can get someone to react then accuse them of Racism and Hate when they do. It's the same thing that Fox and the Right Wing have been doing with President Obama for years. It's what Hasselbeck is now doing to Oprah. They do and say something that is on the borderline of bigotry then cry and whine that your the bigot when you call them on it.
So let's go down their Presidential Complaint List of False Equivalency.
People thought Reagan was a figurehead, an empty suit, a spokes model who was completely out of touch with what was happening in the country and in his administration. That proved to be Correct when the Iran-Contra Scandal was uncovered. So no, it wasn't "Racist" when a bunch of White people and White Congresspersons questioned people like current Fox Contributor Oliver North and found him guilty of Contempt of Congress, even if he did get the conviction reversed on a technicality.
Being too "Dumb" to know what was really going on was Reagan's excuse for not being a criminal, so "No" - not Racism.
Yes, George W Bush was accused of being incompetent. Evidence of that can be found in his failure to lift a finger as the warnings about a Bin Laden attack grew more and more shrill, in his failure to catch Bin Laden, in his decision to Invade the Wrong Fracking Country in reaction to Bin Laden's attack, in his failure to listen to the people who knew what they were talking about like Joe Wilson and the State Department when they said there was no Yellowcake in Iraq, or the Energy Department when they said the anondyzed coating on the aluminum tubes would make them unsuitable for use in a uranium centrifuge, and to Iraq Intelligence Officer Habbush who told us British Intellegence flatly that Saddam had already destroyed all his WMD's.
In response to which Bush allegedly said "Why doesn't he give us something useful" and then apparently bribed him into forging a letter that claimed that the Yellowcake was real, the WMD's were still available and functional, and that Mohammad Atta had been trained by Saddam forces prior to 9/11.
http://en.wikipedia.org/...
’’Mohamed Atta, an Egyptian national, came with Abu Ammer [the real name behind this Arabic alias remains a mystery] and we hosted him in Abu Nidal's house at al-Dora under our direct supervision.’’
’’We arranged a work program for him for three days with a team dedicated to working with him...He displayed extraordinary effort and showed a firm commitment to lead the team which will be responsible for attacking the targets that we have agreed to destroy.’’
And we're supposed to believe that it was
just a coincidence that Habbush's letter contradicted his own statements in
exactly the manner that Bush and Cheney had been trying to get us to believe in order to justify bombing and invading Iraq?
In exactly the same way that Ibn Sheik al-Libi was tortured into Lying about?
So yeah, "Incompetent" is probably just the tip of the iceberg there.
As far as "Illegitimate" goes - that's comes from the fact that Supreme Court selected him preventing all the Votes in Florida - including the "overvotes" where the voter intent was clear - from being counted, which would have shown that Al Gore DID Win that election.
The conclusion was erroneous. The newspapers assumed that the counties would only have looked at “undervotes” — ballots that did not register any votes for president — and ignored “overvotes” — ballots that registered more than one vote for president. An overvote would be a ballot in which the machine mistakenly picked up a second vote for president, or in which a voter both marked a box and wrote in the name of the same candidate. A hand recount in which an examiner is judging the “intent of the voter” would turn those ballots that were originally discarded into countable votes.
Counting overvotes in which the intent of the voter was clear would have resulted in Gore winning the recount. And subsequent reporting by the Orlando Sentinel and Michael Isikoff found that the recount, had it proceeded, almost certainly would have examined overvotes.
So again, Racism, Not.
When it comes to President Clinton it is clear he absolutely deserves criticism for Monica Lewinsky, but he didn't deserve to get Impeached over it. He deserves some criticism for Rwanda, and for Somalia - but he also deserves credit for Balancing the Budget, 7 straight years of a booming economy, ending a genocide in the Balkans and Kosovo (against Republican objection) without losing a single U.S. Soldier, and for trying his damnedest to hunt down and kill Bin Laden.
He even fired a cruise missile at Bin Laden on the day of his impeachment - remember? (He had to use a cruise missile because the Joint Chiefs Refused to deploy Special Forces that deep In Country after what had happened during Black Hawk Down, because what Special Forces and Seal Team 6 is who Clinton wanted to send.)
So no, none of that was "Racism" although those who said Clinton was a "hick and a hillbilly" were tip-toeing up to the Racism line and dancing on it.
However, when it comes to President Obama we've seen something that goes far beyond anything that has ever occurred because most of his critics are operating in a deluded fantasy world.
We have the Birthers who simply refuse to believe apparently that the President could have been born in America and be as intelligent, as committed to America and compassionate as he clearly is.
What pray tell, is that all about, hm? Why does Rafael Cruz tell Obama to "Go back to Kenya"?
In the clip — which was flagged Thursday by the left-leaning news outlet Mother Jones — Rafael Cruz, an evangelical pastor, calls the United States “a Christian nation” and tells the crowd “we need to send Barack Obama back to Chicago, back to Kenya.” Rafael Cruz also calls Obama a socialist and rails against the so-called “death panels” some erroneously claim are part of the Affordable Care Act.
Read more: Ted Cruz’s Dad Wants to Send Obama ‘Back to Kenya’ | TIME.com http://swampland.time.com/...
A True American Black Man couldn't possibly grow up to be a strong potential President without really being some kind of Foreigner? He'd have to be wracked with Hate for White people wouldn't he if he were really from here?
Isn't that what Glenn Beck (on Fox & Friends) said when Obama had the temerity to criticize the police for arresting Skip Gates for breaking into his own house?
What about the entire placing his hand over his heart during the Star Spangled Banner "Controversy"?
Obviously the Black Guy doesn't love his Country (and why should he when he's really
from Kenya, right?)
Or when Keith Ablow claimed that Obama had a "Victim Mentality".
http://www.foxnews.com/...
President Obama’s rhetoric is finally coming closer to what appears to be his psychological truth: Because America victimized him and countless millions of others, any person or party or movement that opposes his views and does not yield to him is not just his adversary, but abusive, predatory and even threatening.
Again and again, President Obama has described members of Congress who insist on fiscal responsibility as having taken “hostages,” “demanding a ransom,” using “extortion,” and threatening to “blow up” the government.
And how, exactly, did America "victimize him and countless millions of others"? Oh yeah, that's right - he's a Black Guy. They
All have a "Victim" mentality, don't they?
Yeah, and then you have the Freedom Watch Guy saying "Obama should Put down the Quran"
Larry Klayman of Freedom Watch, a conservative political advocacy group, said the country is "ruled by a president who bows down to Allah," and "is not a president of 'we the people.'"
"I call upon all of you to wage a second American nonviolent revolution, to use civil disobedience, and to demand that this president leave town, to get up, to put the Quran down, to get up off his knees, and to figuratively come up with his hands out," he said.
The problem with all these criticism is - where exactly are they grounded in "Obama's Policies"?
These are all attacks on him personally, on his alleged place of birth, on his alleged "religion", not based in anything he's actually done or said. He's NOT From Kenya. He's NOT Muslim (and he's not "second generation" Muslim either because his father was Agnostic) There are NO DEATH PANELS, Fast and Furious was a policy implemented under Bush - which Eric Holder actually ended when he finally found out about it, Benghazi was a confusing tragedy - not a False Flag Attack. You could criticize Obama on the Healthcare.gov rollout (even though it was implemented by Private Contractors who didn't anticipate how many individual Republican controlled states would REFUSE to generate their own Exchanges), you could criticize him for promising that people could keep their crappy junk insurance (even though falsely cancelling and UP-SELLING new plans has been an long-time Insurance scam), but most of the people who've been opposing the President haven't even been talking about these issues.
They've been talking about a ton of other stuff that isn't even Real - so yeah, it's fair, even important, to question their motives when they say and repeat Provably False claims about this President.
Particularly today, on the 50th Anniversary of the Assassination of another American President over a Hatred that we have still yet to fully understand.
Vyan