Somewhere in the back of my mind were memories from 2008 of some rich woman who fervently supported Hillary Clinton and had a huge meltdown when Barack Obama won the Democratic nomination for president. This woman was so upset not only did she go out of the way to lambaste Obama, but she went on a full-fledged media campaign to champion her support of John McCain.
This excerpt from an article published last year in Slate.Com will help put Lady Lynn de Rothschild into perspective (http://www.slate.com/...):
In 2008 an angry de Rothschild took it upon herself to speak for all of the Hillary Clinton supporters who felt cheated by Barack Obama's win. She was obviously a better advocate for the PUMAs—those who rallied under the slogan of "party unity, my ass"—than the yowling and somewhat bigoted-sounding Harriet Christian, who won fame after telling the DNC's rules committee that it was "throwing the election away" by awarding delegates to an "inadequate black male.
Lady Rothschild wasn't bold or dumb enough to call Obama an "inadequate black male" like the idiotic Christian did, but she made it abundantly clear she wasn't a fan.
I'd actually forgotten about Lady Rothschild (she's married to an English Lord), until Sunday when Hillary announced she's running for president again, prompting Lady Rothschild to tweet this:
"My goodness," I thought. "Here we go again." More unnecessary, derisive jabs at Obama. In announcing her glee that Hillary is running again, Lady Rothschild said President Obama has failed and now it's: "Hillary to the rescue!" What a hateful tool. Not sure how Lady Rothschild or anyone can say America hasn't rebounded economically under Obama's leadership, that he hasn't done more than any president in recent memory to ensure fairness/equality for all Americans and that he isn't one of the best foreign policy presidents ever.
Anyway, I didn't like it when Lady Rothschild dissed Obama back in 2008, but I understood the disappointment of women who had backed Hillary hoping she would become America's first woman president. Hey, it's something I hope to see in my own lifetime, too. So, yeah I got that. But what I didn't get was how quickly Lady Rothschild and others of her ilk, bitterly denounced Obama and got behind McCain. There was more to it than disappointment.
In interview after interview, Lady Rothschild literally said she didn't like Obama, that he was an elitist and that she switched to McCain because she believed he was would do more for middle class families and was more trustworthy. Both ridiculous claims, especially the trust factor for a guy who chose Sarah Palin as his running mate.
And how funny is it that someone worth billions and carries the title "Lady" calls anybody elite with a straight face?! However, in this case I believe the Lady's use of the word "elitist" to describe Obama was code for "uppity."
Here's another example of how ridiculous and suspect her criticism of Obama were. This is what she said in a CNN interview in 2008: "This is a person who went to Berlin to speak to 200,000 people. This is a person who made speeches about how he's the one the world has been waiting for." Say what?
Obama is a humble, conscientious man. It's not his fault that 200,000 Germans wanted to see him. He never anointed himself as the "Chosen One," as so many Republicans and Lady Rothschild call him condescendingly while berating him. It's just hateful, jealous coded rhetoric...dog whistling. And I regret to say it's racist. It's like saying: "This boy thinks he's better than us. He needs to stay in his place."
In an interview 2008 on MSNBC Lady Rothschild, a self-described lifelong Democrat, said, "I never, ever thought I would vote Republican." In my view, what she was really saying was she never, ever thought the Democrats would nominate a black man for president.
Let's face it. Obama and Clinton essentially had the same positions on all the major issues. So it's not likely that the good Lady chose not to support Obama based on policy. Seems to me the issues that were important to her when she thought Hillary was going to be the nominee became irrelevant once it became apparent Obama was going to be nominated.
But once he was nominated, McCain somehow became this "white knight" in shining armor. Go figure.
And now Lady Rothschild--one of America's most out-of-touch-political and potentially racist boosters--is back. And although most black voters probably didn't remember her name initially, we do now and all the vileness that comes with it. If Hillary embraces Lady Rothschild going forward it will only push black voters farther away from Mrs. Clinton than many of us already are.
6:32 PM PT: I knew many Hillary supporters wouldn't like this diary and would attack it as being nonsense or one poster put it "completely stupid" and was endorsed by 31 others. Sad to see that so many of you rush to Hillary's defense without really absorbing what my key message is: Hillary is in danger of losing the black vote. Many of us are disenchanged with her going back to her, Bill's and some of her supporters' words/actions during 2008 campaign, which came across as racist. As far as what "embracing" means, in spite of calling Obama a loser and saying that "being half black" did not qualify him to be president, HIllary never repudiated the "Lady" or even said she disagreed with any of the vile things she said during her anti-Obama media blitz. And just last year, Hillary was the featured guest at a political function hosted by the "Lady" and her husband. It remains to be seen how many fund raisers the "Lady" hosts for Hillary and how much money Hillary takes from her...but IF she takes one dime from this racist and attends those functions I think that qualifies as "embracing" her. And if y'all can't see that, then the title of completely stupid or completely complicit belongs to each one of you.