But damn, the Washington Post in their Congressional endorsements (yes, Comstock) show a naivete that is unheard of in a national-level newspaper.
Seriously? "our endorsement is a calculated hope that after wrapping herself in a bipartisan banner, her actions will match her rhetoric."
Drinking the kool-aid indeed.
I *almost* posted this on FB. I really did. Sanity saved me at the last second.
Every once in a while you see a poll result that just leaves your jaw agape. Here’s a perfect example. A Public Policy Polling survey over the weekend asked who respondents thought was more responsible for the death of Osama Bin Laden, President Obama or Mitt Romney.Stupidity of this magnitude should be painful.
Now the answer to this should be obvious, since Romney could not possibly have had anything to do with it. Not so to Republican voters in that state, apparently, since only 38% of them answered Obama — with 15% saying Romney gets more credit and 47% saying they don’t know. I’m dumbfounded.
Romney actually said this. Out loud. To another person:I do believe in basic science. I believe in participating in space. I believe in analysis of new sources of energy. I believe in laboratories, looking at ways to conduct electricity with — with cold fusion, if we can come up with it. It was the University of Utah that solved that. We somehow can’t figure out how to duplicate it.
If you'd really like to support gays and lesbians in a world lousy with Chick-fil-As, how about this tactic instead: From now on, don't fucking eat at Chick-fil-A if you are a person who believes gays are equal to you and deserving of equal treatment under the law. No equivocating and no buying back karma with pity donations to gay-rights groups. Simply avoid the chain for as long as it upholds its homophobic ties. Full stop.I made the decision to do exactly that. I don't miss it. At all.
Is this really that hard to do? Is Chick-fil-A so delicious that people are willing to ignore their most cherished principles in order to eat a couple handfuls of its sodium-drenched chicken wads? I haven't eaten Chick-fil-A in about a decade, but the last time I did, I don't remember it being all that spectacular. The meat was average and the buns were soggy, soaked through with butter and brine from anemic pickle discs. It certainly wasn't good enough food to get me to forsake my belief that gays and lesbians should be allowed to marry. Which is why, when I found out Chick-fil-A's Southern Baptist leaders believed otherwise, I stopped eating there and started eating at the thousands of other places that serve greasy, hastily made, inexpensive sandwiches.
What else would one expect, anyway, when the candidates themselves fall into a weird sort of “Southern Tourette’s,” delivering inanities apparently gleaned from the visitor’s guide to “redneck” tropes?
“Mornin’, y’all,” said Mitt Romney recently to a Mississippi crowd. He started his day off right, he said, with “a biscuit and some cheesy grits.” That would be cheese grits, but never mind. Would Romney greet an audience at a Jewish Community Center with: “Oy vey, did I ever enjoy my loxies and bagels this morning!”? Or African Americans with: “Yo, dawg, wassup?”
Actually, yes, he might. Forever tattooed in the memory is the image of Romney approaching an African American baby at a 2008 Martin Luther King Jr. Day parade. Pointing to the baby’s necklace, he said: “What’s happening? You got some bling-bling here!”
Yo.
Which means “I” in Spanish, so why not go there, too? “Buenos dias, amigos. Love me some tacos and salsies.”
Romney isn’t the only guilty party, just the most recent. Even Barack Obama loses his last syllable south of the Mason-Dixon. For Romney, however, the more he tries to get down with the people, the more he highlights the perception that he can’t.
Now who can argue with that? I think we're all indebted to Gabby Johnson for stating what needed to be said. I am particularly glad that these lovely children are here today to hear that speech. Not only was it authentic frontier gibberish, it expressed the courage little seen in this day and age.I *so* want to stand up and say that in the middle of a Tea Party rally...
But there’s a second reason why pointing out this coincidence is reasonable and that is its inherently xenophobic nature. Romney may not be in the KKK and he may not personally be a racist, but phrases like “keep America American” appeal explicitly to American xenophobia and prejudice. It’s the kind of anti-immigration sentiment that has justified a wide range of oppressive policies over the past two centuries, aimed at pretty much every group that settled here — including white Europeans like the Irish. So racism is only part of the problem of tribalistic bigotry, and that is the kind of fearmongering being exploited by Romney’s use of that phrase.
There is nothing more American than immigration and the blending of different races, ethnicities and religions. That is the quintessential element of American life. Sadly, there have always been pockets of resistance to that idea. In every age, the immigrant is demonized and targeted by rhetoric like “keep America American.” And Romney should be held to account for trying to tap that vein of bigotry for political gain.
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