Well, yeah. Is it unjust to call someone a racist if he’s wearing KKK robes? Is it unjust to call someone a thief if they drive off after gassing up?
Or do you not believe in the concept of evidence?
Those claiming this have a mountain of evidence on their side. Some of Bush’s own senior officials claim he lied to get us into Iraq, and the fact people died is unarguable. Where’s the evidence that Obama is like Hitler? Or that he hates white people? Or that he wants to kill Granny? All of which are being claimed not just by the lunatic fringe but by elected officials and mainstream Republican pundits who have millions of followers and are in good standing with the GOP.
Bush did not come in with unreasoned hatred. He earned it. Obama was hated immediately and the right said they wanted him to fail and would do their best to make it so. It is not the same at all.
Yes, some people have the odd notion that George W. Bush got the United States into a needless war in a foreign country that caused hundreds of thousands of needless deaths. And they think that he justified this war with false accusations against the leader of that country.
Did you come up with that all by yourself? Really?
Do you even *know *what “evidence” is? :dubious:
Don’t worry, Jimmy Joe. The Messiah Glenn Beck and his Prophet, Rush, will save the nation from the Obamanation.
No.
In fact, now I find it annoys you so much I plan to increase my talking point spouting by a tenfold order of magnitude. If , that is, I can figure out what your imbecilic phrase actually means.
And, to address the earlier poster, Obama has received more criticism for his planned health reforms than any other of his policies. Or didn’t you notice, tub-dweller?
I’m looking forward to this: we can’t have too many talking points, especially if they are spouted.
Well, that aspect is probably not racist: it’s because that’s the major reform that the Obama administration is working on right now. The point is not that it’s just racism that’s driving the debate: there’s a mixture of things, including small-c conservatism, i.e., not wanting to change the status quo. Jimmy Carter did not say that only racism was involved: he said it was behind a lot of the more hysterical outbursts, including Joe Wilson’s.
There’s an old joke Red Skelton used to tell:
The Pope is woken up by a Cardinal screaming.
Cardinal: Your Holiness, it’s horrible! It’s awful! The worst news in the world!"
Pope: What is it my son? An earthquake? Nuclear war?
Cardinal: No, worse! Worse! Jesus has returned to Earth!
Pope: Christ has returned! This is wonderful! I must go meet him at once.
Cardinal: No your Excellency! He called for you on the phone but we told him you weren’t here!
Pope: What? Why would you tell Jesus I am not here?
Cardinal: He was calling from Salt Lake City!
It amazes me that Beck’s Mormonism doesn’t bother more conservative Fundie types. Usually they detest anything to do with non-Protestant religions in general and Mormonism in particular.
It’s difficult to objectively label an act as “racist,” because by its very nature racism has evolved to a much more subtle, microaggressive nature. It’s socially unacceptable to use racial epithets, call a Black man “boy,” and so forth.
But I would argue that anyone who things depicting Obama as bone-through-nose wearing witch doctor, or showing disrespect in a joint session of Congress who would not have concerns about being perceived as racist is rather clueless. It’s not that one can’t oppose Obama or his policies on a number of levels, it’s just that it requires some understanding of American race relations to do it in a way that is less about this individual’s background and ethnicity and more about substance.
This is what confuses me about the Wilson situation. At the very least, what he did was incredibly disrespectful to both Obama and the legislative process. Surely, as an American who has lived through the past 40 years, he realized that he would be subject to intense scrutiny because of how he delivered his objection?
Or is it that he didn’t care how it was perceived?
Or is it that he read the tea leaves and knew that there exists a whole category of people who believe that “reverse racism” and “political correctness” have ruined discourse, and that the “race card” would be employed?
I don’t know what’s in Joe Wilson’s heart, and the reality is we will never have a double-blind experimental study conducted comparing his response to a White president to that of a biracial one. So we don’t know definitively if what he did was motivated by racism. Given this reality, does it mean that the threshold for racist behavior is one that, short of cross-burning and n-bomb dropping, can never be met?
More later. I gotta prep for a class.
As a point-counterpoint, I think Carter leaps to accuse others of racism far too easily, but I don’t see that he’s senile. If making reckless accusations equates to senility, then two-thirds or more of Dopers are doddering old farts and poor Ed Zotti is never going to get any advertisers on board with that kind of demographic.
Right! Even during the depths of the GWB era no one ever cast aspersions on Bush’s intelligence or moral standards - just his policies. I even recall elucidator declaring that Bush was a swell guy with whom he’d like to play a round of golf and then get stinking drunk with afterwards. Can’t find the link, but I know it’s around here somehwere. :dubious:
Seriously folks, this business of flinging charges of racism over disagreements with Obama has gone way over the line. There are racists out there, but to try to tar everyone with that brush* without the evidence to back it up is sleazy and ultimately counterproductive.
*Can I wield appropriate metaphors, or what?
Agreed.
All of these questions assume that the outburst was planned and that Wilson thought it through before doing it. To give limited credit where limited credit is due, I have seen nothing to indicate the outburst was anything other than spontaneous. Theorizing that he considered how he would deliver his objection; caring or not caring how it would be perceived; reading the tea leaves – this all assumes forethought. What if the comment really was some stupid disrespectful thing he yelled out in the heat of the moment, because this is a very contentious issue about which positions have become polarized?
No. But just as dangerous, IMO, is the specter that “racism!” gets dragged out for every disagreement or conflict involving not just this black person, but any black person. It’s already something that we see happening in the context of Israel, in that any criticism of Israeli policy inevitably draws cries of anti-semitism. Where is the space for legitimate public discourse in that event? Both ends of this spectrum are dangerous.
I am not defending anyone depicting President Obama as a witch doctor with a bone through his nose. Anyone saying that’s okay is a racist or too stupid to live. But I do believe there are many people who feel very passionately about the health care proposal, in the sense that they hate it PASSIONATELY, and who are therefore vociferous and vocal in their objections – over the line of what is appropriate in some cases, as with a U.S. Representative shouting “You lie!” at a U.S. President appearing in the Chamber by invitation.
So it’s obviously not good to dismiss anything but the most overt acts, as not possibly being racist. But isn’t it just as bad to speculate or assume that racism underlies every black/white conflict?
Where did the rational middle go?
Are you suggesting that he wasn’t? 'Cos he certainly was during his first term, and that’s not really the kind of thing you get better from.
Missed the edit: And does anyone have a link to a clip of Carter’s actual remarks, including contextualizing footage? Because the characterization that he said that Joe Wilson’s outburst, specifically, was driven by racism seems to have originated in the Telegraph article linked above, AFAICT.
See this GD thread.
Well, it’s like this, tdn: Even today, there are some Americans who will never accept a black POTUS as legitimate; and (as we saw in the Clinton years) there are some Americans who will never really accept a Democratic POTUS as legitimate, no matter what the election returns may say (remember Rush Limbaugh’s “America Held Hostage: Day ___” bit on his short-lived TV show? or Sarah Palin’s more recent “Real America” idiocy?); and the Boolean intersection between them is not a complete union, but is nearly so. Put the two together and you’ve got some powerful synergy-mojo workin’ – and it even spills over into more moderately conservative groups that do not fit into either of the above classifications.
If it was Hillary instead, you’d get a related dynamic, involving Americans who would never accept a female POTUS as legitimate. WRT Gore, however, any hostility would be pure partisan-political (and personal – some people just can’t stand a knowitall smartass, forgetting all too quickly how damaging it is to have a POTUS who is not smarter than themselves).
Public reaction to a black Republican POTUS would be rather more interesting and revealing, but I don’t expect to see that eventuality in my lifetime; this is not your grandfather’s Republican Party, not since Nixon’s Southern Strategy and the two main parties’ ensuing partial exchange of constituencies and geographic bases.
Not necessarily racial – Clinton ran up against the exact same problem.
More importantly and relevantly, even Clinton didn’t get this much bullshit – and he got quite a lot.