Editorial Book Reviews of: Gook: John McCain’s Racism and Why It Matters

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Popularity: 4% [?]

Poor Bill.

He’s stuck in no man’s land — no longer able to stand before adoring crowds of African-Americans, who welcomed him as the “nation’s first black president” with thunderous applause — and he clearly is having issues dealing with the new world order.

Almost two months after Sen. Barack Obama captured the Democratic presidential nomination, the former president still is brooding about his wife’s loss. And his chief source of anguish? That supporters of Obama accused him of injecting race into the campaign.

Never mind that the Obama camp — loaded with white male advisers — was so afraid to bring up race that it wasn’t funny.

When Bill Clinton compared Obama’s win in South Carolina to the Rev. Jesse Jackson’s 1984 and 1988 wins there, it was seen by African-Americans as an attempt to marginalize Obama. That always has been a fear of African-Americans who achieve mainstream success, and it left even close friends of the Clintons aghast.

That was the tipping point, along with other perceived slights, and we know a person’s perception is his reality.

What Bill doesn’t understand is that the masses of black people know what it feels like to be marginalized, and many saw that in those comments.

In an interview with ABC’s Kate Snow, Clinton, when asked about regrets in the campaign, immediately threw out, “I am not a racist.”

He kept insisting that he isn’t angry, but we all have seen that stare, that change in body language, and the parsing of words. Even when Snow asked whether Obama is ready to be president, Clinton answered in the third person, never actually saying he’s ready or not.

Bill, we get it. You still are peeved. At Obama. At Rep. James Clyburn. At the media. At anyone who you determined was against you and Hillary.

Many have said Clinton wants his legacy intact, and a lot of that has to do with the reality that no group gave him more comfort than the black community.

When he was facing the end of his presidency, he called on black folks like no others, using the affection to get him through the Monica Lewinsky scandal. He relied on black support to keep his poll numbers high. And we all know it.

But what Bill knows — and we know — is that you don’t have to be a racist to use race as a tool in a political campaign. An inference here, a comparison there, and you can send the right signal at the right time to the right people. He says he did nothing wrong. Yet perception is very powerful, and denying it doesn’t make it go away.

Bill and the legions of Clinton supporters are quick to act as if the comments made by African-Americans — the regular folk — simply didn’t exist. That was his bread-and-butter group, and its members were none too happy.

But what the Clinton folks also fail to grasp is that they did offend older African-Americans, such as Clyburn, Dr. Johnnetta B. Cole and others who were always in the corner of the Clintons but could remain silent no longer.

It’s clear that Bill can’t deal with the fact that his black supporters didn’t stay quiet. Many of them recoiled at what they heard.

As for what’s next, some Hillary Clinton fundraisers have said Obama should help restore Bill’s reputation and show respect for both Clintons, according to the Huffington Post. But the truth is that there is nothing that Obama can do to salvage the reputation of Bill Clinton before most African-Americans.

Bill lost that on his own, and he’s going to have to get it on his own.

The Clintons need to stop living in la-la land, listening to the same folks soothe Bill’s bruised ego. They thought they would win the nomination and that blacks would fall in line. Harold Ickes said as much.

But in this new world order, he needs to recognize that a lot has changed.

Bill, you clearly have issues with what took place, and sure, you can be angry. But denying you’re angry doesn’t help.

Roland S. Martin is a nationally award-winning and multifaceted journalist, a CNN contributor and a talk show host for WVON/AM in Chicago.

Mr. Martin is also a nationally syndicated columnist with Creators Syndicate (www.creators.com) and the author of Listening to the Spirit Within: 50 Perspectives on Faith ($11.95) and “Speak, Brother! A Black Man’s View of America” ($10), he also serves as executive editor of the Chicago Defender, the nation’s largest black daily newspaper.

Mr. Martin is a commentator for TV One Cable Network and host of “The Roland S. Martin Show” on WVON-AM/1690 in Chicago. He can be heard daily from 6 a.m. to 9 a.m.

A provocative and insightful analyst, Mr. Martin has appeared numerous times on CNN, MSNBC, FOX News, Court TV, BET Nightly News, BBC News, National Public Radio, The Word Network and America’s Black Forum. Mr. Martin provides news reports for American Urban Radio Networks…..[more]

Popularity: 10% [?]

While taking part in the “Sturgis Rally 2008” at Buffalo Chip, South Dakota, yesterday John McDUMB offered his wife Cindy McCain — a recovering drug-addict and a thief, to enter the “Miss Buffalo Chip” contest — a topless, bottomless and sometimes NUDE beauty pageant.

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Said McCain: “I told her with a little luck, she could be the only woman ever to serve as both the first lady and Miss Buffalo Chip.”

Sturgis attracts upward of 500,000 bikers over a week-long period each year. Events at Sturgis include the “ringin’ wet & wild” a women’s wrestling event, the “pickle-licking contest” and the “miss buffalo chip beauty pageant.”

Stinky unbathed and sometimes naked, bearded men and women roam Sturgis — plastered with tattoos and leather garments — a rough looking pot-smoking crowd.

The sturgis rally is an act of immoderate indulgence, an emotional binge, a splurge of spending,….an orgy of drinking and sexual activity to be precise.

….and in trots presidential candidate John McCain, with an offering — his wife Cindy McCain. LOL!

Meanwhile in the New York Times, Maureen Dowd writes:

….and Obama said yesterday: ‘Republicans Take Pride In Being Ignorant’

Speaking to a crowd in Berea, Ohio, yesterday — Obama went off on a riff, laughing at Republicans who are isolating his call for tire inflation as the linchpin of his energy plan. After noting that his energy policy has a lot more to it, Obama circled back to wonder why Republicans were choosing to mock an idea, small though it was, that could actually help matters….[MORE >>]

……and Glamor Hog, Miss Paris Hilton struck back at McCain’s Ad

MORE ‘BIKER’ VIDEO:

The Wet T-Shirt Contest

The Beauty Pageant

The Pickle-Licking Contest

Overheard

From SatiricalPolitical.com: McCain, Confused, Tells Biker Crowd to ‘Drill’ His Wife — LOL!

It looks like ObamaMania alright — everybody is going bananas.

What a day!

Popularity: 11% [?]

Writes: Mary Beth Marklein

Illegal immigrants face threat of no college

Some states are making it harder for illegal immigrants to attend college by denying in-state tuition benefits or banning undocumented students.

In the past two years, Arizona, Colorado, Georgia and Oklahoma have refused in-state tuition benefits to students who entered the USA illegally with their parents but grew up and went to school in the state. That represents a reversal from earlier this decade, when 10 states passed laws allowing in-state rates for such students.

This summer, South Carolina became the first state to bar undocumented students from all public colleges and universities.

North Carolina’s community colleges in May ordered its 58 campuses to stop enrolling undocumented students after the state attorney general said admitting them may violate federal law.

“The new trend is to kick illegal aliens out of college altogether,” says William Gheen of Americans for Legal Immigration Political Action Committee, which opposes taxpayer subsidies for undocumented immigrants.

Josh Bernstein of the National Immigration Law Center, an illegal-immigrants advocate, says sweeping anti-immigration bills are “a very serious threat” to the overall illegal population.

Georgia, which barred undocumented students from in-state tuition rates in 2006, enacted laws in May preventing them from receiving state scholarships and certain student loans.

This fall, the University of Arkansas will require students to submit Social Security numbers and proof of residency. In May, Arkansas Department of Higher Education Director Jim Purcell warned that students without documentation “will not be considered as legally enrolled students” when determining an institution’s state funding.

Opponents say students shouldn’t be penalized for their parents’ actions. Helping them is “the right thing to do even if it’s unpopular,” says North Carolina state Rep. Pricey Harrison, a Democrat who introduced a bill that would prevent state institutions from asking about students’ immigration status.

Popularity: 16% [?]

Racist Incidents Give Some Obama Campaigners Pause — Especially in Indiana and Pennsylvania, states which harbor numerous hate groups, and have been Ku Klux Klan strongholds for many years.

For all the hope and excitement Obama’s candidacy is generating, some of his field workers, phone-bank volunteers and campaign surrogates are encountering a raw racism and hostility that have gone largely unnoticed — and unreported — this election season.

Doors have been slammed in their faces. They’ve been called racially derogatory names (including the white volunteers). And they’ve endured malicious rants and ugly stereotyping from people who can’t fathom that the senator from Illinois could become the first African American president.

The contrast between the large, adoring crowds Obama draws at public events and the gritty street-level work to win votes is stark. The candidate is largely insulated from the mean-spiritedness that some of his foot soldiers deal with away from the media spotlight.

Victoria Switzer, a retired social studies teacher, was on phone-bank duty one night during the Pennsylvania primary campaign. One night was all she could take: “It wasn’t pretty.” She made 60 calls to prospective voters in Susquehanna County, her home county, which is 98 percent white. The responses were dispiriting. One caller, Switzer remembers, said he couldn’t possibly vote for Obama and concluded: “Hang that darky from a tree!“…..[more]

RELATED: Racism alarms Obama’s backers - Candidate’s foot soldiers encounter name-calling, vandalism, bomb threats

Popularity: 34% [?]