Philip Kennicott: Racial Projectionist
August 7, 2009
According to Philip Kennicott, the posters of Obama in Joker makeup are racist (we’re not making this up) because the makeup is from 2008′s “The Dark Night” instead of 1989′s “Batman”.
The Joker’s makeup in “Dark Knight” — the latest film in a long franchise that dramatizes fear of the urban world — emphasized the wounded nature of the villain, the sense that he was both a product and source of violence. Although Ledger was white, and the Joker is white, this equation of the wounded and the wounding mirrors basic racial typology in America. Urban blacks — the thinking goes — don’t just live in dangerous neighborhoods, they carry that danger with them like a virus. Scientific studies, which demonstrate the social consequences of living in neighborhoods with high rates of crime, get processed and misinterpreted in the popular unconscious, underscoring the idea. Violence breeds violence.
“The thinking goes”? Whose thinking, Philip? Yours? A few of your sociologist friends? What does this have to do with Obama? Is there a widespread fear that somewhere in America, the Presidential limo is going to pull up and Obama is going to step out and knock over a couple liquor stores?
The problem with Kennicott’s reasoning is that it creates a concept of racism that is so broad that it is effectively meaningless. “Racism” morphs in definition from “the belief that one race is superior to another” to “opposition to the President’s agenda”.
Sometimes, when people say “community organizer“, they just mean “community organizer”. And sometimes, when people say they see racism, it’s just a projection of their own secret feelings.
Gates-Gate: Why Obama Always Gets Race Wrong
July 24, 2009
Far from being “post-racial”, President Barack Obama has had a mixed history when it comes to race. This is often because his initial perceptions are wrong, so he has to reverse himself. Far from nuance, Obama brings a clumsiness(to put it charitably) to the topic of race which would be unthinkable for any white politician save his Vice President, Joe Biden.
When Obama first faced the topic of race on the national stage, he faced the revelation that his pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright was a racist loon. Being Barack Obama, his instinctive response was to face the problem with a speech.
Greatly anticipated, Obama gave a speech so electric, Chris Matthews said it caused a “thrill going up his leg“. Obama clarified his relationship with Rev. Wright.
I can no more disown him than I can disown the black community. I can no more disown him than I can my white grandmother – a woman who helped raise me, a woman who sacrificed again and again for me, a woman who loves me as much as she loves anything in this world, but a woman who once confessed her fear of black men who passed by her on the street, and who on more than one occasion has uttered racial or ethnic stereotypes that made me cringe.
So, just so everyone is on the same page, Obama says that:
A) Obama won’t disown his racist pastor.
B) Obama holds his racist pastor as closely as he does his white, racist grandmother.
Two days later, Obama gave a radio interview to Philadephia’s 610 WIP, where he further clarified his perception of his racist, white grandmother (and other “typical white” people).
“The point I was making was not that my grandmother harbors any racial animosity, but that she is a typical white person. If she sees somebody on the street that she doesn’t know – there’s a reaction in her that’s been bred into our experiences that don’t go away and sometimes come out in the wrong way and that’s just the nature of race in our society.”
So given a couple days to think about it, Obama thinks:
C) Typical white people are just instinctively racist.
A little over one month later, Obama announced that he was leaving Chicago’s Trinity United Church of Christ, effectively disowning the Reverend Wright (which raises the question of how closely he held his now late grandmother…and the black community).
So after all that, the answer was actually:
D) None of the above. Drop the antisemetic, racist nutjob like I should have done 20 years back when I first met the guy…
Could we write a news story on race without mentioning a charlatan or two? Of course not, so the next chapter in this story includes Jesse Jackson.
“See, Barack [has] been talking down to black people . . . I wanna cut his nuts out,” Jackson said.
What Jackson was referring to specifically we have no idea, but maybe he realized how quickly Obama would use and discard the black community, given how easily he threw his grandmother under the bus and disowned Rev. Wright.
Obama surrounds himself with people whose viewpoint on race was framed in the 1950s and 1960s and it’s apparent that he shares such a perspective. When speaking of race, as he did at his inauguration, his primary message is always how bad it was back then, followed by what I’ll paraphrase as “but it’s a little better now. We have lots of work to do.”
“This is the meaning of our liberty and our creed—why men and women and children of every race and every faith can join in celebration across this magnificent mall, and why a man whose father less than 60 years ago might not have been served at a local restaurant can now stand before you to take a most sacred oath.”
Even when he made his “typical, white person” remark, his follow up was intended to lessen the blow.
“We have to break through it. What makes me optimistic is you see each generation feeling less like that. And that’s pretty powerful stuff.”
The problem with this circle that Obama has grown up with that apparently they’re all still living in the 1960s. Obama appears to try to bridge the beliefs of ’60s radicals to the 21st century real world. He fails to embrace the concept of the post-racial America that his election is supposed to signify because his beliefs, at their roots, are still tied to the time when he was born.
One only has to examine the end of the Rev. Joseph Lowery’s Benediction at the inauguration to see a prime specimen of an individual who’s still fighting “The Man”.
Lord, in the memory of all the saints who from their labors rest, and in the joy of a new beginning, we ask you to help us work for that day when black will not be asked to get in back, when brown can stick around … when yellow will be mellow … when the red man can get ahead, man; and when white will embrace what is right. That all those who do justice and love mercy say Amen.
Analysis
Obama seems incapable of reconciling the beliefs in unending racism that he has been surrounded with since embracing radicalism in college with the success of his own political career.
When placed on the spot, as he was Wednesday night, his gut instinct is to blame racism. When this makes the situation worse, he’ll stick to his guns…and then reverse himself.
At Wednesday night’s press conference, Lynn Sweet asked Obama a question about the Gates arrest.
Recently, Professor Henry Louis Gates, Jr. was arrested at his home in Cambridge. What does that incident say to you? And what does it say about race relations in America?
Obama premised his answer by stating that he didn’t know all the facts, so he was giving an answer based more on his own biases than what he knew about the actual incident.
“I don’t know, not having been there and not seeing all the facts, what role race played in that [Gates case]. But I think it’s fair to say, number one, any of us would be pretty angry; number two, that the Cambridge police acted stupidly in arresting somebody when there was already proof that they were in their own home; and, number three, what I think we know separate and apart from this incident is that there’s a long history in this country of African-Americans and Latinos being stopped by law enforcement disproportionately. That’s just a fact.”
Friday morning, the Obama administration was standing by his words, with Press Secretary Robert Gibbs saying that the criticism of the President’s remarks were politically motivated.
“I think the Fraternal Order of Police endorsed McCain,” Gibbs fired back at reporters, referring to Obama’s Republican opponent in the 2008 election. “If I’m not mistaken.”
In a move that demonstrates that while Obama will wait until he’s had two strikes before making the right move, Obama finally conceded to Cambridge Police Sergeant James Crowley and the Cambridge police union late Friday.
Taking the briefing-room podium just hours after Cambridge police union officials called on Obama to apologize for saying the officers involved in the incident with Gates behaved “stupidly,” Obama conceded that he erred in his “choice of words.”
Obama said he spoke to James Crowley, the sergeant who arrested Gates, “and I have to tell you that, as I said yesterday, my impression of him is that he was an outstanding police officer…and that was confirmed in the phone conversation.”
“In my choice of words, I unfortunately gave the impression that I was maligning the Cambridge Police Department or Sergeant Crowley specifically,” Obama said, walking back his sharpest criticism.
But, the president said: “I continue to believe, based on what I have heard, that there was an overreaction in pulling Prof. Gates out of his home and to the station. I also continue to believe, based on what I heard, that Prof. Gates probably overreacted as well.”
While it takes a lot to overcome decades of ingrained bias, most of America has done it, so hopefully Obama can too.
When You’re A Hammer, Everything Looks Like A Nail
July 17, 2009
Back in April, Senator Harry Reid revealed that freshman US Senator Barack Obama had told him, “I have a gift”. Debate has raged since then whether he was talking about his teleprompter or his actual speaking ability, with Vice President Joe Biden a pillar of the teleprompter camp. Regardless of how terribly Obama speaks without a teleprompter, when working in unison, the two create such bliss that people lose consciousness. Whatever the issue, Obama can give a speech on it.
Fortunately for the President, he is not the only one to recognize his rhetorical present. Obamaspeech.com has been created to help the world recognize the man’s ability to say so little with so much so well.
“The Speech” has become one of Obama’s primary tools. Whatever the issue, the Administration will create a speech to deal with it. These speeches usually involve Obama skillfully throwing family members or the United States under the bus while beating an army of evil straw men, known as the “Those”, to death.
Whenever his Presidential campaign or Administration has faced a challenge, the writers are fired up, the teleprompters have been deployed and a rhetorical offensive is launched.
Unfortunately, what Obama doesn’t seem to comprehend is that speeches are merely marketing for solutions, not actual solutions, and marketing will only take you so far when you’re selling a flawed product. Placing too much reliance on only one means of communication will rapidly create what advertisers call “saturation“.
Obama’s attempts to use soaring rhetoric in parts of the world where people are more interested in the substance of what he says rather than the soaring way he delivers it have left many wondering “Where’s the beef?” As the great expectations created for the American people before last year’s election fail to be realized, it’s likely that many more will find themselves asking the same thing.
Blagojevich Sends Largest Available Ego To US Senate
January 6, 2009
Rod Blagojevich looked high and low for Illinois’s largest available ego and sent it to the US Capitol to serve in the Senate this morning.
As of this morning, Harry Reid did not let Roland Burris be seated on the grounds that his appointment has not received the administrative signature of Illinois’s Secretary of State. But if and when Burris is seated, the members of what is arguably the world’s most egotistical legislative body will be taken aback by the sheer size of Burris’s ego.
The 71-year-old Burris — who often refers to himself in the third person — has never been shy about broadcasting his ambitions and loudly celebrating his achievements.
“I am a visionary,” he declared in a 2002 interview with the Sun-Times when he was running for governor, his third unsuccessful try at the job.
In a 1994 interview with the paper, during his first effort at capturing the governor’s office, Burris said his past success — he had been elected comptroller and attorney general ‹ was “divine providence” that began at age 15 when he decided to become a lawyer and officeholder.
If assuming that his political career was divinely inspired wasn’t enough of an indicator, meet Roland’s two children, son Roland and daughter Rolanda. Yep, he named both of his children after himself, which rivals, if not trumps, Jermaine Jackson naming his son Jermajesty in sheer brazenness.
And let’s look at the tomb he has had built for himself(engraved with his life’s achievements):
We’re sure that the engravers are hard at work today, adding “US Senator 2009-” to the stonework as this goes to press.
Of course, Burris was only the third largest ego of Illinois, but the governor is otherwise occupied and Obama has just left town.
Obama Finds One Last Clinton White House Employee, Puts Her To Work
December 18, 2008
We at Douchebag Report have been reporting on a distinct lack of “change” when it comes to appointees in the Obama administration.
David Brooks summed it up well when he said “I’d hate to see any single member of the Clinton administration not in the Obama administration. Somebody might feel left out. I think he’s taking the whole group.”
Well, apparently there was someone missing from the team…until now.
Answering the phones these days for the co-chairman of President-elect Barack Obama’s transition, John D. Podesta, is none other than Betty Currie.
Emerging from retirement in southern Maryland to volunteer at Obama headquarters, Ms. Currie was the personal secretary to President Bill Clinton, who became caught up in an independent counsel investigation into his trysts with the White House intern Monica Lewinsky. Since leaving the White House, Ms. Currie, 69, has shied from publicity and kept a low profile in Hollywood, Md., where she lives with her husband, Bob, and Socks, the presidential cat, which she took with her after Mr. Clinton left office.
Ms. Currie, who works with local nonprofit organizations and serves on the Alcohol Beverage Board of St. Mary’s County, declined to discuss her work for Mr. Obama or her recent life, citing a transition office policy against volunteers giving interviews.
Compelled to testify to a grand jury five times about Mr. Clinton’s relationship with Ms. Lewinsky, Ms. Currie is widely admired in Clinton circles for her loyalty and effectiveness.
Mr. Podesta, who was Mr. Clinton’s last White House chief of staff, said it was natural for him to call Ms. Currie back to service.
“Of course I asked her because in the 30 years we have worked together, I have never known anyone with more grace, dedication and public spirit than Betty,” he said. “And she has one mean Rolodex.”
Are you a Clinton White House veteran? Are you not working for the Obama White House? Well, we’re sure they desperately want to hear from you.
What’s Wrong With Rahm?
December 12, 2008
Rahm Emanuel, Obama’s White House Chief-of-Staff, has been maintaining a low profile since the Blagojevich scandal broke. He refused to answer questions as to whether he was the Obama “advisor” in the criminal complaint against Governor Rod Blagojevich.
Emanuel was uncharacteristically absent from Obama’s news conference this morning. He was spotted two hours later in the lobby of Chicago’s City Hall. He was there to listen to his two children performing in a concert with their school, Anshe Emet.
A Sun-Times reporter pressed him to comment about whether he was the emissary named in the criminal complaint.
“You’re wasting your time,” Emanuel said. “I’m not going to say a word to you. I’m going to do this with my children. Dont do that. I’m a father. I have two kids. I’m not going to do it.”
Asked, “Can’t you do both?” Emanuel replied, “I’m not as capable as you. I’m going to be a father. I’m allowed to be a father,” and he pushed the reporter’s digital recorder away.
There is some evidence pointing to Emanuel as the Obama advisor who Blagojevich was talking to in regards to the Governor’s Senate appointment.
Blagojevch was caught on tape saying that he wanted the Obama advisor in question to know what Blagojevich wanted in exchange for the Jarrett appointment.
Blagojevich said, “He asks me for the fifth CD thing, I want it to be in his head.” Emanuel represents the 5th Congressional District in Illinois.
If this is what it’s like when Chicago comes to DC, it’s going to be a long four years.
Now They Tell Us: Media Admits to Pro-Obama Bias
November 24, 2008
During the Presidential campaign, conservatives were complaining long and hard that the mainstream media was explicitly biased towards Obama and against McCain.
After the campaign ended, media analysis outlets reported a media-wide bias for Obama.
And now the media itself is admitting that it was in Obama’s corner the whole time. Washington Post Ombudsman, Deborah Howell was the first to admit to her paper’s pro-Obama bias in election coverage.
In a second column, she cited examples of this bias.
· The Post put on Page 1 two long stories about “Troopergate” — the allegation that Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin fired her state’s public safety commissioner because he wouldn’t dismiss her ex-brother-in-law from his state trooper’s job. One of the Page 1 stories reported a legislative investigator’s conclusion that Palin had abused her power. When she was cleared by an Alaska Personnel Board report written by a self-described “loyal Democrat” investigator, the story was eight paragraphs long, under a one-column headline on an inside page.
· The Oct. 10 Metro section front featured a story and photo about Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) as a “giant-slayer” who had “won plaudits” for his work as head of the House Democrats’ national campaign committee. The story only briefly mentioned his Republican opponent, Steven J. Hudson. A campaign story on both ran inside the paper.
· A Post Magazine spread on Oct. 5 about Michelle Obama, with a cover picture of the Obamas, was timed to the release of a book by Magazine writer Liza Mundy. There was no cover for John and Cindy McCain.
· Robin Givhan‘s Oct. 23 column exploring the disconnect between Palin’s fancy duds and her hockey mom image ran on the Style section front just above an upbeat story about Jill Biden, the wife of Vice President-elect Joseph Biden. Conservatives thought that the placement’s message was “Bad Palin, Good Biden.”
Now Time’s Mark Halperin has chimed in. At the Politico/USC conference on the 2008 election, he unleashed on the media’s election coverage.
“It’s the most disgusting failure of people in our business since the Iraq war,” Halperin said at a panel of media analysts. “It was extreme bias, extreme pro-Obama coverage.”
Halpering cited two NY Times articles as examples of this slant.
“The example that I use, at the end of the campaign, was the two profiles that The New York Times ran of the potential first ladies,” Halperin said. “The story about Cindy McCain was vicious. It looked for every negative thing they could find about her and it case her in an extraordinarily negative light. It didn’t talk about her work, for instance, as a mother for her children, and they cherry-picked every negative thing that’s ever been written about her.”
The story about Michelle Obama, by contrast, was “like a front-page endorsement of what a great person Michelle Obama is,” according to Halperin.
Of course, why these folks had to wait until after the election to let the public know, Douchebag Report doesn’t know.
Switch Continues Part 2
November 21, 2008
So it looks like this story is going to become a series because Obama can’t help but do everything he can to reverse every one of his campaign promises.
1. Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell
Bait:
Switch:
2. Lobbyists
Bait:
Switch:
3.Iraq
Bait:
Switch:
4. Change
Bait:
verb, changed, chang⋅ing, noun
–verb (used with object)
1.to make the form, nature, content, future course, etc., of (something) different from what it is or from what it would be if left alone: to change one’s name; to change one’s opinion; to change the course of history.
Switch:
The Clinton Administration II
JIM LEHRER: All right, speaking of the new administration, Mark, the word is today, or it’s the — the rumor is today — the word “rumor” is today that Hillary Clinton is going to be asked to be secretary of state by Barack Obama. What do you think of that?
DAVID BROOKS: I actually think that’s a good move. I’d hate to see any single member of the Clinton administration not in the Obama administration. Somebody might feel left out. I think he’s taking the whole group.
- Transition chief John Podesta – Clinton White House Chief of Staff
- White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel – Clinton Administration Assistant to the President for Political Affairs and Senior Advisor to the President for Policy and Strategy
- Secretary of State Hillary Clinton – Clinton Administration Cuckquean
- Chief of Staff of Vice President Ron Klain – Clinton Administration Chief of Staff of Vice President (Seriously? Obama gave this guy the exact same job? Seriously?)
- Attorney General Eric Holder – Clinton Administration Deputy Attorney General
- Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner – Clinton Administration Under Secretary of the Treasury for International Affairs
How Obama Got Elected
November 19, 2008
Kudos to John Ziegler for helping to reveal what a bunch of ignorant douchebags most Obama voters are. In this video, he interviewed a number of Obama voters on Election Day.
Here are the survey results from a Zogby Poll commissioned by Ziegler:
Zogby Poll
512 Obama Voters 11/13/08-11/15/08 MOE +/- 4.4 points
97.1% High School Graduate or higher, 55% College Graduates
Results to 12 simple Multiple Choice Questions
57.4% could NOT correctly say which party controls congress (50/50 shot just by guessing)
71.8% could NOT correctly say Joe Biden quit a previous campaign because of plagiarism (25% chance by guessing)
82.6% could NOT correctly say that Barack Obama won his first election by getting opponents kicked off the ballot (25% chance by guessing)
88.4% could NOT correctly say that Obama said his policies would likely bankrupt the coal industry and make energy rates skyrocket (25% chance by guessing)
56.1% could NOT correctly say Obama started his political career at the home of two former members of the Weather Underground (25% chance by guessing).
And yet…..
Only 13.7% failed to identify Sarah Palin as the person on which their party spent $150,000 in clothes
Only 6.2% failed to identify Palin as the one with a pregnant teenage daughter
And 86.9 % thought that Palin said that she could see Russia from her “house,” even though that was Tina Fey who said that!!
Only 2.4% got at least 11 correct.
Only .5% got all of them correct. (And we “gave” one answer that was technically not Palin, but actually Tina Fey)
Check out the website at: http://howobamagotelected.com/
Gore To Obama: GFY
November 13, 2008
Barack Obama promised to create a White House “Climate Czar” position for Chicken Little protégé Al Gore back in April, but Gore isn’t interested in the postion.
“Former Vice President Gore does not intend to seek or accept any formal position in government,” Gore spokeswoman Kalee Kreider said. “He feels very strong right now that the best thing for him to do is to build support for the bold changes that we have to make to solve the climate crisis.”
Government positions don’t pay as much as international climate crusader roles do, so Gore would probably have a hard time paying for the extravagant lifestyle he has been accustomed to, let alone the “carbon offsets” required to protect the world from Gore’s consumption.
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