The media loves to fan flames like these. And it's burning right now like a Texas wildfire ... or
a Waxahachie chemical plant. Conservatives kooks are
howling while we liberals are laughing behind our hands.
Cooler heads, however; Wayne Slater said on
Hardball earlier today that he was convinced -- after years of covering him in Austin -- Rick Perry wasn't a racist. Michael Steele said it (the lack of tolerance, particularly by conservative writers/talkers) points up the fundamental problem the GOP has in recruiting African-Americans. I believe those are both true and accurate statements.
But Steele's observation couldn't have been helped by
Cain's "brainwashing"contention last week.
I don't give a shit how The Rock Affair turns out; I will just note that this is Perry's second week -- almost third, since his poor debate performances -- of daily bad news. He's in quicksand up to his chin. At this point I'm just hoping Christie Creme jumps in the race. And immediately gets into a shouting match with some TeaBaggers over
gun control or immigration or something else, and has to be rushed to the hospital with heart palpitations.
Never forget, no matter how much or how little progress we have made in the past few years with respect to tolerance: ageism and
fat bias never go out of style.
More context from
Balloon Juice:
Back when I was a boy and didn’t know any better and didn’t have any sense and shouldn’t be held responsible for anything I did, said or thought, my daddy procured some land, and we used it for hunting and other manly activities involving guns. On that property, there was a rock that looked an awful lot like a bearded man sodomizing a Irish Setter, and some person from far in the past had painted “Jesus Buttfucking Big Red” on it.
Now, for reasons that are very complicated about the history of the region where I grew up, it was once acceptable to point out that rocks or other objects sometimes looked like our Savior engaging in bestiality with a variety of animals. While I think that’s vile and condemn it, it was also part of the culture of our area, and it’s in the past, and we can all forget about it. Even so, and even though we were just leasing that property and didn’t really own it, which means that rock wasn’t really even ours to change, we definitely painted over that rock as soon as we we got round to it, sometime in the 80’s.
So, I have to dispute the claim by seven different people that it took my family a long time to paint over that rock, written on by others, long ago, that had an “insensitive and offensive” message on it. But, man, you really did have to see that rock to believe how much it looked like the Son of God screwing the pooch.
Update: Rick Perry now has an
entire Civil War on his hands, and here's two more responses to the flare-up: one from the
conservatives, one from
Jon Stewart.
You might have anticipated that Perry would face a firestorm for being associated with the property, but it's Cain whose remarks are drawing the most criticism from the right. At RedState, Erick Erickson concluded, "It also seems to be a slander Herman Cain is picking up and running with as a way to get into second place." Glenn Reynolds remarked that until now, Cain's "big appeal is that he's not just another black race-card-playing politician." Over at the Daily Caller, Matt Lewis called Cain's remarks "a cheap shot, and, perhaps a signal that Cain is willing to play the race card against a fellow Republican when it benefits him."
The key phrase here is "fellow Republican." Because, you see, no one thought Cain was "playing the race card" when he said in the same program that black people are "brainwashed" into voting for Democrats and suggested that black people who vote Republican are "thinking for themselves." Cain wasn't rebuked by conservatives when he previously suggested President Barack Obama was not "a strong black man," implied liberals were out to commit genocide against blacks through support for abortion rights, and said he wouldn't appoint a Muslim to his cabinet.
Stewart began with the first sign that things were amiss for Perry, his unsatisfactory debate performance, in which Stewart joked one could see “a squadron of tiny little men inside his head, trying to find the right paper, one of them drops coffee on the control panel…”
He then turned to the controversy at hand, and just the name of the ranch made the audience laugh and applaud. “Let the record show,” Stewart joked, “that our audience will fucking cheer anything at times.” He abstained from making a Republican debate audience, joke, however, and instead turned to Cenac, live from “Nigger Lake,” a real place until New York finally got around to renaming it. He then listed a number of very racist, real places that to him proved “there aren’t no black people making maps,” before indulging in a rendition of the “lost verses” of “America the Beautiful” that reflect these map changes.
Jon Stewart has the remarkable ability to make me both laugh and feel ashamed at the same time. Richard Pryor used to be able to do that.
