Yes, you read that right. Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus is blaming President Obama for the leaked Joe Ricketts race baiting Rev. Wright proposal.
...this president’s got a bigger problem and his problem is no matter what he puts out there, no matter what distractions he puts out there, he can’t change the truth and escape the reality of where we are in this American economy. And it’s no good.
Got that? In the twisted mind of what is probably one of the worst RNC Chairmen in recent memory, Priebus is trying to push the meme that it's the Obama administration that put the story out there. Kinda makes you long for the days of Michael Steele, doesn't it?
I’m not familiar precisely with exactly what I said, but I stand by what I said, whatever it was.
~Mitt Romney on whether Rev.Wright attacks on President Obama are legitimate while being reminded that he used Rev. Wright to attack President Obama on Sean Hannity's show in February.
Is this guy that stupid? 'I don't know what I said but I stand by it.' Also, his reaction and active avoidance on his campaign aircraft to reporters' questions surrounding the Joe Ricketts/SuperPAC controversy before he knew the full story shows how much of a weasel and a coward he can be when confronted with such issues. A thinker on his feet he's not.
A former governor who quit in the middle of her term to take advantage of her new found celebrity status and laugh her way to the bank, Sarah Palin decides to rehash hackneyed attacks on Michelle Obama in her latest book she didn't write, proving she's as much of a sore loser as her senile, creepy running mate, John McFlip-Flop.
In a passage on perceptions of racial inequality in the United States, Palin slams President Barack Obama, who, she asserts, "seems to believe" that "America -- at least America as it currently exists -- is a fundamentally unjust and unequal country."
And then she goes after Michelle Obama:
Certainly his wife expressed this view when she said during the 2008 campaign that she had never felt proud of her country until her husband started winning elections. In retrospect, I guess this shouldn't surprise us, since both of them spent almost two decades in the pews of the Reverend Jeremiah Wright's church listening to his rants against America and white people.
Must we go down this road again? Of course, Palin's ghostwriter doesn't use quotes from that Michelle Obama speech because she didn't say she was "never proud of her country until her husband started winning elections." What she did say was this:
What we have learned over this year is that hope is making a comeback. It is making a comeback. And let me tell you something--for the first time in my adult lifetime, I am really proud of my country. And not just because Barack has done well, but because I think people are hungry for change. And I have been desperate to see our country moving in that direction, and just not feeling so alone in my frustration and disappointment. I've seen people who are hungry to be unified around some basic common issues, and it's made me proud.
Afterwards, the First Lady further clarified her remarks by noting that she was referencing the "record number" of young voters participating in the political process in the 2008 campaign:
For the first time in my lifetime, I am seeing people rolling up their sleeves in way that I haven't seen and really trying to figure this out, and that's the source of pride I was talking about.
What? Sarah Palin's ghostwriter lied? Say it ain't so, Mama Grizzly! And the added racism in that last line, sitting in "Reverend Jeremiah Wright's church listening to his rants against America and white people" is really something else. Nothing like overtly calling the Obamas racists in her latest screed to gin up the wingnut base and get them properly angry and/or scared for 2012.
ADDING... Ms. Wasilla also thinks that leaking quotes from her upcoming book without her permission may be illegal. What a nitwit.
The latest Sean Hannity head explosion found Hannity criticizing President Obama for comments made during his European Union trip and accused him of the "Blame America First" meme, said Obama was "doing his best Dixie Chicks impression" and then proceeded to bring up Rev. Wright, Bill Ayers and Angry Michelle Obama.
"America is arrogant. That's what Mr. Obama said today, doing his best Dixie Chicks impression.... [T]he liberal tradition of blame America first, well, that's still alive. But should we really be surprised from a man who sat in Reverend Wright's church, from a man who launched his political career in the home of a man who bombed the Pentagon and is unrepentant. Mrs. Obama may not be proud of her country, but I bet she's proud of her husband tonight. [...]
So remind me again, what were the Dixie Chicks vilified for? Oh, right - for criticizing the President. The irony immunity continues.
The worst part of the whole thing, but par for the Hannity course was the omission of President Obama's statement in which he criticizes the EU for it's range of casual to "insidious" anti-Americanism, being too quick to blame America and ignoring the good that the US does. But that would blow a hole in Hannity's rant, right? Douchebaggery knows no bounds.
Do I smell a bit of hypocrisy in your latest column, "The Two Obamas"?
Let's take each issue that you take offense with one at a time, and explain it so that even you can understand.
In your "column", you rail frantically against Senator Obama voting "present" while a member of the Illinois State Senate 130 times according to your count. I won't waste time looking for the actual number because it is irrelevant. Anyone bothering to look for an explanation can easily find one, such as this Republican State House leader coming to Obama's defense.
...Obama's former colleagues who still serve in the Illinois Capitol say that the attacks are off-base and that either Obama's opponents don't understand how things work in Springfield or they are deliberately distorting his record.
"To insinuate the 'present' vote means you're indecisive, that you don't have the courage to hold public office, that's a stretch. But, it's good politics," said state Rep. Bill Black (R), a 22-year veteran of the House and his party's floor leader.
In fact, he said, Illinois legislators get attacked for their "present" votes nearly every campaign season. "It's always been a campaign gimmick, really. If you vote 'present' once in 23 years, somebody will bring it up."
The "present" vote in Illinois is sometimes cast by state lawmakers with a conflict of interest who would rather not weigh in on an issue. Other times, members use the option to object to certain parts of a bill, even though they may agree with its overall purpose.
"The 'present' vote is used, especially by more thoughtful legislators, not as a means of avoiding taking a position on an issue, but as a means of signaling concerns about an issue," said state Rep. John Fritchey (D), an Obama supporter.
In your next statement, you claim that BarackObama first stood by Rev. Wright and then later "threw [him] under the truck" only when it was politically convenient. Nowhere in your article does it state that he originally stood by him but denounced his inflammatory remarks. Nowhere in your article does it state that because of the controversy that the media perpetuated, he daringly gave a speech considered a third rail in politics, discussing the issue of race and racism in our country that was widely hailed as one of the most important political speeches in the last 40 years.
Only after Rev. Wright continued to fly off the handle, giving a speech at the National Press Club to promote his upcoming book, did Obama finally cut Wright loose; only after another controversial appearance by guest speaker Father Pflegerat Trinity United Church, did Obama decide to leave the church itself not only for his own sake, but to avoid further distraction that it was causing the congregation.
It was a lose-lose-lose situation for Obama. Either he defends Wright and gets lambasted by the right wing, or he denounces Wright's comments which isn't considered good enough by the wingnut pundits, or he disavows him altogether and is accused of throwing him "under the truck." Either he stays with his church and is ridiculed by the likes of you, or he leaves the church is accused of doing it for political convenience.
Next you throw in some stupid line about Obama not being a "workhorse senator" and throwing his duties "under the truck" (always with the truck). Yet you give no examples of what you may be talking about. As for me, I'll refer you to the example above regarding McCain's non GI Bill vote and I'll throw this little tidbit of information your way: Senator John McCain, as of this past May 17th had missed 43 straight votes in the Senate just this year alone. At that point, that equated to missing approximately 50% of the roll calls. Before you try and defend the fact that he's been on the campaign trail, BarackObama and Hillary Clinton had only missed just 6.4 percent and 1.8 percent of votes this year, respectively. What a "workhorse" that John McCain, huh? Perhaps he was napping.
As for town hall meetings? Maybe Obama would accept if he knew that the audience was impartial and not vetted or invited by the McCain campaign.
Fox News:The McCain campaign said it was taking random questions from the audience of about 200 people. But the questions and mood were decidedly favorable, as his jabs at Obama were frequently interrupted by applause.
One questioner praised his military service; another called him a “hero.”
The campaign later issued a statement saying it distributed tickets to “supporters, Mayor Bloomberg, and other independent groups.”
What a maverick that McCain is!
But then, Mr. Brooks, you save the best for last: Accusing BarackObama of flip-flopping and backing out of public financing. Oh no! The evil Obama deciding not to accept any taxpayer money (a "small government" conservative's dream by the way). Weak, David. Weak. Let's slow this down so you can see how ridiculous this argument is.
First, let's talk about what Senator Obama actually did say he would participate in. In his Midwest Democracy Network questionnaire, question 1-B asked: "If you are nominated for President in 2008 and your major opponents agree to forgo private funding in the general election campaign, will you participate in the presidential public financing system?"
So the operative phrase here is "if... your major opponents agree to forgo public financing..." Here is his full answer after checking the "yes" box:
"I have been a long-time advocate for public financing of campaigns combined with free television and radio time as a way to reduce the influence of moneyed special interests. I introduced public financing legislation in the Illinois State Senate, and am the only 2008 candidate to have sponsored Senator Russ Feingold’s (D-WI) bill to reform the presidential public financing system. In February 2007, I proposed a novel way to preserve the strength of the public financing system in the 2008 election. My plan requires both major party candidates to agree on a fundraising truce, return excess money from donors, and stay within the public financing system for the general election. My proposal followed announcements by some presidential candidates that they would forgo public financing so they could raise unlimited funds in the general election. The Federal Election Commission ruled the proposal legal, and Senator John McCain (R-AZ) has already pledged to accept this fundraising pledge.If I am the Democratic nominee, I will aggressively pursue an agreement with the Republican nominee to preserve a publicly financed general election."
You got that, Dave? "Senator McCain has already agreed to accept this fundraising pledge." The only problem is that Senator McCain has been raising and spending unlimited monies in violation of Federal Election Commission laws after opting in for public campaign funds through the primaries (which end with the convention), used that pledge to secure a bank loan, and then opted out of public financing. Something that the Republican Chairman of the Federal Elections Commission calls ILLEGAL.
...McCain's maneuveringseemed to irritate FEC Chairman David Mason, a Republican,who wrote a letter to McCain in Februarysaying McCain could only withdraw from public financing if he received the permission of the FEC and answered questions about the loan.
"The Commission made clear that a candidate enters into a binding contract with the Commission when he executes the Candidate Agreements and Certification," Mason wrote. "The Commission stated that it would withdraw a candidate's certifications upon written request, thus agreeing to rescind the contract, so long as the candidate: 1) had not received Matching Payment Program funds, and 2) had not pledged the certification of Matching Payment Program funds as 'security for private financing.'"
By the way, McCain was asked the same public financing question that Obama answered from the same organization and didn't bother to respond. Perhaps he was napping.
The fact is that McCain is gaming the system - first planning to opt out of public financing during the primaries. Then when fundraising got rough and he was out of cash, on August 10 McCain asked the Federal Election Commission for the authority to receive matching funds, and the FEC said he was eligible for $5.8 million. Although he never collected the money, he secured a $4 million line of credit with the agreement to reapply for federal matching funds if he withdrew from public financing and lost early primary contests. The agreement also held as collateral his list of contributors and a pledge by McCain to seek further cash from those donors to pay of the loan.
So cry all you want about Senator Obama opting out of public financing, or in actuality creating his own system of public financing without using one single dollar of taxpayer money. If the roles were reversed, no one would be batting an eye at the advantage of GOP coffers, but since the shoe is on the other foot, all we hear is whining from "pundits" with agendas.
I suppose that's why your columns are op-eds, Mr. Brooks. You may be entitled you your opinion, but you are certainly not entitled to your own facts. *************************
I know the public financing fiasco is convoluted - here is Keith Olbermann and Howard Fineman explaining it a lot better than I probably did.
I haven't written very much because of my schedule lately, but I just read a Huffington Post item that I couldn't let pass.
I speak with fellow blogger Armadillo Joe and our habit of surfing around and comparing our findings of posts we read blaming everyone and everything - the media, misogyny, sexism - for Hillary Clinton's downfall, rather than where it should truly lie, her terrible campaign leaders and campaign strategy, GOP-style negative smear tactics and "insert both feet" gaffes that have wasted her name recognition status and cause over half of voters to find her untrustworthy, when once she was the odds-on favorite to win the party nomination for the presidency.
"How Dare You!" written by Jill Iscol is just another example in a long line of reasons that Hillary Clinton's campaign has failed time and again and why any good will towards her has diminished. Iscol's first few lines read like a parody. I was waiting for it to get funny and show it's sarcasm and irony, but that paragraph never came.
We need to talk. How dare the leadership of the Democratic Party turn on Hillary Clinton! How dare they betray Bill Clinton! How dare they not speak out when Hillary is disrespected by words like bitch, whore and the "c" word!
Really? Who called her a "whore" or a "cunt"? Did anyone from her own party talk about Hillary that way? Did Obama? The only one I remember calling Clinton "bitch" was Tina Fey on a Saturday Night Live skit, and it was "in a good way." Did that offend women or were they pumping their fists in agreement?
Iscol describes herself as a "Hillary supporter... along with millions of Democrats throughout our country" and is outraged at the treatment of her preferred candidate and that the Democratic leadership is not sticking up for her. What she doesn't mention is that, unlike millions of other Democrats throughout the country, she isn't just a supporter but a Campaign Finance Chair for Clinton. Not much disclosure there, huh? She goes on:
...This is not the party I thought I belonged to. ...That Party stood proudly by a president who many called the first black president because both he and his wife had demonstrated a lifelong commitment to civil rights and human rights.
Women are outraged. We are still fighting for her, and we are ashamed of how our candidate, a woman who has devoted her adult life to serving others... has been treated not just by the media but by her own Democratic Party.
Yes, it's true women are outraged. But not just female Clinton supporters. How about the outrage of Obama supporters who happen to be women? Do they not count? Are they so vapid that they don't know what they're doing and therefore dismissed?
I said it once, I'll say it again and now I'm putting it in writing: Hillary Clinton is not losing/did not lose the Democratic nomination because of her gender, no matter how many times you may scream it at the top of your lungs. She lost because she was the hare, and thought she could take a break after February 5th, while Obama the tortoise looked at the whole race and didn't nap under a tree after Iowa.
- your insistence that there have been widespread calls for you to end your campaign, when such calls had been few.
- your misspeaking about Martin Luther King's relative importance to the Civil Rights movement.
- your misspeaking about your under-fire landing in Bosnia.
- insisting Michigan's vote wouldn't count and then claiming those who would not count it were Un-Democratic.
- pledging to not campaign in Florida and thus disenfranchise voters there, and then claim those who stuck to those rules were as wrong as those who defended slavery or denied women the vote.
- the photos of Osama Bin Laden in an anti-Obama ad.
- fawning over the fairness of Fox News while they were still calling you a murderer.
- accepting Richard Mellon Scaife's endorsement and then laughing as you described his "deathbed conversion."
- quoting the electoral predictions of Boss Karl Rove.
- the 3 a.m. Phone Call commercial.
- President Clinton's disparaging comparison of the Obama candidacy to Jesse Jackson's.
- Geraldine Ferraro's national radio interview suggesting Obama would not still be in the race had he been a white man.
- the dozen changing metrics and the endless self-contradictions of your insistence that your nomination is mathematically probable rather than a statistical impossibility.
- your declaration of some primary states as counting and some as not.
- exploiting Jeremiah Wright in front of the editorial board of the lunatic-fringe Pittsburgh Tribune-Review.
- exploiting William Ayers in front of the debate on ABC.
- boasting of your "support among working, hard-working Americans, white Americans"...
- repeatedly praising Senator McCain at Senator Obama's expense, and your own expense, and the Democratic ticket's expense.
This Olbermann list doesn't even mention her comparison of the Democratic party process to the Republican one and how she claimed if we were playing by their rules, she'd be the nominee by now. For anyone still using that argument and the threat of not voting for Obama, the Democratic candidate, when he wins the nomination, I say, "Please review your party affiliation and re-register to vote as a Republican. We don't need your triangulating, Republican-lite kind around here."
But now, Senator Hillary Clinton, after shooting herself in the foot countless times, often with Mark Penn's finger on the trigger, takes the sawed-off shotgun and sticks it in her mouth on her own with her awful comment regarding the 1968 election and the assassination of Bobby Kennedy. When I first heard this secondhand, I thought surely there was some mistake. Did she actually use the word "assassinate"? And of course, I know that she doesn't want any harm to befall Barack Obama, but how brain dead or "sleep deprived" do you have to be to make such an idiotic comment?
I was still confused about her comment, not knowing what to make of it. Then I remembered a pundit on Countdown (I believe it was Howard Fineman) speaking of a previous Hillary comment ("Obama's not a Muslim.... as far as I know.") and saying that Clinton doesn't say anything without thinking about it. Wow. Could she be thinking, "Let me stick around... you never know what can happen... remember Bobby Kennedy?" Then Keith Olbermann set me straight.
The fact is that it doesn't matter what Clinton was thinking. In fact, it shows that if anything, she wasn't thinking when she made that comment, effectively ending, in my opinion, any possible shot of wresting away the nomination from Obama.
Comparing the media's treatment of Hillary to that of Obama's is a bad joke. How do you compare the Rev. Wright's six week debacle (where Obama renounces his Christian Pastor and there are still 11% of voters at this point who still think he is Muslim), questions of patriotism and lapel flag pins, the sham of the ABC debate, pundit after pundit during primary after primary trying to make it look like a horserace, asking why Obama can't "close the deal" when in fact they should be asking why the well-known Hillary couldn't "close the deal", how does Clinton compare that to anything the media has thrown at her?
Jill Iscol's delusion of how the Democratic party has "betrayed" Hillary Clinton is laughable when in fact it is Hillary that has, at almost every turn done or said practically anything to try and stop the Obama tidal wave from flooding her dingey of a campaign with a bailing bucket the size of a thimble. Any excuse save reality keeps these people grasping for something that they themselves have squandered.
...Many in the white, working-class crowd were simply not ready to back Barack Obama - for reasons that are disturbing.
"I'm kind of still up in the air between McCain and Hillary," said Jason Jenkins, 32, who cited information from a hoax e-mail as a reason to spurn Obama.
"I'll be honest with you. Barack scares the hell out of me,"he said. "He swore on the Koran." Obama did manage to pull in many white voters, but still encountered similar sentiments from a man who refused to shake his hand at a diner in Greenwood, Ind.
"I can't stand him," the man said. "He's a Muslim. He's not even pro-American as far as I'm concerned."
And sadly, this is why shitheads like former New York City Mayor Ed Koch are calling Obama a loser in the general election and why Clinton still thinks she has a shot. It's the unspoken race issue. They hope that idiots will vote for Clinton not because they actually support her, but because they still think Obama is a Muslim, or they put too much emphasis on Rev. Wright, or they just won't vote for a nigger. Especially an uppity one who is smarter and richer than they are.
Here comes the avalanche! Former Democratic National Committee Chairman Joe Andrew of Indiana has flipped his endorsement of Hillary Clinton to Barack Obama.
"This has got to come to an end," former Democratic National Committee Chairman Joe Andrew told reporters in his hometown of Indianapolis just days before Tuesday's crucial state primary. He said he planned to call all the other superdelegates he knows and encourage them to back Obama.
...In a lengthy letter explaining his decision, Andrew said he is switching his support because "a vote for Hillary Clinton is a vote to continue this process, and a vote to continue this process is a vote that assists (Republican) John McCain."
"The ship is taking on water right now," Andrew said at the news conference. "We need to patch those holes, heal the rift and go forward to beat John McCain."
...Andrew said the Obama campaign never asked him to switch his support, but he decided to do so after watching Obama's handling of two issues in recent days. He said Obama took the principled stand in opposing a summer gas tax holiday that both Clinton and McCain supported, even though it would have been easier politically to back it. And he said he was impressed with Obama's handling of the controversy surrounding his former pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright.
..."He has shown such mettle under fire," Andrew said in the interview. "The Jeremiah Wright controversy just reconfirmed for me, just as the gas tax controversy confirmed for me, that he is the right candidate for our party."
That's what I'm talking about! A Democrat with... how shall I put it... "testicular fortitude."
Barack Obama gives another stirring news conference regarding his now ended relationship with Rev. Wright, and this is what the New York Daily News puts on its front page.
Let's look for a picture of an angry Barack Obama... it doesn't matter if it wasn't from the news conference. We've lost one angry black man, we've got to invent another.
WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. – For the second day in a row, Senator Barack Obama sought to distance himself from the remarks made by his former pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr., and forcefully denounced the incendiary comments he feared would provide “comfort to those who prey on hate.”
“I’m outraged by the comments that were made and saddened over the spectacle that we saw yesterday,” Mr. Obama said, speaking to reporters here today. He added, “I find these comments appalling. It contradicts everything that I’m about and who I am.”
Seeking to quell the political damage the controversy is dealing to his campaign, Mr. Obama called a press conference after a town meeting here this afternoon to raise the volume of his criticism of his former pastor. In his speech on race last month in Philadelphia, where he tried to put the matter behind him, Mr. Obama said he gave Mr. Wright the benefit of the doubt. But after watching three days of Mr. Wright’s commentary in televised speeches and interviews, Mr. Obama said, “there are no excuses.”
“They offend me, they rightly offend all Americans and they should be denounced,” he said. “That’s what I am doing very clearly and unequivocally here today.”
I was having a debate with a family member about this issue yesterday. He felt I was siding with the spin of the media on the Wright issue and that Wright had said nothing wrong. But the difference here is, that Wright made appearances and comments over the weekend in direct contradiction to Obama's defense of Wright with the speech in Philadelphia last month.
For Wright to say that Obama did not denounce his comments and infer that Obama said what he said because he's a politician, basically calling him a liar - wink, wink - was the equivalent of throwing Obama under the bus. And what made things worse, in my opinion, was the arrogance with which Wright made his statements.
I received this in a chain/spam email and thought it might be a fake. But who knows? Although, come to think of it, this is the first time I get an email that is pro-Obama.
Letter of the day: Clinton, her pastor disagree about Wright
Hillary Clinton attends the Foundry United Methodist Church in Washington. So does Bill Clinton. Hillary suggests she would not have the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, Barack Obama's controversial former minister, as her pastor.
But the senior pastor of her church has a very different take on how Americans should react to Wright. The Rev. Dean Snyder wrote, "The Rev. Jeremiah Wright is an outstanding church leader whom I have heard speak a number of times. He has served for decades as a profound voice for justice and inclusion in our society. He has been a vocal critic of the racism, sexism, and homophobia which still tarnish the American dream.
"To evaluate his dynamic ministry on the basis of two or three sound bites does a grave injustice to Dr. Wright, the members of his congregation, and the African-American church, which has been the spiritual refuge of a people that has suffered from discrimination, disadvantage, and violence. Dr. Wright, a member of an integrated denomination, has been an agent of racial reconciliation while proclaiming perceptions and truths uncomfortable for some white people to hear.
"Those of us who are white Americans would do well to listen carefully to Dr. Wright rather than to use a few of his quotes to polarize. This is a critical time in America's history as we seek to repent of our racism. No matter which candidates prevail, let us use this time to listen again to one another and not to distort one another's truth. "
JACK BEAIRD, GOLDEN VALLEY
Again, I don't know if it's a real letter or not (seems legit on the website) but you can't argue with the logic. And if it is real, then it would seem Hillary's got some egg on her face.
There's a shithead over at the Huffington Post named David Mills, an "Emmy-Award-winning TV writer and a former journalist," who has a problem with Rev. Jeremiah Wright's claim that "The government lied about the Tuskegee experiment! They purposely infected African-American men with syphilis!" in one of the soundbites that have been repeated ad nauseam (I refuse to say "one of Wright's sermons" because we haven't actually heard a sermon, just a couple of incendiary soundbites).
Mills writes, "Wright is wrong. That's not what the Tuskegee experiment was. In the "Tuskegee Study of Untreated Syphilis in the Negro Male," federal researchers refused to treat a group of black men who already had syphilis, long after a cure had been found. "
Ohhhh!! Well, fuck, I guess that's a horse of a different color. I can't imagine why people aren't up in arms like David Mills is over semantics. So just to get this straight, according to Mr. Mills, we need to clarify that the experiment that went on for FORTY YEARS wasn't about the government injecting African-Americans with syphilis to research the results, these men were already infected and even though we had a cure, we didn't administer it so we could see and document what the long term results of having syphilis would do. Well in that case, how could the government be considered sinister in that scenario? We didn't infect them, we just didn't treat them.
Mills goes on to cite pundits and talk show hosts who, in their ignorance of black history, are perpetuating the "myth" that the US government infected African-Americans with syphilis. Although he does admit that the "Tuskegee experiment was the most shameful episode in the history of the U.S. Public Health Service," he can't get over the fact that people are misunderstanding what the experiment actually was.
Mills: To invoke the Tuskegee experiment to suggest that the government invented AIDS to kill black people, as Rev. Wright did... that dishonors the truth. There is no excuse for it. It must stop.
Okay Mills, we get your point. Now I'd like to make a little suggestion that you should think about.
I have heard the "government invented AIDS to kill black people" theory long before I ever heard it come up in a Wright soundbite. We know the first documented case of AIDS in the US was in 1981 although some could have been infected as early as 1978; but we also know that the earliest known case was of AIDS was found in a blood sample from 1959. So we're now talking about a disease that's been around between 30 and 50 years. (I could go on with a timeline of what happened when in the AIDS crisis, but you can see for yourself here.)
My point is this: if the US government made an experiment of denying treatment to African-Americans in order to study the effects of syphilis in Tuskegee, why would it be far fetched for people to believe that the US government initially dragged its feet when it came to the treatment or even a possible cure for AIDS?
When you consider the lack of funding for AIDS research (until a big jump in 1994 under a Democratic administration) coupled with the incredibly expensive drugs for AIDS treatment that most poorer Americans can't afford, people begin to connect the dots, whether rightly or wrongly, and pile it in with their inherent mistrust of the government (for good reason as history has shown).
Did the US government invent the AIDS virus to infect black Americans? Maybe not. Did the US government initially ignore the problem because it was only affecting homosexuals and the lower class? I would tend to think yes before dismissing it.
Perhaps Mills should try researching and reading a full sermon of Rev. Wright's before making a judgment or parsing the difference between active participation or complicit inaction.
Since the rabid dog we call the mainstream media won't release the Rev. Wirght story out of its frothy jaws, Barack Obama has scheduled a speech in Philadelphia today to address Wright's comments and will take the opportunity to discuss the issue of race in this country.
Didn't he already address the Wright fiasco with this statement?
"...I vehemently disagree and strongly condemn the statements that have been the subject of this controversy. I categorically denounce any statement that disparages our great country or serves to divide us from our allies. I also believe that words that degrade individuals have no place in our public dialogue, whether it's on the campaign stump or in the pulpit. In sum, I reject outright the statements by Rev. Wright that are at issue."
I suppose the MSM was in too much of a feeding frenzy to notice because I keep hearing assholes like Joe Scarborough say things like, "Doesn't he have to distance himself from these comments?" Pay attention, Joe. Obama's statement was released five days ago... or is it not good enough for you?
I think that's the main problem - like I said before, a guy like McCain can accept an endorsement like Hagee's with great honor, so what if he's said a few anti-Catholic remarks as long as the candidate doesn't agree with them. But with Obama, the MSM won't be satisfied until he is handed a gun with with one bullet loaded in it, and shoots that "uppity nigger" in the head. Let's face facts - that's what this is really about, isn't it?
The speech will be televised at 10:15am. I'm hoping to have video of it up sometime today.
Update: Obama started his speech at a little after 11am... and what a speech it was. Of course, some "pundits" (like Pat Buchanan) who praised the speech, just didn't get it because they refuse to get it. Video to follow.
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