Bitter Beer Face

So let's see...

...Hillary Clinton lies about her trip to Bosnia, lies about her support for NAFTA, lies about her role in her husband's presidency, lies about her position on Bush's failed war of aggression in Iraq...

...but the issue du jour is Barack Obama's suggestion that white, small-town America is often embittered and driven by single issues that have nothing to do with their day to day lives??

Clinton spends a month lying her ass off about this, that and the third, but the media wants to scold (President) Obama for actually telling the truth??

As Detroit mayor Kwame Kilpatrick might say to his ex-chief of staff: LOL.

The President (to be) was right. Here in Michigan, the evidence surfaces every day. Millions of white folks fled the cities (presumably to get away from poor black folks) and are now fleeing the bedroom suburbs (presumably to get away from middle-class black folks) for even more far-flung pastures. Tens of thousands of white state voters, stirred up by the delusional and self-loathing Wardell "I Gotta Make Sure The White Man Gets A Fair Break," Connerly eliminated affirmative action in an effort to stop even minimal black gains. Even a casual glance at the message boards for local news outlets reveals deep-seated, irrational anger and hatred toward anyone urban and/or of color.

Small-town white folks are NOTHING if not bitter.

But Barack Obama wasn't trying to attack them. He was simply pointing out that eight years of failed federal policies and plans have broken this nation, leaving its citizens adrift and bereft of any faith in government to even address their needs, let alone fix 'em. Few pundits pointed out that he also offered parallel assessments of the anger and despair that have swept over African-American young men.

No, instead, we have white folks railing on and on and on against Sen. Obama for having the audacity to suggest they might be a little mad. Truth is, though, people aren't so much mad that he told the truth. The problem is that a black man said it.

Had Hillary the $109-million woman made the same suggestion there would be no attacks, no ongoing "debate" over the veracity of her remarks. But the black man who grew up in a single-parent home and only recently paid off his student loans is somehow "elitist" for making a sincere effort to articulate what is plain to anybody who bothers to really pay attention??

Give me a fucking break.

Seems I recall a few years ago, even white folks were open and honest about their senseless rage. News outlets everywhere were serving up "the angry white male," that GOP-voting, gun-clutching genus of white man bound and determined to take back his "rightful" place in society from black and brown folks bypassing him on the thrust of federal social programs. And who can forget the white boys who rioted in Florida in 2000 right outside the local center where election workers were counting ballots? Oh, they were bitter alright.

You couldn't throw a rock without hitting some white dude who had left the Democratic party because the party no longer seemed to blatantly cater to the myth that white folks "deserved" success whilst blacks had to "earn" it. These white boys have gone by various names over the years: "Reagan Democrat," "the new Republican voter," "the white evangelical," and yes, even, "the angry white male."

Back then (yesterday?), all you heard about was the need to overturn affirmative action because it was "unfair" and no longer necessary. Blacks were now beating out the white boys for jobs, jobs that the white boys "deserved," and this shit had to stop. (Never mind the countless generations of black men and women both then and now who were passed over for jobs they'd "earned" in favor of white folks who were "a better fit for the company.") White men —buffeted by the declining economy, the evaporation of jobs and superpower America's slow but steady ride off into the sunset — were none to silent about their bitterness.

But now we're supposed to believe that that was all just an illusion? The angry white male was just a product of our elitists imaginings?

No, what's clear about this latest "furor" is the same notion that came through during the "flap" about Rev. Jeremiah Wright. Barack Obama is free to tut-tut black folks, free to bitch about the "excesses" of the 60s, free to rewrite and diminish the long sad history driving African-Americans' outrage. (Sorry, but he did.)

But white folks are off limits to Sen. Obama when it comes to criticism this presidential election. Even the most innocuous, bland and vague reference to unflattering attitudes and behaviors among whites is met with stiff resistance and ire.

For decades now, black folks have been saddled with destructive, evil and outright false characterizations of us as a group: lazy, irresponsible, dumb, criminal, unpatriotic, genetically inferior. We've had to stand there and take it, too, even from so-called "sympathetic" politicians like Bill Clinton, who for eight years alternately wooed us and tossed us under the bus when convenient as though we were just another White House intern. We hung in and endured the worst portrayals, hopeful that "our candidate" was just "playing the game," believing that he'd "be our best friend" once he'd been elected after convincing enough white folks that he'd be sufficiently tough on us.

Now, along comes Sen. Obama, far and away the better of the two Dem choices, and many white folks get downright apoplectic if he does anything but kiss white ass and say it tastes like vanilla fudge.

To his credit, Obama has defended and elaborated on his comments. But still, Clinton, her minions and media lapdogs and the bigots in the GOP continue to falsely accuse him of elitism and to try to undermine his campaign with lies and racist overtures to the worst in human nature.

To me, Obama sounds like a man trying to appeal to the soul of this nation, trying to offer frank assessments with one hand and, with the other, a salve for the wounds inflicted by this GOP-perverted government. He sounds statesman-like, caring, genuinely concerned.

Clinton and her screeching peanut gallery? Hmph. They just sound bitter to me.

Dope Fiend Moves...pt. 1

A dope fiend move.

That, when I was growing up, was the saying we used to have for actions that were so head-scratchingly bizarre, so out of left field or so patently stupid that the only explanation for them we could offer was that the cats behind them had to be under the influence of weapons-grade narcotics.

"You cheated on your girlfriend and forgot to take the condom off before you got home to her? Damn, money, that was a dope fiend move."

I thought back to that old saying as I was reading about how Rep. Tim Mahoney, a Florida Democrat, popped off this week about the race for the Democratic presidential nomination. Mahoney took it upon himself to suggest that the contest might be in for an unexpected twist if it remains undecided by the time the Democrats' convention rolls around starting Aug. 25.

If the party hasn't picked a candidate by then, Mahoney said, both Sens. Obama and Clinton could be passed over in favor of a "compromise candidate." Further, Mahoney said, that third candidate could very well be former VP Al Gore.

Huh??

OK, for a Congressman to express so blithely an eagerness to just throw off the electoral process because he doesn't like the pace of its resolution is already more than enough to merit concerns that he might be under the influence. But to then offer up Al Gore — a guy who hasn't been approved by anyone, hasn't appeared on a ballot in eight years and whose last memorable act as a politician was folding like laundry as George W. Bush made off with his Supreme Court-appointed presidency in 2000 — is the very definition of sucking that glass dick.

I mean, who in the hell said Gore was some kind of "solution" here? And how does a vintage white male politician represent any kind of a "compromise" between the potential first woman nominee and the potential first black nominee? C'mon, Mahoney. Put down the pipe, guy.

Of course, the biggest dope fiend move would be for the Dem leadership to attempt some stunt like this. Given the historic nature of the race, the passions flowing among the swelled camps of both Obama and Clinton, this wouldn't just be a blow to the party. This would be a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the temple.

Hillary Has Torn Her Drawers

I'm glad to see that Barack Obama's church is finally standing up for embattled pastor Jeremiah Wright, although I wonder whether it's too little too late.

As Sen. Obama's march to the Democratic nomination has seemed more and more inexorable, Hillary Clinton has become more desperate, more shrill, more willing than ever bloody her rival with smear tactics, whisper campaigns and blatant appeals to white supremacism. Her campaign has cast aspersions on his heritage, his name, his religion and, recently, his pastor. More and more, it's becoming clear that Barack Obama is not simply running against Clinton. He's running against the absolute worst of white America: its racist sickness; its deep-seated delusions about white beauty and superiority; its lies about our nation's foreign policy; its patent hatred for anything even remotely unlike itself.

Hillary Clinton has appealed to all of these things. She has courted the worst elements of the national psyche, all in the hope that white racism will save her election chances. She has turned on black folks in the most crass, obvious and irrevocable ways. For years now, Black people have supported her and her husband almost blindly. We've tagged him "the first Black president," defended them against scandal, welcomed them into communities like Harlem. And what have we received in return? Backed in a corner and desperate to capture the Dem nomination, the Clintons have thrown black people under the bus.

That's a favor that, if Hillary Clinton somehow does win the nomination, more than a few of us are ready to return. I, for one, will not vote for her if she wins the nomination. I can't say for sure yet whether I'd vote at all for President -- voting for McCain is out, but I may still write in Obama's name -- but I know I'll never support a Clinton for anything ever again.

Of course, even if she doesn't win, she has bloodied Sen. Obama's image so badly that his task of winning the White House, at one point a foregone conclusion, now looms as an increasingly unlikely mission.

I still believe Barack Obama can win, that he can overcome the smears and lies that the Clintons and their Republican fuckbuddies have thrown out there to short-circuit him. If he does, I'm willing to bet that Black Americans will get past the racist displays that the Clintons have paraded in front of us and move forward with trying to unite the Democratic Party and this nation. But if he loses -- given the racist dynamics that his rivals have played to to surpass him -- I'm willing to bet that the Democratic Party will never be the same again.

It certainly won't have many of us to kick around anymore.