Race Baiting
As Pumas, Hillary Clinton, and other organizations have found speaking out against Barack Obama is likely to have you tagged as a racist. In some cases, people have been so called by friends and family. People who should know better.
Wikipedia describes Race baiting as:
Race baiting is an act of using racially derisive language, actions or other forms of communication, to anger, intimidate or incite a person or groups of people, or to make those persons behave in ways that are inimical to their personal or group interests. This can also be accomplished by implying that there is an underlying race based motive in the actions of others towards the group baited, where none in fact exists.
Race baiting has been an incredibly polarizing influence in this election year. Many people who are Pro-Obama can only find racism as a response to those who would speak out against him and his campaign. Some specualte that the tactics and politics of this campaign has set back women and race relations by decades.
Seek answers to the questions around Barack Obama's past citizenship and Michelle Obama will reposnd to you like this:
“My husband and I know that there is no law that will stop him from becoming the president, just because some American white racists are bringing up the issue of my husband’s adoption by his step father.” (Emphasis added).
Then if you are a media member Michelle will try to purchase your loyalty with an invitation to the inauguration.
With an arrogance that can only be described as stunning, Michelle Obama said API would earn an invite to hubby’s upcoming inauguration ceremony when he will be installed as the next President of the United States of America next year, if only they wrote a “good” story.
Canada Free Press
John McCain has been airing ads that bring to question Barack Obama's association with known terrorists Bill Ayers. Bill Ayers is the former leader of Weather Underground, a group that placed bombs and took lives. Bill Ayers is unapologetic for his role in these bombings, stating after 9/11 "We didn't do enough."
In any other election, the country would be aghast at a presidential candidate with such ties. In this election it is taboo to mention them.
Congressman John Lewis spoke out against McCains ad about Bill Ayers and likened John McCains use of them to that of segregation advocate George Wallace in the 1960s.
"What I am seeing reminds me too much of another destructive period in American history," Lewis wrote in a statement first posted on Politico's website. "Sen. McCain and Gov. Palin are sowing the seeds of hatred and division, and there is no need for this hostility in our political discourse."
John McCain responded with the following statement:
"Congressman John Lewis' comments represent a character attack against Governor Sarah Palin and me that is shocking and beyond the pale. The notion that legitimate criticism of Senator Obama's record and positions could be compared to Governor George Wallace, his segregationist policies and the violence he provoked is unacceptable and has no place in this campaign. I am saddened that John Lewis, a man I've always admired, would make such a brazen and baseless attack on my character and the character of the thousands of hardworking Americans who come to our events to cheer for the kind of reform that will put America on the right track."
Lou Dobbs Faced the race baiting issue and the comments by Congressman Lewis in a recent airing. To illustrate the depth of this issue I am included a portion of the transcripts here.
Top Democratic Congressman John Lewis tonight backing away from his controversial remarks that caused an uproar. Lewis saying comments he made Saturday comparing feelings that recent Republican rallies to the views of segregationist George Wallace were misinterpreted. Congressman Lewis said he was warning about the dangers of what he calls toxic language. The congressman insists he didn't compare Senator McCain or Governor Palin to Wallace.
McCain said Lewis' original statement was shocking and beyond the pale. Tough stuff, don't you think? Well, to assess that, we're joined now by three of the best political analysts in the country, all CNN Contributors; Republican strategist Ed Rollins; and White House political director and former chairman of Mike Huckabee's presidential campaign, Pulitzer prize-winning columnist, "New York Daily News", Michael Goodwin, and Democratic strategist, Democratic National Committeeman Robert Zimmerman.
DOBBS: I mean, this business with Congressman Lewis. You know, I mean, with - he's - his historic role in civil rights, but I mean, what he said is beyond objectionable. It is repugnant. There wasn't a single response from the Democratic Party, neither your Democratic National Committeeman, nor your candidate for president, nor anyone else of any position or standing in the Democratic Party - I mean the man should - I mean, that's an absurd, insulting, ignorant thing for him to have said! Why isn't there a response from your party?
ZIMMERMAN: Let me be clear about that. John Lewis lived -was a victim of the hateful vicious rhetoric that is on the campaign trail.
DOBBS: Excuse me, I just stipulated his role in history and civil rights.
(CROSS TALK)
But let's talk about 2008 in a presidential campaign, any man talking like that in this day and age is absolutely ignorant.
ZIMMERMAN: The issue - look, there is no question -
DOBBS: So tell me why didn't your party respond?
ZIMMERMAN: I'll be the first to agree you can't compare George Wallace's record, or John McCain.
DOBBS: That is a tremendous concession.
(CROSS TALK)
ZIMMERMAN: But I will compare the rhetoric between George Wallace used and the rhetoric the McCain/Palin campaign is using.
DOBBS: Robert Zimmerman, that is absolutely beneath you.
ZIMMERMAN: Let me give you a few examples then.
DOBBS: No, give me one.
ZIMMERMAN: I'll give you one. When John McCain said that Barack Obama would be prepared to lose a war to win an election, challenged his patriotism. When the McCain campaign ran an ad --
DOBBS: Stop right there. Stop right there. You compared that to George Wallace? You know what, Robert, there are days when things get to the point where you don't really know -- I'm talking about myself - I don't comprehend what the heck you're talking about. ZIMMERMAN: I'll tell you.
DOBBS: Does anybody here?
ZIMMERMAN: How about when the McCain campaign says in the most recent commercial -- television ad, that Barack Obama conveniently worked with terrorists. Where Sarah Palin said he was palling around with terrorists. That idea of linking Barack Obama to terrorism is a hateful divisive tactic and it should be recognize as such.
GOODWIN: Lou, I think, there is some dangerous ground here, which is that if you can't criticize Obama without being accused of playing the race card --
DOBBS: I'm just -
(CROSS TALK)
ZIMMERMAN: This is not the race card, Michael.
(CROSS TALK)
DOBBS: I can't believe you're sitting there saying that there is some sort of equivalence between George Wallace and what the heck, either --
ZIMMERMAN: I'm say the rhetoric that George Wallace used and the rhetoric that John McCain and Sarah Palin is using is as ugly and divisive.
DOBBS: Are you out of your -- that's ridiculous.
ROLLINS: You show me one time.
It's a very legitimate comparison to talk about Bill Ayers, who had a relationship - who should be in jail.
ZIMMERMAN: No argument.
ROLLINS: Bill Ayers should be in jail. He was a terrorist. He blew up the New York Police Department. He was a part of the Weathermen, attacked the capitol, attacked the Pentagon, and basically did everything he could to undermine this country.
To talk about that relationship, which is a legitimate relationship, to take one of the great racist of all time, George Wallace --I don't care about he ended up, in the end of his life. When he was active, he was divisive - and to take that John McCain and put that comparison. We are trying to walk a very sensitive line not to make race an issue in this campaign.
ZIMMERMAN: This is not about race, Ed.
ROLLINS: It is about race.
ZIMMERMAN: This is about the McCain campaign strategy turning the page from to discussing the real issues, as they said, and make it a character question.
(CROSS TALK)
DOBBS: Now you've moved to a level that is absurd, absolutely absurd.
ZIMMERMAN: I normally get to that level later in the show.
(LAUGHTER)
DOBBS: You usually don't make it at this point in the show, because -- but anyway.
The idea that there is some sort of stricture here, I mean, go back and look at the campaigns of the early 1800s and what was said about candidates. I mean, are you -- I cannot even begin to fathom what you're saying about George Wallace, and the comments that you made. I ask you for one example.
ZIMMERMAN: George Wallace built a political career on divisiveness -
DOBBS: No, no, no. He was charged with being racist here, OK?
ZIMMERMAN: No, no, I don't.
DOBBS: Please listen. Please listen.
ZIMMERMAN: OK.
DOBBS: Please listen. He was charged with being a racist like George Wallace. Is there any doubt in your mind that that's what John Lewis said? Is there any doubt?
ZIMMERMAN: John Lewis was referring to the rhetoric Wallace used as being divisive and hateful.
DOBBS: Oh, divisive. So, then why would you need to use George Wallace? You could go back to the rhetoric of Jeremiah Wright, if you wanted to worry about division.
ZIMMERMAN: No argument. No argument again.
DOBBS: So where, again, is the Democratic Party? Where is the Democratic Party?
ZIMMERMAN: Look, in fairness to John Lewis -
DOBBS: No, not in fairness to John Lewis. He made an outrageous statement. Period.
ZIMMERMAN: I think --
DOBBS: And if anyone in the Democratic Party had scintilla of guts and integrity in the leadership, they would have commented and --
ZIMMERMAN: I think it takes a little bit of guts for me to debate the entire panel on this, too.
DOBBS: Not really.
(LAUGHTER)