... is this what he really thinks, or is this the first step in either setting up Hillary for a primary challenge in 2010 or insulating himself from the new interview tapes? Whichever it happens to be, former President Bill Clinton draws a distinctive line between himself and Jimmy Carter on CNN : (CNN) – Former President Bill Clinton told CNN Monday that he thinks some of the criticism directed at President Obama is racially motivated, but added that not all of Obama’s detractors are racist and urged his fellow Democrats to remain focused on trying to enact health care reform. “I believe that some of the right-wing extremists which oppose President Obama are also racially prejudiced and would prefer not to have an African-American president,” Clinton told CNN’s Larry King in an interview to air Monday evening. “But I don’t believe that all the people who oppose him on health care – and all the conservatives – are racists. And I believe if he were white, every single person who oppose...

[I'm not referring to Tina Turner's ex.] Curiously enough, though I am not their biggest fan by any means, I think that CNN has put out the most even-handed coverage of responses to former President Jimmie Carter's racism charges about many opponents of President Obama. Unfortunately, the manner in which the article is written does not lend itself to excerpting, so visit it here . I have been sorting out my own thoughts about the Carter assertion, which now have surfaced in two different venues, his NBC interview and his speech at Emory University. From what I can tell, the Emory University speech constitutes [choose your term] either fine-tuning or back-tracking by the former President: "When a radical fringe element of demonstrators and others begin to attack the president of the United States as an animal or as a reincarnation of Adolf Hitler or when they wave signs in the air that said we should have buried Obama with Kennedy, those kinds of things are beyond the b...

From GoogleNews : WASHINGTON — The success of President Barack Obama's ambitious agenda — from health care and climate change to education — could depend on how quickly he recovers from the sharp drop in support among white voters after criticizing a white policeman's arrest of a black Harvard scholar. Obama's widely publicized effort to defuse the first racial flare-up of his young presidency by inviting the protagonists to the White House last week for beers and conversation ended well by most accounts, even though there were no apologies. Cambridge, Mass., police Sgt. Joseph Crowley and Harvard scholar Henry Louis Gates Jr. agreed to disagree about the July 16 confrontation at Gates' home and pledged to meet again. Obama's impromptu comments about the incident could become a defining moment. Nearly immediately after Obama's remark that police had "acted stupidly" in arresting Gates, his approval rating plummeted among whites, dropping over two days ...

What's really remarkable about the whole Gates event is the immediate willingness of many people to employ one of two methods to trash Dr Gates: (1) To claim, based on personal experience or just personal philosophy that Dr Gates should not have responded loudly and aggressively to the police officer's inquiries. The cops have a tough job. Cooperation gets you out of the situation much better than confrontation. Gates showed little grace or tact. Give me a break. Not a single one of these commenters that I can find has been subject to the subtle police-state-style harassment that my black academic and consulting colleagues deal with on a regular basis. I have one colleague I think of as the magnet for the predictability with which the TSA will pull him out of line for a supposedly random secondary screening. I have been through airport security dozens of times with this individual, who is a senior scholar and--ironically--a security consultant to DHS--and three out of ev...

... although that is a significant issue . Cambridge MA Police responded to a woman's report of "two black males with backpacks on the porch," with one "wedging his shoulder into the door as if he was trying to force entry," by arresting Dr. Gates inside his own home. [Turns out Dr. Gates and friend had locked themselves out.] Yes, Dr. Gates was irritable, and yes Dr. Gates probably initially refused to produce identification--again, within his own home. What's outrageously, police-state wrong about this is the only charge the Cambridge Police could come up with: He was arrested on a disorderly conduct charge after police said he "exhibited loud and tumultuous behavior." What the f**k? He got arrested for disorderly conduct inside his own home after he had provided the police with identification ? At which nanosecond after Dr. Gates proved he was the rightful owner of the home did the police officers have any legal standing whatever even to be i...

The inner workings of a major political party are not--under any circumstances--pretty, particularly when that party is trying to recover from electoral disaster and sort out whether it intends in future to be conservative Libertarian or the Lawn Jockey Caucus of the Old Confederacy and Buffalo Commons Party. And, naturally [at least in the convoluted mental universe of blogging], the most qualified people to give them advice are the people who want them defeated at all costs. The semi-pious, semi-gleeful pseudo-advice pieces penned under the rubric of What the GOP needs to do are about as entertaining as they are non-partisan. So, of course the helpful liberal and progressive bloggers were more than willing to latch onto the racist commentary of Young Republican leader Audra Shay, with caustic observations that she proved that such thought among GOPers could not be dismissed as an individual case because--essentially--Michael Steele, Tucker Carlson, and Mike Castle--had not all jump...

I don't often blog about DSU, given my position there, but this isn't really a post about the university, or even about the tragic events that took the life of Shalita Middleton in fall 2007. It's about the absence of outrage. The charges against Loyer Braden have been dismissed, not just because the Attorney General's office apparently failed to share exculpatory evidence with the defense, but also because a key witness recanted testimony tying Braden to the homicide. Here's the key paragraph from the WNJ story today : Braden’s murder trial was dismissed last week by a Superior Court judge who said prosecutors withheld key evidence that could have compromised the former DSU student’s right to a fair trial. The evidence was a witness’ statement to Dover police identifying someone other than Braden as the shooter. What's missing in this picture? How about somebody in State government, State politics, or even the News Journal calling for a serious investigation o...

Over at Delaware Politics they have made a disturbing little heartland industry of bashing Barack Obama's Reverend Jeremiah Wright whose comments sparked a national debate with "right wing liberator cum-aggressor" and militia agitator Sean Hannity. But for all the racists it seems to be OK since The Hon. James David Manning Ph.D. of Atlah Ministries gave Obama a tacit endorsement by way of breasts and trashy white women. Proving once again why we need a clear seperation of church and state- "Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between Man & his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legitimate powers of government reach actions only, & not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should "make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof," thus building a w...

Steve wrote an interesting look at why someone like Pat Buchanan should not be painted with a broad condemnation brush and written-off solely based on his comments related to race. Buchanan gave a very interesting analysis * of the war issue and the larger ideological context in which it resides : [ * - Jeanne Kirkpatrick was a professor of mine at Georgetown University. From 1994-95 I studied in her courses 'Critique of Utopia' and 'Capitalism, Competition, and Democracy' .] I agree with everything Buchanan says in the video but do I agree with everything Buchanan says anywhere else I have heard him? Certainly not but it worries me not an iota because , as Steve mentioned, he is not elected and has no public power to wield over any of us. Nevertheless, as the above video attests, Buchanan has had valid and insightful ideas and analyses for many big questions, not the least of which was a very realpolitik critique of the Iraq war. Even more, his critique was based n...

I'd add something of my own to this, but I can't think of anything beyond giving Cara's post a new title: Al Sharpton and the NAACP Declare it Unfair to Hold Black Rapists and Torturers without Bail Read it and then wash carefully afterward.