Somebody's Lying

Will Folks                     Nikki Haley

The South Carolina gubernatorial race with just two weeks to go has become a real soap opera. Republican candidate Nikki Haley is vehemently denying claims by conservative blogger Will Folks that the two of them had an inappropriate physical relationship.

Folks went public with the claim a few days ago and declared initially that he would speak no more of it. Now, the firestorm is raging and Folks says he will bring forth proof. As a downpayment on his side of the story, he printed on his blog a set of text messages between himself, Tom Pearson (Haley's campaign manager) and Wes Donehue, a republican political operative.

One of these two people is lying. Right now, I'm betting its Nikki Haley. The context of the text messages he's released so far and the way they have been reacted to by their respective authors says to me that there is smoke AND fire here. Folks apparently has a reputation for being erratic and maybe misogynist too , but considering the world of hurt that would be coming his way for publishing a smearing lie of this magnitude without being able to back it up, I find it hard to believe that he's just that dog food crazy, especially considering by all accounts, he supports Haley in the race.

I'm sticking with my prognostication here, but the main thing that causes me to doubt my current prediction? The very homely looking visage of Folks. Haley looks like a woman with better taste. Then again, the hubby ain't no George Clooney. Cute kids though.



Who's lying, Haley or Folks and why? Sound off in the comments.


Update I:  The story has not advanced much further, but the media are of course all over it, and reporters managed to catch up with Folks and Donehue to ask some questions:



I think the guy has the goods.  His play is suicidal if he does not.  I'm not sure Haley recovers from the lie.  The coverup is worse than the affair, politically.

Update II: Nikki Haley is going to be the next governor of South Carolina at the rate this is going.  Its been a week + since Will Folks rolled out his charge that he had "a inappropriate physical relationship" with Haley.  He promised proof and then dripped dripped some info that seemed significant but doesn't prove his case.  He hasn't dropped the bomb he's led people to expect he had, so at this point, we conclude that it is actually Will Folks who is the liar here. Big time.  How this political scum bag shows his face anywhere in SC after this mess, I don't know.  And if Nikki becomes Governor, well, payback is a you know what and Folks will have it coming in spades.  He won't be the only one on the waitlist to receive his can of political whoop ass either. Another moron, lobbyist Larry Merchant, has now come forward to openly claim that he had sex with Haley.Of course, he can't prove his claim either. His connection with Haley's primary opponent, Andre Bauer only makes it stink worse, as Merchant worked as a consultant to Bauer's campaign up until the day before he dropped this massive lie. Bauer is the current Lt. Governor of South Carolina and right about now, the people of SC have got to be thinking they have a massive political scum bag in the job.

South Carolina politics is an open sewer.  On what planet does this kind of free range political malarkey become okay? Political payback is to be expected at this point, but right now, I'm actually looking for Mr. Haley to pay a personal visit to somebody and break off his Timberlands in their back country.  The blatant (and inept) sexism and political cynicism these smear tactics evidence is a damning commentary on what passes for politics in South Carolina.  At this point, if I'm Haley, I think I want some more idiots to come out of the woodwork with bogus claims of affairs because it seems to be doing great things for her gubernatorial chances. If Merchant and Folks are not both steaming piles of political roadkill after this, there is no hope for SC politics.

Update III: Oh, lets add racist BS to the mix too! SC Senator Jake Knots gets in on the Haley pile on by calling Haley and President Obama ragheads in comments to a talk show audience. He's walking it back claiming he was being humorous and was taken out of context. The SC GOP chair has repudiated his comments and the SC Democrats are calling for his resignation.  I actually think its perfectly fair to force him out of office if it comes to that, not so much for the comment as for the insulting excuse that he was not understood correctly by his audience.  That's cowardly.  Be a man and own your BS.

Thinking on the Concept of White Privilege

My virtual blogging friend, intellectual compatriot and all around just cool person Arlene Fenton, author of the currently quiescent blog Black Women Vote, has had occasion recently to point out to me what she considered possible evidence of "white privilege" in operation, in connection with the shocker win by a white sorority in a step contest.  Its not a topic I get into often if at all, but her comments did stay with me and today I came across an explication of the concept of "privilege" that I thought was particularly salient and explanatory.  Oddly enough, it comes from a Hot Air post pushing back on the characterization of Conservatives as closed minded. The salient bits in my mind:

The point is that when one group has privilege, and the other doesn’t, the response isn’t symmetrical, a fact that the dominant group tends to spend a lot of time remarking upon. The out-group is angrier and prizes its group identity–”conservative”–over weaker affiliations like “journalist” or “sociologist.”

That’s why you have black newspapers, and Jewish magazines, and Irish arts centers, but no “Bland: The Magazine of the American White Middle Class.” The dominant group doesn’t enforce its group identity the way the out-group does. It doesn’t have to. It gets to decide what constitute[s] the acceptable modes of behavior, sources of authority, and ways of knowing. The privileged group doesn’t need its own institution specifically devoted to advancing its interests.

Steele: No Longer Relevant

RNC Chairman Michael Steele

I've been critical of Michael Steele from the day he assumed the office of RNC chair. It began on the very day of his election, when asked what message he had for the president and he replied "how do you like me now?" It continued through a disappointing early Esquire magazine interview laced with profanity and reached a new low when he came to Indianapolis, my homebase, for the Young Republican election and encouraged minorities "ya'll come. I got the fried chicken".  It only got worse with nonsensical explanations that it was all strategic.  I certainly wanted him to be successful, but from the very opening bell of his chairmanship, he sounded one false note after another.

Now,  it looks like all of the accumulated, self inflicted damage may be approaching a tipping point.  Steele appears to be merely a figurehead, a political dead man walking. His latest embarrassment is the booty shaking party the RNC recently footed the bill for at a topless bar.  The RNC fired the staffer who approved the expenditure and now comes word that the RNC chief of staff has stepped down.  As aptly observed by Hot Air  "So the chairman with the allegedly slim margin of error is still there but the underling with the wiiiiiide margin of error isn’t?"

Steele indicated near the beginning of his term that his tenure would be judged by elections won and money raised. While the GOP can certainly point to election wins, on the money front,  the GOP's big money donors, worried about spendthrift ways and repeated gaffes, are not only withholding their support from the RNC, but have actually created a shadow RNC operation which has already raised $30 million bucks. Compare that to the Republican National Committee which had only $8.4 million in the bank  in January, compared with the $22.8 million it had on had a year earlier when Steele was elected chairman.

With this development, it seems to me that Steele has become a marginalized and impotent figurehead at the top of the RNC operation.  In the current political climate, its hard to see how the RNC can't  raise the cash to compete in the fall elections.  Although this shadow operation probably has been in the works for some time, Steele's gaffes are the biggest reason the big money donors are walking away from the RNC to alternatives for their money.  When they start raising the money around you, thats a statement that you're not relevant AT ALL.

Steele can't be fired by the party's big money donors since he was elected by a different constituency, the state party chairs. A majority vote of that group is necessary to bounce him out of the job and that seems unlikely on the record before us since they are mostly busy with primaries and state level work, not inside the beltway games.  But when the party elite create fundraising mechanisms that work to funnel millions of dollars around the RNC, effectively cutting Steele out of the serious decision making loop, doesn't this make him the worst sort of token?  The gaffes, the burn rate, the general mismanagement of the GOP message, these are reason enough to permit the creation of a shadow RNC, but not to vote Steele out of office?  The party elite can't fire him and the state chairs don't consider him important enough to pay attention to.  If that's not the definition of irrelevant, I don't know what it is.  The situation leaves room for the interpretation that the GOP doesn't respect the chair enough to look him in the eye and tell him "the job you're doing isn't up to par and we're gonna make a change" in order to avoid the optics of firing a black man.

That's probably too strong. There are good, practical and political reasons not to dump Steele now; with just months to go to November elections and his term ending in January anyway, it would create disarray and havoc on   fundraising and organization in this runup period. The optics would be spun by lamestream media for the racial angle, helped along by Steele's own comments on ABC's "Good Morning America. It would be an enormous distraction and a gift to the Democrats.

Political Season's prediction: Steele will serve out his term and then a new chair will be named to helm the RNC ship.  Steele has said he won't step down under the pressure from party elites.  He's making it clear that he's not their guy.  The 168 state party chairs who's votes are required to bounce him don't appear interested in working up the energy to muster a 2/3 vote to oust him, which suggests that despite the complaints of the party elite and Steele's gaffes, their basic needs are being met by the RNC. 

What do you think? Is there any merit to Steele's claim that his "margin for error" is slimmer than a white chairman's would be? Am I wrong in my analysis to conclude that Steele has now become irrelevant to the shaping of the national political discussion and agenda? Is it an unfair assessment to say that Steele is now more punch line than politico?

Tea Party Protests Unfairly Characterized

Hat tip to Cobb:

If you needed some visual proof that the criticism of Bush from the left during his term was every bit as rabid and unhinged as that directed at Obama now, here's some for you. Those of you on the left that scream the Tea Party movement is made entirely of racially motivated Obama Derangement Syndrome zombies, look at this.  Look at it and OWN IT.  If the signs and the language and the Hitler, fascism, socialism, dictator, freedom destroying comparisons are the measure of irrationality, then you were every bit as unhinged as the Tea Party members you criticize now. 

If you call yourself a member of the Tea Party movement or a conservative and are among the group of people who are quick to point out that the left was crazy in their protests, you can rightly feel vindicated, but you shouldn't feel particularly superior.  Essentially, the standard of political behavior coming out of the GOP right isn't any better. We keep saying "they did it too".   It seems to me we are setting the standard for the quality of political discourse way too low.

Beck on Churches: An Exercise in Stupid

I like the video. Takes the scriptures and pushes them right back in Beck's face.  Its the height of pious BS for Beck to denigrate the mission and work of Christian churches all over the nation trying to minister to God's children.  That he even fixed his mouth to utter this provocative trash strongly suggests to me that his own Christian understanding is perhaps quite suspect.  I have a hard time understanding why anyone who is a practicing believer and active in the body of their own church would issue this nonsense point of view for purposes of being provocative and selling more books and cable air time. Oh, that's why.  I guess I do understand.

Another Steele Fail

Lrey of the Conservative Brotherhood makes a mighty fine point with regard to RNC Chairman Michael Steele and Rush's comments on Haiti, one I had not even considered.  Steele has been happy to jump on the bandwagon regarding Harry Reid's insightful but stupidly permitted to be overhead comments on the Obama campaign, but has not had a word of opprobrium for Limbaugh's race baiting comments (in my opinion) on Haiti, to wit:

RUSH:  "This will play right into Obama's hands. He's humanitarian, compassionate.  They'll use this to burnish their, shall we say, "credibility" with the black community -- in the both light-skinned and dark-skinned black community in this country.

Rush simply can't wait to make the Haiti relief response a race baiting political weapon against Obama, suggesting that this is how he curries favor with minorities.  Its pretty foul. The crassness of the thinking in this little jewel of a comment drew pushback from no less a republican than George Bush:

“We’ve got to deal with the desperation, and there ought to be no politicization of that.”  

Which brings us to Michael Steele.  Where is he? Lrey jumps right in big Mike's grill:

"When he should have stood-up to Limbaugh and held his ground as a person entitled to his intellectual opinion, and holding a formal political office, gained politically, he retreated from the ire of Massa Rush and subordinated himself to a man who holds him in the same regard he holds for black NFL quarterbacks – a necessary and politically correct evil....

Isn’t such retrogressive ignorance worthy of a rebuke by the man charged with making the GOP more inclusive? Steele (and other black “conservatives”) weren’t afraid to challenge Reid on his “negro dialect” comment. Either they stand-up to Limbaugh now or accept being “the negroes that bring him alcohol”, and always and forever be second class citizens in the GOP."

This latest ugly piece of race baiting political invective from Rush comes as little surprise as he likes to take opportunities to use racial subtext to inflame the passions of his audience and tweak the MSM as well. But its the larger point here that Lrey makes that is relevant to my mind, which is that for a party leader who talks the talk of making the party more inclusive, he needs to walk the walk.  Not happening, not gonna happen.

Charter Schools: Why Republicans Can’t Make This Issue A Winner ......

Thats the answer that Vladimir posits a question to in a post at Redstate (the conservative blog that would swiftly ban me for this point of view...if they hadn't already). Vladimir asks a question that really should be examined by the GOP as a party and conservatives as a movement, namely why don't we make any headway with this issue with blacks? He points out....

The conservative solution is demonstrably the better solution. And it doesn’t take a generation to prove it. Republicans do a lot of hand wringing, trying to figure out how to make the Republican Party and conservative governance relevant to the minority community.  Charter schools are a way to do it without pandering.


I completely agree with the above statement. Nonetheless, conservatives get nowhere with the black community on this.  Commenters on the issue at Redstate respond with a variety of excuses: its because the constituency that benefits most (poor and working class urban blacks) are not swing voters, or the GOP is made up of moderates with no passion for the issue and some other equally lame ideas.

As is depressingly the case when talking about the GOP and blacks, everybody keeps ducking the real issue and consequently, it never gets addressed. Republicans make no traction with minority communities with charter school initiatives because as a party, the GOP has not made a decision that it considers blacks a necessary or essential political constituency to its aspirations for governance.


The political constituency that most benefits from pushing charter schools as a political strategy are urban, black voters and the GOP has demonstrated no true interest in making inroads with this group. The GOP would be hard pressed to reconcile its manifest disinterest in this group politically with an agressive effort to advance a charter school education agenda, because it would mean championing the interests of blacks.

The GOP certainly has the conservative platform from which to do this, with education and charter schools being an excellent launch point. But we get no value or traction from this excellent advantage we have because as a party, we have yet to decide that we are serious about engaging blacks as a political constituency. Its like fighting with one hand behind your back and its stupid.

GOP's NY-23 Defeat Points the Way to Win Blacks & Latino's to the Conservative Cause

Dave G's NY-23 post mortem nails the broad political lesson:

What this shows is that neither running as Democrats-lite nor as talk-radio-style anarcho-conservatives will win the future for the GOP. What will yield a Republican comeback in 2010 and beyond is the McDonnell/Christie model, where Republican candidates ideologically appropriate for their states and districts run as pragmatic conservatives who are solutions-oriented and who are running to apply their conservatism to public problems. This is the type of Republicanism that can win, and it did win in purple Virginia and blue New Jersey. It did so by contrasting a GOP that was optimistic and problem-solving yet distinctly conservative with a corrupt, interest-group-friendly, tax-and-spend leftist establishment. This is the model that Republicans should emulate, not the Rockefeller-esque model of Dede nor the Palin/Beck model of Hoffman.

The above is completely on point and totally tracks with my attitude about the purpose of being a conservative in the first instance (superior problem solving to address the needs of our respective communities and country). It also tracks almost perfectly with what is required of the GOP to win blacks and latinos to its banner and the conservative cause, namely, ideologically and operationally superior solution sets and optimistic problem solving conservatism applied to the public problems of black and latino political constituencies.

GOP: Your "Witness" is Weak

On a sadly periodic and almost predictably routine basis, the GOP give me reason to question why I bother to call myself a republican, albeit a reluctant one. Perhaps its simply my way of being contrarian, to provoke a conversation in my one man crusade to talk sense to black folk.

I think conservative principles are better as an underlying ideology for policy making. The GOP however are a sorry set of representatives for those principles. Especially when it comes to the party's messaging to blacks. Party leadership and rank and file often posit the problem as one of communication, that the GOP message is just not getting properly received. I'm sorry, its more fundamental than that. The GOP , from rank and file to its leadership, seems increasingly, almost inexorably, drawn to political appeals crafted in a ways that are covertly and overtly hostile to blacks and other minorities.

Case in point, the recent election of Audra Shay as the head of the Young Republicans of America (which took place here in Indianapolis). Ms. Shay found her candidacy for the post embroiled in controversy after co-signing the racist comments of her face book friend Eric Piker, who referred to blacks in general as "coons". When some other folks in her FB circle called out Piker for the reference and her for co-signing it, she banished them from her friends list, but kept Piker and his racial epithets in her circle. Hours later, after booting the people who criticized the racist talk, Piker was still a friend and making comments on her wall about how he was a southern boy and if you were black, the sun better not set on you in a southern town.

A lot of folks are calling Shay a racist. I've argued many times that the term has become useless for political discourse as its been so carelessly overused. I'm prepared to eschew tagging Shay with the racist label. In fact, its more instructive if we don't. Because then the issue becomes more interesting to me, namely that I want to understand Ms. Shay's behavior. Lets take her explanation at face value, that she was responding to his earlier comment, not the coon thing. At some point though, she saw it. Why did it take other people pointing it out before she said anything? Why did she boot the people who called it out instead of the author? In short, if no one had said anything, she would have been cool with that conversation. Why is that? What made any of it okay? Thats what I want an explanation about. Thats the explanation I want to hear from a person who is now leadership for the young republicans nationwide. Why are GOP rank and file so oblivious and tone deaf to this sort of thing? This incident was not subtle nor nuanced and Shay could not manage the right response.

The other case in point that to me is indicative of the attitude towards blacks within a significant portion of the GOP's vocal and ascendant far right rank and file is the hot mess of despicable and derogatory commentary aimed at Malia Obama by posters at the blog Free Republic because she wore a shirt with a peace symbol on it during the trip to Russia. My fellow blogger in arms, Shay of Booker Rising took them to task "for calling the 11-year-old things like "a typical street whore" and "ghetto street trash" after she wore a peace sign T-shirt in Italy (they also said U.S. First Lady Michelle Obama was doing "monkey chants" when she had a fun moment with Malia)"

The Freepers are decrying the criticism as planted comments from liberals, but thats a joke and its really pathetic of them to make the claim. Free Republic, like Redstate, also practices banning people who don't share their point of view, a practice that would be defensible to the charge of cowardice but for the fact that both sites will ban you for the mildest of divergence from their particular brand of conservative orthodoxy as evidenced by the continuing string of Redstate refugees washing up on our shores here.

Another sign of the times in this regard is simply the quite casual way in which rank and file conservatives on the right will engage in commentary that is clearly rich with racially inflammatory language and feel as though its perfectly okay and justified I guess by the First Amendment and their general anger over the Obama administration's outrages. Here's an example from blogger and Twitter user Conservative Gal:

ConservativeGal
I received my stimulus package yesterday. It contained watermelon seeds, cornbread mix, & 10 coupons 2 KFC. The directions were in Spanish.
2 days ago from web

I responded to her about this tweet and said I thought it was foul and did not communicate goodwill and that got me hit with some name calling and plain old hostility, which is okay, this is the internet. But this sort of thing is again indicative of my broader point, that the GOP from rank and file on up, has not made a decision that blacks are a political constituency it is actually interested in having be a part of its coalition (or latinos for that matter). Conservative Gal's response to me when I said this was foul was hostility. She didn't stop and think about what she had said, whether or not it was cool, whether or not it would be considered racially offensive or inflammatory. Think of it in terms of the concept of Christian witness. If you're a Christian, you are expected to witness Christ with your life and behavior, such that people who observe you will be drawn to Christ because they see Christ's principles at work in your life. Well, likewise the GOP needs to consider its political witness. Would a person observing this behavior and rhetoric be drawn to your cause? This comment is a bad witness and worse, it was retweeted like mad all over the place.

Members of the GOP like Conservative Gal would do well to keep this idea of witness in mind. When leadership and rank and file GOP members use or cosign this kind of rhetoric so casually and attack people who call them on it, it communicates nothing but hostility and worse to blacks. I'm NOT saying Conservative Gal is a racist. She may have black friends (hell, even family), she may have nothing but wonderful interactions with blacks that she comes in contact with personally, I don't know. But this kind of comment she made is not funny. Its not helpful to the cause of political dialogue except among those who think this is funny. It does not help in winning the hearts and minds of blacks and latinos to the GOP and a comment like that causes blacks and latinos to wonder if the members of the GOP care if they come at all (much dap to her on her 8,000+ Twitter followers though, she rocks there).

The GOP's "witness" to blacks and latinos is consistently really poor (my examples above case in point), enough so that one can reasonably question whether or not they have any true interest in minorities as political constituencies at all.

UPDATE I: Routine and predictable, I swear. Weak GOP political witness in action. Republicans figure the way to win hearts and minds is to talk about the President's momma? To talk about a Supreme Court Justice's momma?



There is also a crappy little racial subtext assumption here that poor black women are just waiting for a government program that will finance killing their babies. Can we pick a stereotype for pete's sake. Either we are sexually promiscuous irresponsible baby killers, or welfare mother baby making economic leeches. This kind of stuff is simply continuing proof that the GOP has no real interest in blacks as a political constituency. Dollars to donuts, you won't hear a mumbling word from Michael Steele.

UPDATE II: Hat tip Electronic Village. Another conservative official has been busted sending racist e-mails. This time, the culprit is Atwater, CA Councilman Gary Frago, who sent at least half-a-dozen racist, anti-Obama e-mails to Atwater staff and community members:

Some compared Obama to O.J. Simpson while others suggested that “n[*****] rigs” should now be called “presidential solutions.”

Perhaps the most overboard e-mail was sent on Jan. 15. It read: “Breaking News Playboy just offered Sarah Palin $1 million to pose nude in the January issue. Michelle Obama got the same offer from National Geographic.”

Frago admitted sending the e-mails, but showed no regret. “If they’re from me, then I sent them,” he said. “I have no disrespect for the president or anybody, they weren’t meant in any bad way or harm.”

When given an opportunity to explain himself, Frago somehow managed to dig himself a deeper hole by saying: “I don’t see where there’s a story, I’m not the only one that does it. … I didn’t originate them, they came to me and I just passed them on.”

Stewart Pokes Fun at the Right's Tin Foil Hat Set

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	M - Th 11p / 10c
Baracknophobia - Obey
thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Economic Crisis Political Humor

The very conservative now hate Jon Stewart with a passion, but the guy is funny (to me) and knows how to make a point with comedy. His scoffing at the right on the "Obama is Hitler" meme is on point.

Levi & Bristol: The Young and Stupid Leaking the Air out of the Palin Ballon

Levi Johnston recently went on the Tyra Banks show to talk about his relationship with Bristol Palin. On the show he admitted that he didn't always practice safe sex with Bristol and that he believed Sarah Palin knew they were having sex.

He was accompanied on the show by his mother and sister. As I recall, Mom Johnston is facing several drug related felony counts. So this is just an interesting family.

Right Wing News really took exception to Levi's interview. They said it was evidence of no class and I'm inclined to agree. Though I would cut the kid some slack in that he is young and stupid and his family does not appear to win any awards for great responsibility or intelligence either.

Bristol issued a statement in response to the interview:

"Bristol did not even know Levi was going on the show. We're disappointed that Levi and his family, in a quest for fame, attention, and fortune, are engaging in flat-out lies, gross exaggeration, and even distortion of their relationship," says the statement from the Palin family rep, Meghan Stapleton. "Bristol's focus will remain on raising Tripp, completing her education, and advocating abstinence,"

Advocating abstinence? Uh uh, I don't think so.

VAN SUSTEREN: I don't want to pry to personally, but I mean, actually, contraception is an issue here. Is that something that you were just lazy about or not interested, or do you have a philosophical or religious opposition to it or...


BRISTOL: No. I don't want to get into detail about that. But I think abstinence is, like -- like, the -- I don't know how to put it -- like, the main -- everyone should be abstinent or whatever, but it's not realistic at all.

I wouldn't suggest that a teenage unwed mother can't be an advocate for abstinence, though frankly, thats not my first choice to deliver such a message. But just like republicans are questioning whether or not Michael Steele's words of apology to Rush are to be believed after he said that his gaffe was "strategic", similar skepticism can be applied to this statement from Bristol given her interview with Van Susteren.

The continuing tabloid like saga of Bristol Palin is proof positive of the tremendous political mistake it was to use Bristol and her pregnancy to highlight Sarah Palin's conservative values. Because fundamentally, the picture it painted of Palin's family increasingly appears to be a falsehood. Levi suggested that Palin actually let the two of them sleep in the same bedroom on at least one occasion. If thats true, that reflects on Palin's judgment in a way that I dont' see how you can clean it up or square it with conservative moral values. Bristol is young and foolish, so the fact that she has a poorly formed commitment to abstinence is no revelation.

On the right, there is always this spirited defense of Sarah Palin based in part on her representation of superior conservative values, but this tabloid tale lets the wind out of that balloon. Conservative social values and mores are indeed superior, but Palin's family dynamics don't make her a superior example of them. She was put forward by the McCain campaign and now by the conservative movement as an icon of superior family values, but if you do that and the reality is really less than the representation, the man in the street will rightly question if any of the billing is on point.

Trading in the Currency of Black Irrationality

I consider myself a man of conservative views and a reluctant republican. I believe conservative ideology and principles to be superior to those which underpin the Democratic party. That's why I became a republican. I believe GOP implementation of those conservative ideals and principles is sorely lacking. That's what makes me reluctant.

I disagree quite strongly with black conservatives who give credence to the idea that black voter loyalty to the democrats is essentially a product of mass delusion and brain washing by the democratic party. In this meme, the democratic party is like a cult and blacks are weak minded children mesmerized by a pied piper.

LaShawn Barber kicks it this way:

Democrats consistently get 90 percent of the black vote. Why? Years of damage caused by liberal ideology and misinformation pumped into the black community for the past 25 years.

This train of thought posits a black community essentially too stupid and deluded by others to evaluate the parties on what they deliver and how they deliver it. She asks the following question:

So why did large numbers of blacks switch from voting for Republicans to voting for Democrats?

And gives this non answer to it:

Some say it was President John F. Kennedy’s perceived sensitivity to the oppression of minorities that endeared him and his party to black Americans.

I think this non answer is disingenuous, and the entire argument a species of falsehood. Its perpetuating a myth of black idiocy and irrationality while avoiding talking about GOP messaging and tactics. The GOP, on issues like law and order and affirmative action, has engaged in messaging tactics intended to pit its base against blacks. It has intentionally used wedge messaging, at times with racial undertones, to gain political advantage. Blacks have reacted accordingly by shifting their support to democrats. While it is true that democratic policies have not yielded their promised benefits, it is decidedly incorrect to characterize black engagement with democrats as proof positive that we are not rational political actors. This argument is almost religiously advanced by the right to justify non engagement with blacks, and deflects discussion away from the fact that the GOP has decided that blacks are not a political constituency essential to its aspirations for governance, and acts accordingly.

LaShawn, as conservatives to the right are wont to do, reminds her readers about blacks historical engagement with the GOP at a time when democrats were the party of Jim Crow. This is usually cited as support for the argument that blacks should return to the party of Lincoln (who would have left blacks in chains if it had served his purposes in saving the union), which always prompts me to retort "that was then, this is now". She goes beyond the myth of black political irrationality to cite lingering black memories of government's positive role in Reconstruction, desegregation and the New Deal as a more fundamental reason for black disaffection with the GOP. She posits that it is those memories that make us resistant to the GOP's message of distrust for government. The argument is a bit squishy and psycho babbilish in a way, but its a reasonable opinion. I find fault with LaShawn's view however, because it does not call to account the GOP's political practice at all. This discussion in her view seems to only revolve around black political irrationality (a position I reject) with no analysis or discussion of GOP behavior. In other words, Barber excoriates us for our behavior, and gives the GOP a pass for theirs. Behavior predicated on a calculus she readily admits:

....Republicans can win elections without the black vote; Democrats can’t.

A calculus by the way that demographic change in the United States will render obsolete between now and 2040.

GOP Civil War: The Battle Is Joined

Think Progress » Gingrich Strikes Back At Limbaugh: ‘You’re Irrational If You Don’t Want The President To Succeed’

Conservative defenders of Rush are quick to point out that the clear intent of Rush's words are that he wants liberalism to fail, that he wants what he considers socialist policies to fail. Even Hughley, on his now canceled CNN show, acknowledged this in the ill fated discussion that got Michael Steele sent out to Rush's woodshed for some ideological correction. Gingrich is intentionally ignoring that distinction and picking a fight with Limbaugh.

I actually think this is a positive development. It is not a good thing for republicans to allow Rush to set the tone of the political discourse at his level. Rush disdains bipartisanship and demonizes not only liberals, but anyone who does not agree with conservatives ideology as he sees it. He's enormously disrespectful in his discourse and his comments on blacks which are particularly relevant to me, are too often over the line. At a very simple level, it is simply not smart for the GOP to permit an entertainer who is accountable to not a single voter nor bears responsibility for a single policy decision, to be the shaper of the debate for the heart and soul of the party or how it conceives its national strategy. Rush has become a bit of an outsized voice supposedly representing the opinion of a large number of voters, but thats really a dangerous way to respond to him. Rush's views are just that.... Rush's views. He happens to have a very huge megaphone.

Gingrich intentially interprets Rush here as wanting the President to fail, not simply his policies, and calls him irrational. Them's definitely fighting words from a conservative voice that is as well recognized as Rush. For my money, I'll pay more attention to Gingrich, for a very basic reason. Unlike Rush, Gingrich speaks from a position of having been accountable to voters and having held a position of responsibility for policy decisions and conducting the people's business. That makes him in my book, more credible than an entertainer who will never place himself in a position of accountability for policy decisions.