Rick Santorum Surges in Iowa with Stereotypes of Lazy Blacks Taking Welfare Out of White People's Pockets

How you think the brother "working" the camera behind him liked that?

Rick Santorum has been riding a real surge in Iowa over the last few days, moving into striking distance of being in the top three finishers out there in the caucuses.  He's been putting in work the old fashioned way, visiting every single county in the state, doing small group meetings one after the other and talking to the voters.

Campaigning isn't the only thing Santorum is apparently doing the old fashioned way. Using stereotypes of blacks as a convenient shorthand to illustrate the ills of America as white voters see it is another way that Rick is demonstrating his old school campaign chops. At a campaign stop in Sioux City Iowa, a voter asks Santorum: "how do we get off this crazy train? We've got so much foreign influence in this country now," adding "where do we go from here?"

Santorum's answer perhaps started with foreign influence but rambled over to the subject of government creating dependency and he apparently reached into his campaign communication bag of tricks for the most easily relatable and easy to understand illustration of that issue he could think of on the fly: black people:

Notice how he basically defaulted to this stereotyped racially based meme in trying to communicate with a room full of white folks?  Check the pause as he was trying to find an illustration of his point about dependency.  He needed that illustration right then, something that would resonate with a room full of white people and where did his brain go in that moment? Black people.

With his numbers surging in Iowa, Santorum is perhaps poised to be the next of the Not Romney's to rise in the polls and get a more serious look.  I was certainly willing to pay him some more attention, as I've got real respect for a guy who hits the ground and pounds the pavement like he's been doing in Iowa.  But unless Santorum gives a far more insightful, honest answer to the question of why he defaulted to "blacks" as the best illustration for his point regarding dependency on government, he's effectively blown any serious future look from me irregardless of what he says.  When asked directly about why he talked about blacks, he ducked and dodged.




I'm sorry, but his response is not gonna cut it with me.  We'll see if any other media ask him to speak to the issue.  I think it would be an interesting exercise to ask the other candidates to assess those remarks as well.  No one is gonna do it, but I'm already certain that one or more of them would likely double down on it if they were asked.

Here's what he said:

"It just keeps expanding - I was in Indianola a few months ago and I was talking to someone who works in the department of public welfare here, and she told me that the state of Iowa is going to get fined if they don't sign up more people under the Medicaid program. They're just pushing harder and harder to get more and more of you dependent upon them so they can get your vote. That's what the bottom line is. I don't want to make black people's lives better by giving them somebody else's money; I want to give them the opportunity to go out and earn the money and provide for themselves and their families. The best way to do that is to get the manufacturing sector of the economy rolling again." 

There is a lot to object to in Santorum's statement;

Context: he's in Iowa, in a room full of white people, in a state in which about 3% of the population is black, using "blacks" to illustrate the problem of government dependency.
 

Implicit assumptions: To illustrate his point about government dependency, he plays to a stereotype that the majority of blacks are dependent on government welfare.  He just says "blacks".  He doesn't qualify it or limit it in anyway, presumably because he doesn't have to.  Everyone in the room will immediately understand and agree with his implicit assumption that most blacks are on welfare.

This is a guy who's response to Howard Dean saying diversity was a strength of America was that talking about our diversity is divisive.  Yet, here, he plays to racial resentment by implicitly suggesting that "blacks" are being given white people's money, money which the government took from hard working white people to give to lazy blacks. He wants to give us "blacks" the opportunity to go out and earn the money and provide for ourselves, I guess because all us shiftless lazy Negroes don't work to take care of ourselves. Those are the implicit assumptions behind his statement.  Its offensive.  Its untrue.  We've been called lazy for hundreds of years.   When we were forced to work for free as slaves in the fields on pain of death, they called us lazy. It was not true then.  Its not true now.

His statements and the assumptions behind them are pretty offensive.  "Blacks" are on welfare.  All of us.  Now of course, the out he and others will use to justify labeling blacks as welfare parasites, if he's even asked, is to say "what I was really referring to is that a larger percentage of blacks are on welfare relative to their share of the population compared to whites".  Right?   Wrong. What is welfare?  I say welfare is any government financial assistance that is received but not earned, that taxes one group to support another group, meaning it's pay-as-you-go and not a contributory scheme where people's own savings pay their  benefits and lastly Congress can alter benefits to reflect changing needs, economic conditions and politics.  That being the case, welfare comes in many forms besides public assistance that goes to poor black people, like for example the subsidies we pay farmers NOT to farm or even better, Social Security, which is definitely welfare.  Those programs are breaking the bank and even more interesting, the majority of those benefits go to people who are not the same color as me. But Santorum doesn't have a problem with welfare payments where the benefits go primarily to white people. If welfare and government dependence are really the big issues, lets talk about all of it; why do you get in a room with other white people, start talking about welfare and single out black recipients? How do you justify such divisive talk on the campaign trail, even as you claim to be all about our equality and our common citizenship? Its racebaiting, and what makes it really insidious and repugnant in this instance is the routine nature of it.  That particular meme of black dependency on government is a standard staple of political discourse on the right, certainly within its more conservative wings, even though its not supported by the facts. Its a racial lie that has been perpetuated in just the way Santorum spreads it here.

Nobody in that room of good Iowa voters in there challenged that.  Indeed, Santorum got applause for those remarks, so clearly there were a significant number of the voters in that room who completely agreed with those comments.  Rick Santorum is a darling of the Tea Party, regarded as a consistent conservative after their own hearts.  He's the darling of aTea Party that vehemently denies any allegation that it is racially biased in any way whatsoever. Well,  here is an opportunity for the Tea Party to actually demonstrate its regard for African Americans as equal citizens worthy of the basic consideration of not being blanketly described as lazy, welfare parasites leeching the money of hard working white folks.  Repudiate these statements of Santorum's.  Publicly state that they are wrong and divisive. Demand that he apologize for them.  I'm not gonna hold my breath.  And if you're a Tea Party member and think these statements are okay, then I'm gonna tell you that you and the Tea Party do have racial bias when it comes to race if you buy into the stereotypes and assumptions implicit in Santorum's statements.

I'm betting that no one in the Tea Party movement will decry these statements or even criticize them in any but the most namby pamby of ways.  I'm betting none of his fellow candidates will say squat about these comments or take the opportunity to hammer him with them in political attack ads (though well they should).  On the contrary, to the extent anyone else in the party speaks to the comments, I'm betting they will either soft pedal their critique or more likely and worse, they will try to explain, using statistics, how blacks are heavily dependent on government welfare and that Santorum's comments are really accurate. But the facts are quite the opposite.  Whites receive far more welfare benefits than blacks.  Saying anything else is simply a divisive racially biased lie.  Unless of course you're Rick Santorum on the campaign trail in Iowa looking to get nice white conservative voters on your team. 

GOP Post Debate Impressions

I've now had the opportunity to watch the entire debate video.  You have no idea how maddening it was to find that CNN's Adobe Flash powered live streaming would not play on my Touchpad, especially since this was the first debate where the candidates really mixed it up.  Here are my quick impressions on how folks did:

Perry: Clearly, he had to show some more energy and life in this debate and he did manage to do that. That's the positive.  On the down side, he seems to be a bit of a one trick pony in terms of debate strategies. He hit Romney hard with the illegal alien issue and returned to it later in the debate, but I'm unsure what that gets him going forward.  He got it off, but seems to me that's only good for one debate, at best two.  You gotta have something more beyond that.  Perhaps its useful if it serves to drive up Romney's negatives, but I'm actually not sure there is a lot of ground to be made there, since with Romney polling in the 25% range, his negatives seem to be already priced into his standing with the conservative electorate.  He's going to have to do more than remind people that Romney is a squishy conservative, he's gotta show he's got some better ideas.  Verdict: Potentially arrests his slide, but didn't gain any ground or seriously damage Romney.

Romney: It wasn't his smoothest performance.  When challenged, he got a bit manic and stammery, but by and large managed to keep his composure and fire back.  He backed Newt down and made him admit that he supported an individual mandate and managed to rhetorically answer Perry's charges with a nice soft on immigration hit of his own relative to the magnet effect of Perry's in state tuition subsidies for illegal aliens.  There were some displays of chinks in the facade, but he recovered decently and you can bet the next debate in November he's going to be ready for those attacks both defensively and with offensive hits at the ready in response. UPDATE: Erikson at RedState points out a couple of slips I noted too but neglected to mention, namely, Romney saying he didn't get the job done in MA on bringing health care costs down and his not so flattering slip that when he confronted that mowing company about employing illegals, he was seemingly most concerned about how it would look, him being a public official and all. Erikson has another post up today noting the Obamaesque qualities of Mitt. If I was Perry, I'd start playing that card now, though he's got some Bushesque qualities of his own that may turn folks off.  If Romney and Perry start effectively dealing each other body blows, Cain could be the beneficiary with a little game raising on his part. Verdict: Bled a little, showed some chinks that could be exploited, but no real damage to momentum and he can recover.

Cain:  I expected to see some major action come his way on 999, and came it did.  Cain did okay, but I think he lost a bit of the momentum that 999 has given him. You can tell people they don't understand the plan a time or two, but at some point when pressed with specific objections, you should come prepared to back up your assertion that they don't get it.  Cain did some of this, but not nearly enough, for example when Romney challenged him on specifics about what people would pay.  This was Cain's golden opportunity to illuminate the plan for voters and push back on his opponents, but he kept talking apples and oranges.  Cain is a mathematician and has the intellectual chops to engage in an explanatory debate (see this video of him taking on Bill Clinton, wonk extraordinaire in the 80's on health care).  He's got to display that again to make the case on 999.  Its not as simple as he says, and he has not convincingly rebutted the assertions of his opponents that its not hideously regressive.  Cain has also got some Obama type qualities of his own, namely lack of experience in the world of government. Its not the same as business.  He's a decision maker from the business world.  Maybe thats enough, maybe its not.  Either way, he's got to raise his campaign game about 5 notches right now if he wants to maintain top tier candidate status.  Fundraising, organization and get that brain/mouth filter problem fixed to control those negotiate with terrorists gaffes. Verdict: We still predict that Cain will NOT be the nominee and his performance under fire underscores one reason why: he's not doing enough to make the case for the date he brought to the party, 999.

Bachman: She's largely disappeared from relevance in the debate and she is rapidly losing mind share.  The woman is not particularly imaginative and 5 debates in, she should be laying out more clearly what her vision for the country is beyond "Kill Obamacare".  There is a lot more to the gig. While she's consistently hitting her themes, she doesn't sound like she knows more beyond the basic talking points she hits all the time. You can't keep going to that well every debate.  She also blew another hole in her credibility by referencing anchor babies.  Its a nice red meat topic and lends itself well to that audience, but its been looked into and its bunk.

Santorum: Raised his mindshare a bit this time around with a good challenge to Romney about health care and noting that his opponents supported TARP, including the "businessmen" Cain and Romney. Is there more to the guy than just being combative is what I want to know and so far, I have not seen it yet.

Gingrich: Not going to win, appreciate the intellectual gravitas he brings to the stage. People say veep potential, but I'm not sure Newt would take that job.

Ron Paul: Doesn't stand a chance, but is usually coming with interesting comments and its great to see somebody on the stage who seems genuinely passionate in their beliefs, not merely political, even if some of the stuff they go for seems nutty.

Related articles

• Perry is still my favorite Not-Romney candidate (bokertov.typepad.com)
• Cain, The Big Winner (conservativetickler.wordpress.com)
• Brutal new Romney ad: Rick Perry's a moron (hotair.com)
• Who won the Vegas fight? (hotair.com)
• Four takeaways from the GOP debate in Las Vegas (csmonitor.com)

The Palin Emails: Spare me the outrage on the right

Palin has willingly and quite skillfully made herself more political celebrity than serious politico.  Therefore, she gets the celebrity treatment from media, which is to shower its readers with lowest common denominator material like pawing through her emails.  While the claims of liberal media bias have a ring of truth to them, spare me the outrage.  Palin has cannily cashed in on her prominence with a rabid and vocal fan base and she shows no sign of stopping. She's milking it all for purposes of maintaining her political prominence.  Aside from raising/making money and operating as a political celebrity cum gadfly, what is there to be so impressed with?  Had she not been plucked from obscurity by a desperate and now failed McCain campaign, would anyone actually be talking about Sarah Palin on the national stage? I doubt it. I'll be impressed when she puts herself out there as a serious candidate, not before.  Note that APS is on record as predicting she will not run.

The Idiocy of "Enslavement" Rhetoric by Conservatives

I long for the day when conservatives/republicans will discontinue the rhetorical soft bigotry of low expectations where the voting allegiance of the black electorate is concerned.  I got into a running debate on Facebook with other conservatives about how best to argue the conservative case to all sectors of the black electorate. While I blew my portion of the argument as to their characterization of the black electorate, I had a real point to make where the language they use is concerned. Way too many conservatives use rhetoric of this sort:

The enslavement of the African people of this nation by the Dumbacrat party has been weighting heavily on my heart for a few months now

There are those who do not have a reasoned basis for their behavior. They believe what they are told by other Democrats, whether it's true or false. In effect they are enslaved by misinformation.


  I see now the some disenfranchisement of the African American Democrat voters as the party starts to chase the ever growing Hispanic vote. As I keep looking at this situation in our society I keep seeing very similar tactics being used now as was done to the slaves in the south. The brutality is not there but, the strategy is similar. For instance the education of inner city kids is horrible. The slaves were not allowed to read. Not the same, but similar having much of the same result.

This is not the rhetoric you use to win the black electorate. Attempting to reach blacks, poor or otherwise, with an argument that says "hey, you are being fooled, bamboozled and enslaved by a conspiracy of liberal democrats" is a LOSER approach. Why? Because you're telling them they are VICTIMS again! Its condescending and disempowering and the exact opposite of what conservatives have often complained was a culture of victimhood within the black community as it relates to racism. This is the argument we should use  to persuade blacks to the conservative banner? That they should trade one ideology of victimization for  another? America is a country that believes in the individual, in personal merit and being responsible for one's own self and one's own choices, but with this liberal democrat conspiracy argument, you take away all the responsibility and power of choice and place it in the hands of some vast left wing conspiracy.
 
I believe the black electorate to be completely and totally capable of CHOOSING more conservative policy prescriptions which are thoughtfully brought forward to our community and I submit that as conservatives/GOP, we do not attempt this in any serious way. It is not a serious approach to the deep and troubling issues in the black community to tell them the answer is to throw off the yoke of the vast left wing conspiracy. The answer is to bring forward policy prescriptions that address the issues and put them into action.
 
The church provides a good analogy for what conservatives ought to be doing. In the church, there are missions, where people go out to the lost and live among them, addressing the very real issues they deal with and by making a difference in their lives, their communities, create a heart receptive to the Word and thereby an opportunity to win the lost. In that same fashion, conservatives must go into the black community as political and policy missionaries, making a difference and thereby creating the opportunity to win this portion of the electorate. Trying to convince them they are merely victims of a liberal conspiracy is not a winning argument; showing them a better policy approach that solves the political and policy challenges in their lives t is.

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.

This is the candidate for Agriculture Commissioner.......?

Who's running for Governor in Alabama.....The Hulk?  Hat tip Booker Rising

Dale Peterson scores points for breaking through the clutter. Only misstep in the ad is the end.  He needed a more dramatic exit.  Its an attention getter though.

Black People, Stop Calling the C-SPAN Republican line

This is just really funny to me. I could not help but chuckle when I listened to it.  I can't even get mad at the caller. He wasn't raving and I don't think you can read his comments as anti-black necessarily with the exception of that "blackspan" bit (still kinda funny).  That was a little on the edge of being racially nasty.  But basically, he was mad because black people are calling in on the GOP and independent line, crowding out the white folks, when 90% of black folks support Obama, which he accurately points out with the Jesus reference. So this guy calls in to appeal to the C-SPAN moderators to fix this problem of these black folks calling in on the wrong lines, so he can get a word in edgewise. Fair is fair black people.
Stop frontin on the wrong lines. Don't call in on the GOP and independent lines if you ain't one, so your fellow GOP citizens can have their say too.

The First Amendment is for People

The Court ruling in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission got it wrong.  Quite seriously wrong. I have a law degree, but my objection to this ruling isn't based on some tremendous erudition as it relates to constitutional law.  No, my objections are more basic and common sense.

The Court's decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission  enhances the concept of the corporation as a "person" with First Amendment rights which must be respected, meaning that corporate entities may not have limitations placed on their political "speech".  Corporations are free to spend any amount of money to advance their interests via political speech in elections and within our political discourse in general.  This is an expansion of the "personhood" of corporations.

This is a terrible decision and clearly puts the lie to the oft touted conservative approach to the law this group of conservative justices is supposed to have. This is an activist decision..   A corporation is a person entitled to unfettered political speech to support or defeat candidates in elections in the furtherance of their corporate interests? There is a disconnect here. These  corporate "persons' can't actually vote in an election. They can't be sent to fight and die to defend these expanded "personhood" rights the Court has now conferred on them. Only flesh and blood persons can do those things. That seems to me a more than adequate rationale to justify restricting the First Amendment rights of corporations, to support censoring them in any fashion which society deems appropriate.

I am a human being, endowed by my Creator with certain inalienable rights. Human beings create corporations. They are a product of us, subservient to us, as we are subservient to our Creator. But the Supreme Court has now elevated the political speech of these artificial entities and declared that speech to have value and merit equal to that of flesh and blood human beings. It"s ridiculous. Why stop there I wonder? Why not simply grant corporations the franchise? Is not the vote speech? The Court has taken the concept of the "personhood" of corporations and expanded it in an absurd manner.

Were I to remake the world to my liking, only flesh and blood, living human beings would be permitted to donate money to a campaign. If you can't vote in an election, or can't fight and die for your country, because you're not human, then I don't think you have any business contributing to candidates or backing issues in elections.

The Supreme Court missed in a very fundamental way a basic truth about our nation's founding. The First Amendment, indeed the entire Constitution, is a document written for human beings, not our artificial constructs. The First Amendment is for people.

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.

Steele, for the Love of God, Stop Signifying

I've blogged before about the racial chip that seems to exist on the shoulders of Michael Steele. You know, the one that manifests itself in the repeated use of "in da hood" slang in what I used to think was a half witted attempt to simultaneously keep it real with blacks and reassure whites that his election to RNC chair makes them hip and with it, but what I now believe is a manifestation of Steele's anger at the way the GOP dismisses blacks as an unnecessary political constituency for engagement.

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 Indiana for the Young Republican election and encouraged minorities "ya'll come. I got the fried chicken".

You've heard me on this before: why in God's name is a sixty something year old grown black man with a law degree from Georgetown finding it so hard to use the Queen's English on the regular? I'd like to say Steele has eased off this really annoying bad habit, but alas, I cannot.

Steele and company at the RNC just rolled out the new GOP. com website, complete with video of a miniature talking Michael Steele welcoming you in. Among other things, the new site sports a blog written by Steele himself. What does he title it: WHAT UP. Yes, I kid you not.

This frosts my cookies on two fronts: #1. I can't understand why he feels the need to remind people that he is black in this specific way, i.e., the use of slang and vernacular. It doesn't contribute to him being better understood or to putting people at ease or anything like that in my view. I've concluded that he continues to do this for the psychic benefit of thumbing his blackness in the party's eye, because he is angry (as he should be) at the way the GOP ignores blacks as a political constituency. This is the sort of passive aggressive way that he expresses that, since I guess he is simply not going to press his party to grow in this area. To be fair, he really can't.

Its worth noting (and to his credit) that even a stalwart, solid conservative commentator like Ed Morrisey at Hot Air acknowledges this reality, even if he doesn't acknowledge the scope of the fail. "the GOP has not put out much effort in talking sense to black voters and explaining conservative principles in the context of their lives. They should be focused on effective outreach, not slang-titled blogs that sound more patronizing than welcoming."

#2. It makes my head want to explode because in addition to using annoying slang like this, its like half the slang. If you gonna title the blog this way, then you need to go all the way and call it "Was Up", not "What Up". I mean it sounds like a preppie nerd from an uppercrust private boarding school trying to emulate gangster behavior to say it like that. Just annoying, especially out of the mouth of an over 60, balding black man with a law degree from Georgetown.

After a mountain of justly deserved ridicule, Steele and company have renamed the blog "Change the Game". Thats better

If you have not learned this lesson yet, learn it now. Cut the signifying Steele. Engage your party on the issue thats bugging you and stop this passive aggressive behavior. If you're not going to make the party grapple with it and confront it, then just accept it and move on.

The Obamacare Logo: Wince

Its easy to see how Limbaugh could compare it with a Nazi swastika. If you are politically opposed to the Obama administration, this imagery is easily perceived as sinister and big brotherish. Its a little too much like a visual representation of the phrase "Hi, I'm from the government and I'm here to help".

Steele "Outreach" = EPIC Fail

Michael Steele was on hand here in Indianapolis for the auspicious election of Audra Shay to the presidency of the young republicans. Besides the funky optics of Audra Shay's election, after she co-signed the racially inflammatory remarks of Eric Piker, I didn't think there was anything else particularly remarkable that occurred at the event. I was mistaken.

Michael Steele had the opportunity to speak with bloggers during his visit and was asked a question about achieving greater diversity in the GOP. Watch below for his answer:



This is an EPIC FAIL moment for Steele personally and the GOP as a party in terms of messaging to blacks and minorities in general. Steele has repeatedly been described as an articulate man, and I have no doubt that he has a command of the English language and that is why this is EPIC FAIL material. "Y'all Come"? "I've got the fried chicken and potato salad?".

For the love of God, why does Steele trade in this stereotypical language? If anybody ought to be paying attention to the language they use as they try to create a better relationship between blacks and the GOP, its the RNC Chairman. However, Steele, because he is black, clearly believes he gets a pass to play with these types of stereotypes. Didn't we just get get treated to Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor getting lectured by Cong. Grassely about how his career would be over if he had made a comment akin to her "wise Latina" statement? How is this any different? A white RNC chair would be excoriated for a comment like that, but Steele gets a pass because he's black? Steele clearly thinks so, because he uses this kind of language frequently.

The other EPIC FAIL here is that there is no plan on diversifying the party. Steele goes into this geriatric spiel about how republicans opposed slavery and if you believe in markets, freedom, blah, blah, blah, the GOP wants you and we don't care about how you want to live. All of that is really just an elaborate dodge of the question. He articulated no plan and that's because there isn't one. All there is is the same old tired rhetoric about how the GOP is really the party that supports black people and minorities in general, doled out with a generous helping of the same old stereotypes straight from the mouth of the RNC Chairman himself. I can hardly blame GOP rank and file folks like Eric Piker, or leadership such as Audry Shay or Councilman Fraggo in California for co-signing and passing on racially inflammatory material; they take their cues from Chairman Steele himself.

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.”

Mark Sanford Self Destructs

Sanford In Argentina, Not On Appalachian Trail, He Says On Return

I knew it was too flaky sounding to be kosher. You bail from town and neither your staff, nor your lt. governor, not even your wife, know where the heck you are? That is some baloney. There is no place on the planet I gotta be for a week that my wife is not going to know where I am.

A Chilling Effect on U.S. Counter Terrorism

By Fred Burton and Scott Stewart

Over the past couple of weeks, we have been carefully watching the fallout from the Obama administration’s decision to release four classified memos from former President George W. Bush’s administration that authorized “enhanced interrogation techniques.” In a visit to CIA headquarters last week, President Barack Obama promised not to prosecute agency personnel who carried out such interrogations, since they were following lawful orders. Critics of the techniques, such as Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., have called for the formation of a “truth commission” to investigate the matter, and Rep. Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y., has called on Attorney General Eric Holder to appoint a special prosecutor to launch a criminal inquiry into the matter.

Realistically, those most likely to face investigation and prosecution are those who wrote the memos, rather than the low-level field personnel who acted in good faith based upon the guidance the memos provided. Despite this fact and Obama’s reassurances, our contacts in the intelligence community report that the release of the memos has had a discernible “chilling effect” on those in the clandestine service who work on counterterrorism issues.

In some ways, the debate over the morality of such interrogation techniques — something we do not take a position on and will not be discussing here — has distracted many observers from examining the impact that the release of these memos is having on the ability of the U.S. government to fulfill its counterterrorism mission. And this impact has little to do with the ability to use torture to interrogate terrorist suspects.

Politics and moral arguments aside, the end effect of the memos’ release is that people who have put their lives on the line in U.S. counterterrorism efforts are now uncertain of whether they should be making that sacrifice. Many of these people are now questioning whether the administration that happens to be in power at any given time will recognize the fact that they were carrying out lawful orders under a previous administration. It is hard to retain officers and attract quality recruits in this kind of environment. It has become safer to work in programs other than counterterrorism.

The memos’ release will not have a catastrophic effect on U.S. counterterrorism efforts. Indeed, most of the information in the memos was leaked to the press years ago and has long been public knowledge. However, when the release of the memos is examined in a wider context, and combined with a few other dynamics, it appears that the U.S. counterterrorism community is quietly slipping back into an atmosphere of risk-aversion and malaise — an atmosphere not dissimilar to that described by the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States (also known as the 9/11 Commission) as a contributing factor to the intelligence failures that led to the 9/11 attacks.

Cycles Within Cycles

In March we wrote about the cycle of counterterrorism funding and discussed indications that the United States is entering a period of reduced counterterrorism funding. This decrease in funding not only will affect defensive counterterrorism initiatives like embassy security and countersurveillance programs, but also will impact offensive programs such as the number of CIA personnel dedicated to the counterterrorism role.

Beyond funding, however, there is another historical cycle of booms and busts that can be seen in the conduct of American clandestine intelligence activities. There are clearly discernible periods when clandestine activities are deemed very important and are widely employed. These periods are inevitably followed by a time of investigations, reductions in clandestine activities and a tightening of control and oversight over such activities.

After the widespread employment of clandestine activities in the Vietnam War era, the Church Committee was convened in 1975 to review (and ultimately restrict) such operations. Former President Ronald Reagan’s appointment of Bill Casey as director of the CIA ushered in a new era of growth as the United States became heavily engaged in clandestine activities in Afghanistan and Central America. Then, the revelation of the Iran-Contra affair in 1986 led to a period of hearings and controls.

There was a slight uptick in clandestine activities under the presidency of George H.W. Bush, but the fall of the Soviet Union led to another bust cycle for the intelligence community. By the mid-1990s, the number of CIA stations and bases was dramatically reduced (and virtually eliminated in much of Africa) for budgetary considerations. Then there was the case of Jennifer Harbury, a Harvard-educated lawyer who used little-known provisions in Texas common law to marry a dead Guatemalan guerrilla commander and gain legal standing as his widow. After it was uncovered that a CIA source was involved in the guerrilla commander’s execution, CIA stations in Latin America were gutted for political reasons. The Harbury case also led to the Torricelli Amendment, a law that made recruiting unsavory people, such as those with ties to death squads and terrorist groups, illegal without special approval. This bust cycle was well documented by both the Crowe Commission, which investigated the 1998 East Africa embassy bombings, and the 9/11 Commission.

After the 9/11 attacks, the pendulum swung radically to the permissive side and clandestine activity was rapidly and dramatically increased as the U.S. sought to close the intelligence gap and quickly develop intelligence on al Qaeda’s capability and plans. Developments over the past two years clearly indicate that the United States is once again entering an intelligence bust cycle, a period that will be marked by hearings, increased controls and a general decrease in clandestine activity.

Institutional Culture

It is also very important to realize that the counterterrorism community is just one small part of the larger intelligence community that is affected by this ebb and flow of covert activity. In fact, as noted above, the counterterrorism component of intelligence efforts has its own boom-and-bust cycle that is based on major attacks. Soon after a major attack, interest in counterterrorism spikes dramatically, but as time passes without a major attack, interest lags. Other than during the peak times of this cycle, counterterrorism is considered an ancillary program that is sometimes seen as an interesting side tour of duty, but more widely seen as being outside the mainstream career path — risky and not particularly career-enhancing. This assessment is reinforced by such events as the recent release of the memos.

At the CIA, being a counterterrorism specialist in the clandestine service means that you will most likely spend much of your life in places line Sanaa, Islamabad and Kabul instead of Vienna, Paris or London. This means that, in addition to hurting your chances for career advancement, your job also is quite dangerous, provides relatively poor living conditions for your family and offers the possibility of contracting serious diseases.

While being declared persona non grata and getting kicked out of a country as part of an intelligence spat is considered almost a badge of honor at the CIA, the threat of being arrested and indicted for participating in the rendition of a terrorist suspect from an allied country like Italy is not. Equally unappealing is being sued in civil court by a terrorist suspect or facing the possibility of prosecution after a change of government in the United States. Over the past few years, there has been a dramatic increase in the number of CIA case officers who are choosing to carry personal liability insurance because they do not trust the agency and the U.S. government to look out for their best interests.

Now, there are officers who are willing to endure hardship and who do not really care much about career advancement, but for those officers there is another hazard — frustration. Aggressive officers dedicated to the counterterrorism mission quickly learn that many of the people in the food chain above them are concerned about their careers, and these superiors often take measures to rein in their less-mainstream subordinates. Additionally, due to the restrictions brought about by laws and regulations like the Torricelli Amendment, case officers working counterterrorism are often tightly bound by myriad legal restrictions.

Unlike in television shows like “24,” it is not uncommon in the real world for a meeting called to plan a counterterrorism operation to feature more CIA lawyers than case officers or analysts. These staff lawyers are intricately involved in the operational decisions made at headquarters, and legal issues often trump operational considerations. The need to obtain legal approval often delays decisions long enough for a critical window of operational opportunity to be slammed shut. This restrictive legal environment goes back many years in the CIA and is not a new fixture brought in by the Obama administration. There was a sense of urgency that served to trump the lawyers to some extent after 9/11, but the lawyers never went away and have reasserted themselves firmly over the past several years.

Of course, the CIA is not the only agency with a culture that is less than supportive of the counterterrorism mission. Although the prevention of terrorist attacks in the United States is currently the FBI’s No. 1 priority on paper, the counterterrorism mission remains the bureau’s redheaded stepchild. The FBI is struggling to find agents willing to serve in the counterterrorism sections of field offices, resident agencies (smaller offices that report to a field office) and joint terrorism task forces.

While the CIA was very much built on the legacy of Wild Bill Donovan’s Office of Strategic Services, the FBI was founded by J. Edgar Hoover, a conservative and risk-averse administrator who served as FBI director from 1935-1972. Even today, Hoover’s influence is clearly evident in the FBI’s bureaucratic nature. FBI special agents are unable to do much at all, such as open an investigation, without a supervisor’s approval, and supervisors are reluctant to approve anything too adventurous because of the impact it might have on their chance for promotion. Unlike many other law enforcement agencies, such as the Drug Enforcement Administration or the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, the FBI rarely uses its own special agents in an undercover capacity to penetrate criminal organizations. That practice is seen as being too risky; they prefer to use confidential informants rather than undercover operatives.

The FBI is also strongly tied to its roots in law enforcement and criminal investigation, and special agents who work major theft, public corruption or white-collar crime cases tend to receive more recognition — and advance more quickly — than their counterterrorism counterparts.

FBI special agents also see a considerable downside to working counterterrorism cases because of the potential for such cases to blow up in their faces if they make a mistake — such as in the New York field office’s highly publicized mishandling of the informant whom they had inserted into the group that later conducted the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. It is much safer, and far more rewarding from a career perspective, to work bank robberies or serve in the FBI’s Inspection Division.

After the 9/11 attacks — and the corresponding spike in the importance of counterterrorism operations — many of the resources of the CIA and FBI were focused on al Qaeda and terrorism, to the detriment of programs such as foreign counterintelligence. However, the more time that has passed since 9/11 without another major attack, the more the organizational culture of the U.S government has returned to normal. Once again, counterterrorism efforts are seen as being ancillary duties rather than the organizations’ driving mission. (The clash between organizational culture and the counterterrorism mission is by no means confined to the CIA and FBI. Fred’s book “Ghost: Confessions of a Counterterrorism Agent” provides a detailed examination of some of the bureaucratic and cultural challenges we faced while serving in the Counterterrorism Investigations Division of the State Department’s Diplomatic Security Service.)

Liaison Services

One of the least well known, and perhaps most important, sources of intelligence in the counterterrorism field is the information that is obtained as a result of close relationships with allied intelligence agencies — often referred to as information obtained through “liaison channels.”

Like FBI agents, most CIA officers are well-educated, middle-aged white guys. This means they are better suited to use the cover of an American businessmen or diplomat than to pretend to be a young Muslim trying to join al Qaeda or Hezbollah. Like their counterparts in the FBI, CIA officers have far more success using informants than they do working undercover inside terrorist groups.

Services like the Jordanian General Intelligence Department, the Saudi Mabahith or the Yemeni National Security Agency not only can recruit sources, but also are far more successful in using young Muslim officers to penetrate terrorist groups. In addition to their source networks and penetration operations, many of these liaison services are not at all squeamish about using extremely enhanced interrogation techniques — this is the reason many of the terrorism suspects who were the subject of rendition operations ended up in such locations. Obviously, whenever the CIA is dealing with a liaison service, the political interests and objectives of the service must be considered — as should the possibility that the liaison service is fabricating the intelligence in question for whatever reason. Still, in the end, the CIA historically has received a significant amount of important intelligence (perhaps even most of its intelligence) via liaison channels.

Another concern that arises from the call for a truth commission is the impact a commission investigation could have on the liaison services that have helped the United States in its counterterrorism efforts since 9/11. Countries that hosted CIA detention facilities or were involved in the rendition or interrogation of terrorist suspects may find themselves exposed publicly or even held up for some sort of sanction by the U.S. Congress. Such activities could have a real impact on the amount of cooperation and information the CIA receives from these intelligence services.

Conclusion

As we’ve previously noted, it was a lack of intelligence that helped fuel the fear that led the Bush administration to authorize enhanced interrogation techniques. Ironically, the current investigation into those techniques and other practices (such as renditions) may very well lead to significant gaps in terrorism-related intelligence from both internal and liaison sources — again, not primarily because of the prohibition of torture, but because of larger implications.

When these implications are combined with the long-standing institutional aversion of U.S. government agencies toward counterterrorism, and with the difficulty of finding and retaining good people willing to serve in counterterrorism roles, the U.S. counterterrorism community may soon be facing challenges even more daunting than those posed by its already difficult mission.

Sentencing Guidelines: An Opportuntity for Steele and the GOP

If the GOP and Michael Steele really wanted to put its money where its mouth was when it comes to opening up the party and bringing blacks into a better relationship with the party, here is a perfect opportunity.

Color of Change has ginned up a campaign to fight sentencing disparities, a timely effort given that their might be some daylight for this issue. Legislation is moving around in Congress to eliminate the sentencing disparities that have created a national disaster: 1 in 15 Black adults in America are now behind bars. Not because they commit more crime but largely because of unfair sentencing rules that treat 5 grams of crack cocaine, the kind found in poor Black communities, the same as 500 grams of powder cocaine, the kind found in White and wealthier communities.

You have to be convicted of moving roughly $500,000 worth of cocaine to trigger a 5-year sentence. For crack? About $500 worth. These laws punish the lowest-level dealers, while providing a loophole that helps those running the trade escape harsh sentences. The U.S. Sentencing Commission, which provides sentencing guidelines for judges, has petitioned Congress numerous times to change the sentencing laws. Senate bill 1711 will completely eliminate the sentencing disparity and end the mandatory minimum for crack possession, while increasing funding for drug treatment programs.

This has been a long running injustice in the sentencing guidelines, made law by Democrats no less including our current vice president. The GOP has run on a law and order ticket often and has made hay with issues like sentencing for political gain. But the sentencing guidelines are unjust and unfair in this regard and have done great damage to black communities. That damage is compounded when add in the problems of recidivism and reentry. It takes nothing away from the GOP's rule of law bona fides to support a move to correct this problem. If we were smart, we'd pick up this ball and run with it and give ourselves an argument for black support that would resonate with every family that has had a loved one do hard time under these guidelines.

If we were smart.

Man of Steele vs. NeObama

Michael Steele in a fundraising appeal Monday launched a rhetorical attack reminiscent of the campaign. The Washington Times reports


"Criticized by some in the party for not taking on the Democratic president hard enough or often enough, Mr. Steele took the gloves off in a fund-raising letter sent out Monday to 12 million party supporters....The RNC letter noted that Mr. Obama while in Europe had said the United States has displayed "arrogance" at times in its foreign policy.

During his European tour, Obama also said this :

"But in Europe, there is an anti-Americanism that is at once casual but can also be insidious. Instead of recognizing the good that America so often does in the world, there have been times where Europeans choose to blame America for much of what's bad." Obama continued: "On both sides of the Atlantic, these attitudes have become all too common. They are not wise. They do not represent the truth. They threaten to widen the divide across the Atlantic and leave us both more isolated. They fail to acknowledge the fundamental truth that America cannot confront the challenges of this century alone, but that Europe cannot confront them without America."

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.

Will This Republican Cave Too?

Hat Tip Who Runs Gov

CNN’s Rick Sanchez asked Wamp whether he agreed with Rush or with Mitt Romney, who’s taken issue with Rush’s desire for Obama to fail. From Wamp’s reply, via Nexis:

“Frankly, we need to listen more to the people back home, and not so much just the voices out there. There’s not much difference between entertainment and journalism on some fronts.”

After a bit more back and forth, Wamp continued:

“Listen, I don’t want to get in the crossfire here. But the fact is entertainers sometimes say things. We really need serious-minded policy people to help chart this ship of state out of these rocky waters right now. And so we shouldn’t spend so much time caught in what others are saying.”

This is a totally rational point of view. If this guy apologizes for his comments, I'm going to laugh, then puke.

Steele's Public Statements Not Confidence Inspiring

Michael Steele is quickly approaching the point where I will simply stop taking him seriously at all when he speaks.  Thats not a good thing, particularly for a guy who wants to alter the relationship of the GOP with blacks (a goal I don't think is attainable for him anyway).  

His latest comments have the feel of whistling through the graveyard. 

You planned to have Rush rip you a new one on his show, so you could then turn around and publicly apologize, calling yourself inarticulate in the process? You drew the ire of socons about your abortion position so that you could see who screams the loudest? These things help you determine your place on the chess board of politics, help you determine who is your enemy and who is not? 

Its a lotta horse manure.  I've diagnosed the problem with Michael Steele and I won't claim to be the first to see it.  Steele has made this gig far too much about him, and not enough about the party.  Note that the stuff that gets him in trouble every time is when he is talking about himself.  His views, his ideas, rather than the GOP's.  When he is talking about himself, the whole enterprise goes off the rails. 

I don't think he gets this at all, so he's going to continue to say things that damage his credibility within and without the party.  Lets hope the fundraising numbers stay good.