“If Sarah Palin isn’t enough of a reason for you to get over whatever your problem is with Barack Obama, then you damn well had better pay attention…Anybody toting guns and stripping moose don’t care too much about what they do with Jews and blacks. So, you just think this through.”—Representative Alcee Hastings (D-FL) to National Jewish Democratic Council.
And the campaign has reached a new low.
While the National Jewish Democratic Council thinks that through, the American people ought to be thinking this through: Do Representative Hastings’ comments, spoken Wednesday in Washington D.C., have any legitimate place in civilized American politics?
Based on the way this presidential campaign has unfolded thus far, the correct answer seems to be an embarrassing “yes”. Believe it or not, despicable racist comments from deplorable politicians like these have indeed weaseled their way into American Presidential campaign politics and found themselves a comfortable hole in which to dwell. And what a dank, rotten cesspool of a hole it is.
Ironically enough, the rabidly racist raving and ranting is emanating from the political camp championing the first African-American presidential nominee in American history. Democrats and liberal commentators in the media have assertively made race an issue in this campaign, and it is disgusting.
Consider Philadelphia Daily News columnist Fatimah Ali’s assertion that if Barack Obama loses the presidency, Americans should expect nothing less than full-fledged race war. Or how about CNN’s sold-out leftist Jack Cafferty or Kansas Governor Kathleen Sebelius’ assertions that race must be the only reason to explain the close polls between Senators McCain and Obama. On top of that, New York Governor David Paterson actually suggested that the term “community organizer” actually functions as a racist codeword on behalf of Republicans.
And then there’s Barack Obama himself. As the Democrat Presidential nominee once said at a fundraiser in Jacksonville, Florida:
“They’re going to try to make you afraid. They’re going to try to make you afraid of me…they’re going to say he’s young and inexperienced and he’s got a funny name. And did I mention he’s black?”
And now Representative Hastings has upped the ante and shown his royal flush of race cards.
To assert that Governor Palin does not care about Jews and African-Americans is downright horrid. Likening the Alaskan mother of five to the Nazis or the Ku Klux Klan isn’t just shameful or asinine. It’s beyond rational comprehension.
It also doesn’t help the Democrats’ cause that Hastings happens to be one of the most corrupt men in the government. As a Federal Judge, Alcee Hastings was convicted on eight articles of impeachment for soliciting bribes and repeatedly lying under oath. After losing his post, Hastings managed to be elected to Congress representing Florida’s twenty-third district. These latest deplorable comments merely attest to the man’s insidious and obscene personal character.
Yet the outrage from the Democrats regarding their colleague’s behavior is nowhere to be heard.
That is, of course, unless Bill Clinton mentions race. It reveals a troubling double standard when Democrats’ skewered President Clinton based upon his mere mentioning that the racial demographics of South Carolina had played a role in Barack Obama’s campaign primary win there. Those on the left had no problem condemning the former Democrat President for statements that didn’t even contain a whiff of racism.
Yet when one of their own outlandishly uses race-baiting to falsely condemn Republicans, all that can be heard from the left are the crickets.
This holds true for Barack Obama as well. In fact, where is Barack Obama on this issue? When Representative Hastings, one of Obama’s Democratic colleagues, makes such nefarious statements, he is obligated to condemn them. Serious matters like these cannot go unaddressed.
Nevertheless, no condemnation has been made. If Obama chooses not to condemn Hastings and his statements, one can only assume that Obama endorses them.
And that is far scarier than Obama’s self-described “funny name.”
