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Steve Gilliard, 1964-2007
It is with tremendous sadness that we must convey the news that Steve Gilliard, editor and publisher of The News Blog, passed away June 2, 2007. He was 42.
To those who have come to trust The News Blog and its insightful, brash and unapologetic editorial tone, we have Steve to thank from the bottom of our hearts. Steve helped lead many discussions that mattered to all of us, and he tackled subjects and interest categories where others feared to tread.
Please keep Steve's friends and family in your thoughts and prayers.
Steve meant so much to us.
We will miss him terribly.
photo by lindsay beyerstein
Jesse "Doc" Wendel: "Abraham, Martin and John"
Labels: 2008 race, obama, wingnuttery
No Black Men Allowed in the Big House
Breaking news -- The US Secret Service has been ordered to give protection to presidential candidate Barack Obama, by the Director of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff, after consulting with Congress. No details of Obama's protection, or of the deliberations leading to the decision will be released. (This is normal for any Secret Service protection.)
According to their website, the US Secret Service normally provides protection of major presidential and vice-presidential candidates, and their spouses, within 120 days of a general presidential election.
In the words of Sesame Street's Cookie Monster, One of these things is not like the other things. One of these things just doesn't belong. Can you guess which thing is not like the other thing, before I finish my song...
Gee children, how many of you can guess how Senator Barack Obama is not like all the other presidential candidates?
One of my earliest memories is my mother crying They've killed him, they've killed him, the day President Kennedy was shot, and all the women in our long block/cul-de-sac weeping on each other, the father's being as stoic as they could, us children only understanding something terrible had happened.
I was older when Reverend King was murdered and then months later when Bobby Kennedy was killed as well. I remember in both cases how I lost part of my heart. Years, many years later, in my twenties (the 1980's), I volunteered at self-help courses held in the old Ambassador Hotel in LA, and as I took breaks in the kitchen, sometimes I'd just stop and think, Here. He died right here.
People are threatened by the idea of a woman president. You and I don't get the threat part of Hillary's race, because she's, well, Hillary, and she's lived under the bubble since roughly 120 days before President Clinton was elected, way, way, way long ago. That half of the United States can't stand her, and 30% of the US hates her breathing guts... well, we don't think about it. That some people would almost rather die than see a woman elected; we don't think about that either. Her Secret Service protection is rock solid and knows how to protect the Clintons. A presidential campaign is one more day at the office for them and it's Hillary, so we don't think about it.
Obama... now, that's a horse of a different color. Pun intended. If there's one gut emotion even more triggering, even more dangerous to that part of the US than a woman president, it's a black president. Unless Obama announces he is not only black, but gay, there isn't anything he can do to be more of a emotional threat to the part of those people which is the non-thinking emotional knee-jerk racist response they learned in childhood at their daddy and mommy's kitchen table. And nothing is going to change that except them growing older. It's a demographics issue and we're winning, but that doesn't help right now.
So...
For the people who wonder why Affirmative Action. For the people who wonder why Busing. For the people who wonder why projects targeted to help people in the inner cities, and genuine welfare, and all the programs of the federal government for the poorest among us, many of whom are African-American...
Just please notice that the simple act of a black man running legitimately for President of the United States is enough to bring enough bullshit, enough hatred, enough credible threats, so much goddamn heat down that Congress asked Homeland Security who ordered the US Secret Service to provide protection to the candidate over one and a half years before the election. Not 120 days -- 1.5 years.
This is how scared some fools are of a black man sitting behind the desk in the big house.
I don't know whom I'm voting for yet, but I tell you what. Obama's got serious stones. Go baby go. Make those mother-fuckers eat their hatred. Make them eat it raw.Obama placed under Secret Service protection
Raw Story
Published: Thursday May 3, 2007
The US Secret Service will provide a security detail for Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL) as he continues his presidential campaign, the Department of Homeland Security announced today.
Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff authorized the security detail after consulting with Congress, CNN reported today. No further details about Obama's protection were announced.
It is unclear whether any specific threats against the senator led to the Secret Service protection. The Secret Service commonly provides security details assigned to high-profile presidential candidates.
Obama's campaign clashed earlier this year with a self-described pedophile who posted pictures of Obama's daughter online. The Smoking Gun published a letter from Obama's attorney to the man, Lindsay Ashford, demanding the pictures be removed, as RAW STORY reported previously.
Text of Secret Service statement follows:
#
Secretary Chertoff has, after consultation with the congressional advisory committee, authorized the United States Secret Service, to protect presidential candidate Senate Barack Obama.
As a matter of procedure, we will not release any details of the deliberations or assessments that led to protection being initiated. For security reasons we will not release the timing, scope or details of any protective operations.
#
- Posted by Jesse "Doc" Wendel
Danny Doom: "The Shit Talk Express"
Not-so-straight talk express
Thanks to Danny Doom for this great cross-post - THANKS DANNY!
The remarkable amount of flip-flopping that GOP candidates Romney, Guiliani and McCain are doing in order to appease, well, just about anyone, is something that will be tallied up at a later time, but let's just say that when it all comes down, the Bible-thumpers and the neo-cons and the homophobes will cast their vote for thrice-divorced Rudy. Despite anything that he's ever said or done. Because Rudy, see, is a "straight-talker."
John McCain used to hold that title — he was, in fact, the conductor on the train — but then the shit began to flow out like diarrhea and the tracks began to rust and it turned out he was stuck on the Blue Line in a 6 mph speed zone. After years of criticism against Bush's handling of the war in/with Iraq, McCain realized that too much straight talk would derail the Republican nomination for him (studies told him that Bush voters like to be coddled, lied to and kept generally afraid), and so now he is for the "surge" and prolonging this unjust and illegal war.
But now he's really done it this time, appearing on the David Letterman show to announce his candidacy and then pandering to his New York audience (he thought) with this line, speaking of our troops in Iraq: "We've wasted a lot of our most precious treasure, which is American lives."
Wait a minute. Isn't that what Barack Obama said? That we are "wasting lives" in Iraq? Mr. McCain may be riding that train right back into the GOP Black Hole with comments like that, or worse, he may find out that he has fathered another illegitimate black child. And we all know what that can do to a Republican presidential hopeful.
But there should be no apologies by McCain, just as Obama should not have after his comments. What they said is true, we are wasting lives in this war and all the hypocritical psuedo-patriotic-car-magnet-support-the-troops-armchair-generals know it.
Three thousand and counting wasted, for a war of choice against a contained dictator who posed no threat to the United States, with the result being an even more unstable region and civil war and thousands of untallied civilian deaths. And the soldiers that survive, maimed or broken, get to convalesce at places like Walter Reed, sharing rooms with mice, mold, and cockroaches. "Supporting the troops" sounds like something you may hear from the Shit Talk Express now, doesn't it?
It all sounds like a big waste to me.
- posted by Danny Doom
LowerManhattanite: "Political Masturbation Theatre Presents: William Shakespeare's 'Obamo'"
Quite the couple
THANKS to LowerManhattanite for this great piece - THANKS LM!
(Curtain rises on a smoke-filled, oak-lined study. In it stands OBAMO, a noble Moorish/Amfrerican, newly chosen to the Senate and HILLAMONA, a proud, steely blonde of noble lineage, also to the Senate selected. They are at opposite ends of the room—brooding in smoldering silence. The tension between them could be cut with a plastic spoon/fork hybrid {“spork”}. Hillamona wheels on Obamo suddenly with fire dancing in her eyes)
HILLAMONA: (Flushed and holding her throat as if just choked) Varlet! You sought to steal the air from my lungs—my campaign’s very lungs!
OBAMO; You drape your anger ‘pon a hook in the wrong man’s castle. T’was not I, Hillamona—your quarrel lay with King David of the Western Hills. Yet you assail me.
HILLAMONA: He mouths words as thy proxy, Obamo—deny it not, for you know it to be true.
OBAMO: He is his own man. I do not control him.
HLLAMONA: Thy denial fairly rings with implausibility, Moor.
OBAMO: (with venom) Hah! Irony abounds woman. You who would cast doubt ‘pon my words! Look thee to the linens—and find there a bib to sop the mendacity that drips from thy mouth. I pray one will do.
HILLAMONA: (enraged) Stripling!
OBAMO: Virago!
HILLAMONA: (hissed) A Virago favored by your own Moors!
OBAMO: (stepping back for a moment) Your words…ring of an anger contrived. Thou art are a snake, snapping fangs at the air madly, as blood leaks from thy own body.
HILLAMONA: I do not hear thee!
OBAMO: The wolves smell your blood. (He sniffs)’Tis sweet in the air. Your war vote wound betrays you.
HILLAMONA: I do not regret it, Moor. You say it wounds me, but is it not a graver wound to retreat? To renege? Yea, bleed I do, but die I will not. While you…
OBAMO: I?
HILLAMONA: Risk not, lose not, hatch-ling. When the vote was cast, thy were but an egg. Barely a’ borning.
OBAMO: And from the moment beak sundered shell, this bird’s song was ‘nay’ to the war you championed. Thou…and the traitorous Joseph of Nutmeg, and other craven practicalists.
HILLAMONA: Misled were we!
OBAMO: Nay, Lead you did not. And now you stand o’er the ashes of defeat and claim to have lit no flame.
(Hillamona brandishes a dagger and points it at Obamo)
HILLAMONA: Thou shalt not quicken the vessel (*1). with me! The first strike shall be mine—
OBAMO: (Standing his ground and deepening his voice) You would raise a hand to me? Thy comrade? We stand on the same side, you and I. Your fight be not with me. ‘Tis with our enemy. Giuliano. MacCain and the Mormom Mitt.
(Hillamona hesitates, blinking, unsure)
OBAMO: (Moving to her) They on whom the nut hath sprouted wings that fly. (grasping her now) Let you,,,and I…and Edwardio—
HILLAMONA: The maned?
OBAMO: And feckless. Let us loose the arrows in our quivers at the real enemy…not each other. Leave us forget the mundaneness of despair…
HILLAMONA: (Grasping him back) And embrace…?
OBAMO: The audacity…of hope.
(He holds her tightly cradling her head back—until, she gasps and gurgles from choking on her own saliva. She wrenches herself away, eyes again ablaze with mistrust and anger.)
HILLAMONA: (Gasping) Again you seek to take the breath from me!
OBAMO: Twas you! Thy choked thyself Hillamona!
HILLAMONA: The injury is from without, cur—as always! And I shall smite he who hath swung at me. I shall smite all!
(She swings wildly with the dagger, missing Obamo who dodges. Hillamona chases him about, catching air instead of flesh, running him off the stage and following close behind. Enter MEDIAGO from the wing, rubbing his hand together gleefully.)
MEDIAGO: (laughing conspiratorially) Yes…yes! Let slip the dogs of war! Mistrust, my mistress! Deceit, my liege! Confusion and rancor ! (Sniffs hard at the air) Like the spoor of fresh roses in the air, that smell so sweet, Obamo thinks me his friend, and Hillamona sees me her coronator, yet neither the two knows me for what I am truly—that which serves neither their interests, but craves only nearness to power. It, the flame…to my nature-drawn moth. Power! Quo of status! I crave theeeeeeeeeeeeee!
(Mediago runs madly from the stage, exiting—pursued by an elephant)
(*1.) quicken the vessel = to swift boat
- posted by LowerManhattanite
No shit
T hink the Edwards campaign's blog troubles ended with Amanda Marcotte's resignation? Think the Edwards campaign's blog troubles end with Edwards? Think again. As predicted, right wing activists have detected in the sheepish silence of the other Democratic presidential campaigns an opportunity to separate yet more top contenders from the herd, and turn Democrats against Democrats. First on the block: Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. Congratulations, geniuses. And best of luck to you. The self-proclaimed "Catholic-based advocacy group" Fidelis has sent essentially identical letters to Clinton (PDF) and Obama (PDF), demanding that they: publicly condemn the anti-Catholic and anti-Christian blog posts by Amanda Marcotte and Melissa McEwan, who serve as official bloggers for the John Edwards for President Committee, and call for their immediate dismissal. And what happens if Clinton and Obama refuse? Why, they'll be attacked as "anti-Catholic and anti-Christian," of course. Or at least, that's the unarticulated threat implicit here: As one of the leading candidates pursuing the Democratic nomination for President, I believe you are in a unique position to make clear that anti-Catholic and anti-Christian bigotry of any kind should not be tolerated by any candidate. By taking up this issue publicly, you will be able to distinguish your candidacy from Mr. Edwards, while acknowledging the respect due people of faith in America, and in particular, Catholics and Christians. This is almost precisely what I feared the other day, when I wrote: This fight, if Edwards is going to be called upon to make it, must be everyone's fight. If the other campaigns cannot demonstrate that they would have displayed the same courage we call upon Edwards to display, then they benefit from the right's strategy of divide and conquer. And to the extent that they benefit, they give a pass to and encourage such attacks in the future, and are powerless to stop them when the next one comes. All they can do is hold on tight, cross their fingers, and pray they're not the next target. And that's no way to win anything. Certainly not the White House.... If you want Edwards to stand up, realize that you're going to have to demand that all the campaigns stand up. Literally. They're going to have to say that they stand by Edwards. Because these attacks only really hurt campaigns among primary voters. That's us. The people who launched this thing aren't ever going to vote for Edwards, or any other Democrat. They're pulling your strings. They're influencing your primary vote. But the minute this vendetta loses its ability to influence the primary, it loses its power.... Until Edwards is immunized by the rest of the Democratic field, the right has leverage on our side of the aisle that they're not entitled to. Too late for that now, though. And to no one's surprise, this morning the same m.o. (i.e., Michelle Malkin's bleating about Obama's "wasted" lives comment) continues to pay undue dividends.
Getting separated from the herd.
by Kagro X
Tue Feb 13, 2007 at 07:49:31 AM PST
The DC consultants say play it safe.
This is the result.
Lunatics are setting the agenda for the Dems.
People are just fucking sick of it. Why are you beholden to crazy people. They aren't Dems, and the reek of cowardice comes off you when you bend to this bullshit.
Amanda quit and they still want her scalp. Take that as a hint.
About Obama
While I find it amusing to have words and sentiments in my mouth, it's really tiresome
But before I say anything else, the idea that his "blackness" is under debate is amazingly silly. What people are debating is his fidelity to the issues and causes which have defined black America since 1954. Not his skin color. Or the silly cultural issues Debra Dickenson raised. It is a political argument. After all this is America, where anyone who looks black is black .
A: I have no particular view on Obama as a presidential candidate. I'm neutral.
B: No one man can trump the entire black political structure. If Cornell West is saying somthing you don't like, dismissing him on a personal basis is to be a fool. At this point in the campaign, he is far more highly regarded than Obama among most informed black voters. As is Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson. Both could doom his campaign among African Americans if they were to attack his positions and there is nothing white fans can do about it. You cannot ignore a half century of struggle because you like the new guy. Listening to their concerns is a wise political move.
I think, like most people, they are waiting to see what he will do and where he stands.
Showing contempt for them hurts Obama among black voters. Because it demonstrates the kind of whites who support him have no respect for blacks, their institutions, leaders or views.
C: What black voters want to know is will he protect their interests or will he seek to pacify them.
Is he going to push policies which help African Americans, or continue the racial and economic problems we have now under the guise of colorblindness.
D: Obama himself has admitted he must earn the black vote on the merit of his positions. Because he hasn't earned it. He has not been part of the national black community. He is a relative unknown. While I have no idea what Hillary Clinton have done to gain such overwhelming support in black America, it is there and it is real.
E: What white supporters need to understand is that his appeal to white voters causes suspicion among black voters. The daily, open contempt they express for wildly popular figures like Sharpton and Jackson, despite their support for blacks facing police brutality and other issues like Katrina, makes their sudden embrace of Obama highly suspicious.
If you don't understand black politics, ask someone who does
Yesterday, I was watching the Annual Forum of the State of Black America hosted by radio host Tavis Smiley. During one of the roundtable discussions, the subject of Barack Obama came up. The question was asked about Obama’s announcement in Springfield, Illinois, home of Abraham Lincoln, and you would have thought, based on their reaction, that Obama was at a Klan rally. I did not realize that Lincoln was so despised. Dr. Cornel West and another member of the panel ripped him up one side and down the other, citing the understandably glaring shortcomings of Mr. Lincoln. They also cited the fact that he dared to announce his candidacy on the same weekend of the forum. My question is: What’s the deal? First of all, Barack Obama is a U.S. Senator sent to Washington from the State of Illinois, where the State Capitol is SPRINGFIELD. So there is more going on that meets the eye? What is so threatening about Obama that West was compelled to practically call him an Uncle Tom? I’ve long respected West but at times I think he is so wrapped up in his own ideology to realize there is a great big, diverse electorate out there. Or is it perhaps he and others don’t feel that their rings have been kissed enough to receive their blessings. Is it his white mother? Is it the fact that he did not grow up in the Inner City (though he represented the South Side of Chicago as a state rep. in SPRINGFIELD). If Obama symbolizes the hopes and aspirations of the African American community, maybe people like West fear that people like him are no longer needed. Dr. West has so bought into his own hype that he now feels that he can be the arbiter of who is good enough to represent Black America, not acknowledging the fact that, like any community, African American politicians are entitled to seek office and policy achievements in their own way. He may also look upon Obama, feel old and realize that his generation’s time is about to pass. Update [2007-2-11 23:27:55 by RandyMI]:
UPDATED: Why is Cornel West Hating on Obama?
Randy,
I should add that West and others have no obligation to support anyone and are entitled to criticize everyone. However, the criticism of making the annoucement is just silly. Furthermore, West went into a rant about "folling the white money, the Jewish money, tc". Of course we should always see who may have a financial interest in a candidate winning, but to single out various groups like that is questionable.
You simply don't know what the fuck you're talking about. You don't.
First of all, Obama has little visible black support. Cornel West dodged police in the streets of Harlem during the Giuliani administration. His credibility and respect is beyond question. What West pointed out was Obama's obliviousness to two things, one Lincoln's history, and the importance of the State of Black America forum. Every major intellectual, and many church and community leaders attend. Not attending was a slight many of those same people will not forget.
Rings kissed? It's that he has NO RECORD of working for black voters outside of Illinois. His number of white supports makes many black people suspicious that he's really a liberal version of Harold Ford.
I would say Dr. West looks at Obama and wonders if he's a trojan horse for interests which don't represent the wider black community.
No one knew who he was before 2004. No one knows where he really stands on important issues to black America.
A more savvy staff would have had him in Hampton Roads and not Springfield yesterday. It seems the Obama staff assumes there is widespread support for him in the black community, and that is anything but true.
What people are wary iof are candidates like Ford, Corey Booker and Denise Majette. They had tremendous white support and black voters wondered who they would serve in office. These people seemed to be picked by others
The fact that Obama's announcement had a sea of white faces did little to inspire confidence among black voters. There has been a decades search for a mailable black politician who keeps blacks in place but serves the interests of whites.
What the hell?
The answer is no, the article, which focuses on Obama's transformation since his 2000 House campaign, doesn't get any less nasty, although it doesn't explicitly repeat the racially loaded term "uppity" (that choice, apparently, belongs to whoever does the front page of Salon). Obama just couldn't -- or wouldn't -- loosen up. The dignified demeanor that had won him a state Senate seat in the university community of Hyde Park did not translate to the district's inner-city precincts. His internal rhythm was set to "Pomp and Circumstance." "Arrogant," scoffed a South Side radio host. Even his body language signaled he was slumming. During a debate with Trotter, in the dank basement of a park field house, he sat with his lanky legs crossed, chin cocked at a heroic angle. He wasn't even trying to conceal his impatience with a mere state Senate peer, or with this grungy necessity of campaigning. And I'd thought Obama had campaigned like an ass, but I expected him to run for the U.S. Senate. And I expected him to win. His white upbringing would appeal to suburbanites, while South Siders might figure that Obama was as black a senator as they were going to get, after the Carol Moseley Braun debacle. His braininess, his haughtiness, his sense of entitlement -- they could only be pluses in a Senate campaign. They don't call that place Ego Mountain for nothing. Ouch. Just, ouch. It's an incredibly negative article, and one that directly engages Obama's race and concludes that he became an effective politician when he embraced his whiteness. But it's difficult to tell how the racial politics of the article would read without "uppity" right there up front. Update: Well, that was fast. "Uppity" has become "smug." Thanks, by the way, to clonecone for the screenshot of the original.Salon: Obama Used to Be "Uppity"
by MissLaura
Sun Feb 11, 2007 at 07:50:54 PM PST
I'll be honest, I've never had much respect for Joan Walsh, even though she's hired some people I respect, as an editor But this should cost someone their job.
Uppity? Why not get it over with and call him a nigger. It's bad enough we have to deal with Debra Dickenson's issues, but shit, this is beyond the fucking pale.
I'm neutral in the 2008 race, but come on. His church has been attacked, his name. What else is coming?
It's time to write to Salon about this.
Write to Walsh and CC the other two
bhambrecht@salon.com
chris@salon.com
jwalsh@salon.com
Ms Walsh
How can an editor approve the word uppity when discussing a United States Senator and Presidental Candidate? Is there no concept of racial tolerance on
your staff. How can your editors allow such and offensive word to slip through to publication. Changing it doesn't obliterate the original sin.
It should have never left copy, but to make it all the way to the site is outrageous.
Salon needs a full explanation and apology for this unacceptable action
Steve Gilliard
TheNewsBlog.net
All smiles
Decoding the Debate Over the Blackness of Barack Obama
By BRENT STAPLES
Published: February 11, 2007Those of us who were born black in the years just after World War II had front-row seats for the collapse of American apartheid. We started out confined to all-black communities and schools at a time when skin color was still destiny. But as segregation gave way, many of us were vaulted out of this sequestered world and into colleges, jobs and walks of life that had been closed to us pretty much since the nation’s founding.
The rush of upward mobility produced the inevitable identity crisis, which led in turn to endless discussions about the meaning of blackness in a world where skin color was beginning to matter less and less.
At their best, these discussions, held in college dorm rooms at night, were probing, serious and heartfelt. At their worst, they turned into lectures by the race police — ’60s-era ideologues who characterized blackness not as a matter of individual interpretation or choice, but as a narrow set of attitudes and experiences that were said to make up the authentic black identity.
Back then, black Americans who came from successful, suburban and upwardly mobile families were regularly dismissed as white or inauthentic. The authentic black experience, it was said at the time, was limited to the hard-core, impoverished upbringing that black people often chose to brag about, even when they had actually grown up with private prep schools in the lap of luxury.
The race police ran rampant in the black community itself, but were rarely heard in the white world. But they have been parading up and down Main Street since Senator Barack Obama of Illinois — the son of a black African father and a white American mother — made clear that he intended to seek the Democratic presidential nomination.
The arguments being raised about Mr. Obama’s blackness — or his lack of blackness — seem positively antique at a time when Americans are moving away from the view of ancestry as a central demographic fact and toward a view that dispenses with those traditional boundaries. Even so, the complaints about Mr. Obama provide an interesting opportunity to examine the passing of the old and the rise of the new.
First, he has no civil rights track record and got savaged at Tavis Smiley's state of the black nation for holding his announcement in Springfield to honor Lincoln, who was a racist who wanted to ship blacks back to Africa.
Second, he actually has to get the votes of white voters. They say nice things now, but the Bradley effect is still in play.
Third, he has to avoid the fate of Martin Luther King, Robert Kennedy and Malcolm X. It is no guarantee some racist won't try to kill him. I constantly pray that he survives his run. Because given America's track record, that is no lock.