Funny, I can't help but seeing Grover Norquist as "a lump of shit with a beard."

Jeez.  You would've thought Norquist knew Obama was black.

Bravo, adaglas.  Bravo.

Did anyone happen to see the nutty racial comments which the asshole, Nader, made the other day.?

adaglas,

Years ago a street in my old neighborhood had a problem with dogs running unattended and pooping all over the sidewalks. To help pedestrians keep from stepping on the unpleasant piles, a friend and I spent an hour or so one afternoon with a can of Reddi-Wip and a jar of maraschino cherries, decorating each pile. (We were killing time until our coke dealer finished his run and returned to the bar.)

Those who oppose Norquist's tax-cutting endeavors may rightly think of him as "a lump of shit with a beard."  I'm not a big fan of the guy, either, but I do favor many opportunities to cut taxes, so if it's okay with you I'll think of him as "a lump of shit with whipped cream and a cherry."

Someone pull out the Obama racist remark jar! Mr. Norquist needs to make a contribution.

adaglas is the hero of this thread. Well played, sir.

Wow. I don't like Norquist either. But come on. Is it really racism to point out that Obama has dark skin? Because he kind of, you know, does. I'd buy "racism" if Norquist had said, for example, "John Kerry in the jungle." It's racist to suggest that skin color means anything, but that's not what Norquist did.

Back in 1996, it would have been entirely fair to call Bob Dole "George Bush with orange skin." Today, John McCain can accurately be called "a pasty Bob Dole."

So to the extent that one is of the opinion that Obama represents the second coming of John Kerry, then "Kerry with a tan" is about right. It's harmless, and not the kind of statement that's likely to stir up any latent bigotry. This is one to let slide so as to avoid being seen as hypersensitive whiners or provoking white backlash. We get to point out that John McCain is paler than a D&D geek, and they get to point out that Barack Obama is darker than John Kerry after a week on a French beach.

Rhubarbs, I'll take a little oversensitivity in this case. It's for a good cause.

Indeed, Fred Thompson has always struck me as looking like Clarence Thomas in whiteface.

standing O, adaglas.  Can't be topped.

Obama is John Kerry with a tan?  Well I'll gladly take him over Grover Norquist, who strikes me as "George Bush without a brain", or maybe a "Dick Cheney minus the integrity".  I guess Norquist still must be feeling bitter after Chait bested him in that seven-part back and forth debate on TNR awhile back.  Grover probably wishes he could get a tan himself.  The way the polls are starting to look, he's probabaly more afraid of getting burned come November.

The problem is not so much the phrase, but the wording is suspect just because of the history that the Repub party (and yes democrats, but politically Repub) have of dog-whistling when it comes to race in politics.  Now what if we substituted "with a tan" with "in Black-face".  "Black face" is just an uglier way of saying what he said, but the dog whistling comes in by saying "with a tan".

Besides, who among us but the most stauch of repub or extremely generous dems would be surprised if it was another race-batited attack. It just falls in line with much of what is going on on the Right, ya know, Michelle Obama is an "Angry Black Woman", or Obama the "Magical Negroe" (thxs Rush Limbaugh) or Obama being too "exotic".   If you are a serial race-baiter, whichwas/is the repub M.O. for awhile, then you open yourself to more scrutiny on the issue.

Rhubarbs, the one question I would have about this is:  Why couldn't Grover have said that Obama is just Kerry all over again?  But to agree with you, I think it would actually be a bit more helpful if we didn't react to every statement as if it were a racial comment.  Go with the obvious ones.

Michelle is, in fact, best described as "the basically good humored but at times significantly annoyed black woman who scares white folks for reasons they can't explain."

One hopes we will learn to deal with it.

I get what Rubs is saying -- we are setting way too low a bar for crying "racist" -- if Chris Matthews had said "Obama is JFK with a tan" and the right had jumped all over him we'd be saying "come on now."  When you get to the point where you have to argue "racism" by saying "it depends on the context of the person saying it" we're out of the objective and into the subjective and this is too serious a charge for that.

I hear you lymon and Rhub, we get nowhere by being thin skinned (bada bing).  But the best weapon has always been the deadly hilarious quip anyway, no matter what the racism reichter scale (which barely registered here at all).  That's what makes it so genius: that it is first and foremost funny.

Norquist: Limbaugh with a smaller belt.

This race business isn't black and white (sorry), it's a continuum. Some comments are racist, some racial, some mere observations about differences.

Norquist made what he considers a clever comment about race that doesn't hit me as racist, but embedded in it is the notion that hidden inside Obama is an elite white guy. This Trojan Horse notion has now been ridden by Norquist, Ferraro, and others. I don't know if it's racist, but it does make race more important to Obama's candidacy than it should be. And weirdly, it also suggests he really isn't black. You can't win with these wackos.

Actually from Norquist's perspective it's a good line: it's kind of funny in an up to the line not really crossing over it, maybe he did, maybe he didn't, kind of way; it compels attention; it makes its point; and it gets a lot of coverage for a news cycle. Divided opinion here on how offensive the line is, is exhibit A for what I'm saying in this Small Claims Court case.

There is something odd about it.  He could have said, "he's just a black John Kerry" and made the same point more simply.  But it's the screwy use of "tan" as in "white individual's darkening of skin pigmentation due to exposure (for professional or personal reasons) to sun" that almost completely undermines the main point about Obama, whose skin color doesn't come from the beach.  I guess what Norquist wants to say is, "forget all this post-racial stuff, the guy's just an effete tax'n'spend liberal, can't you see?"  He sort of derails his own comment in mid-journey.

He should have said, "John Kerry with a brain."

But, is that racist against silver spooned white dudes?

Bravo fougasseu, brilliant and concise

fougasseu, how come a guy who is half white is black?

To a certain extent, Barack is someone who did volunteer to be "black".  That is, he wasn't accepted as such because he had a white professor for a mother, grew up in Hawaii, went to Columbia and Harvard, etc.

He had to move to Chicago, join a black church in a black neighborhood, etc etc to establish his black cred.  This, not so whites would accept him, but so that blacks would.  And thus establish a black base from which to run for office.

Race in America is rather bizarre all around.

Bill Yard: The real question is would you eat a bearded lump of shit topped with whipped cream and a cherry?

Hi Chan:  I guarantee you that when Obama, or any other mixed race individual,  applies for a job, tries to hail a cab, or rent an apartment, he is considered black.  It took no volunteerism on his part.

This is actually very encouraging. Basically, Norquist, the guru of economic conservatism, is saying "Obama is just the negro vesion of the guy the entire country wishes it had elected in 2004 instead of Bush."

Chan makes a great point - if Obama hadn't offered up that he was black, we wouldn't know.

Even aside from the skin tone part of the comment, I'm pretty skeptical that this line of attack ("he's a liberal!") is going to work for Republicans.  Nate Silver had a nice article about this: www.fivethirtyeight.com/.../why-obama-isnt-like-dukakis.html

Basically, people already view Obama as a liberal and they still prefer him to McCain.  This is probably the most favorable political climate for liberals since the 1960's.

Anyway, if you're going to try to push the "Obama's a liberal" line, Kerry is a terrible comparison.  First because Kerry's not particularly liberal as Democrats go, and second because, as sullydog points out, most of the country probably wishes he had been elected instead of Bush.  Better to just stick with the standard Republican whipping boy, Jimmy Carter.

Chan, Woody, it is America itself which has defined Obama as black.  The "just one drop" rule is a truly American concoction.  In Brazil or even South Africa, Obama would not be black.  But there is no doubt that under the rule promulgated and enforced in the US of A, Barack Obama is a black man.

As a friend of mine said on his way to Dakar: "I am getting on this plane as a poor black man and getting off this plane as a rich white man."

This conversation exposes the fact that "race" is not a biological construct, but a socio-economic one (and to  degree, cultural).  Americans, across the political and racial spectrum, have generally accepted definitions as to what makes one "black," (or for that matter, "Latino," "Eurasian", etc.).  Indeed, is it not curious that we define someone born of a white parent and an East Asian parent as "Eurasian," but replace the Asian parent with a black one, and the child is "black,"  not "Eurafrican."  

As someone who is "multi-racial" too, (and roughly the same age as Obama),  I have to say that one's immersion into becoming "black" versus "bi-racial" is situational.  My father, half-black and half-Indian from the Caribbean, did not see himself as Afro-American, and certainly did not share in or was even knowledgeable of Southern-based African-American culture or mores.  My mother, a "white" Cuban, with Middle Eastern Jewish roots, was obviously foreign to "black" culture too.  Our neighborhood was made up of working class white ethnics, American blacks, and Puerto Ricans (other than my mother and our immediate next door neighbor, the only Latinos were all Puerto Rican.  This was the early 1970's).

So, while I did not see myself as black or white.  Spanish was not spoken in our house, though my mother's parents spoke Spanish in the home and I did spend much of my summer vacations with them, hearing a lot of Spanish.  Yet, my attenuated exposure to my Cuban roots gave me a only vague "sense" of being a Latino, but I did not see myself of being of Spanish "blood" either.  Basically, I did not have any sense of any racial identity until I was around 10 years old when a white student made a joke of me loving chicken and watermelon. Also at the time I also watching a heavy dose of sit-coms like "All In The Family" and "Good Times."  Around this time I asked my mother "what I was?"  She told me that I was black.  When I pointed out that she wasn't black, nor many of our family members, she explained that while I was mixed, "a very good thing," most people would see me as black.

So I started to see myself as black, though I was largely not accepted by blacks as being one of them.  (In fact, I remember a little black boy calling me a "chink" one time ??).  My "racial" identity was further confused when my family moved out of New York City and to a rural area of New York where Jews and Italians were considered "exotic" much less blacks.  And again, the few blacks that were in the area did not see me as one their own due probably more to my unfamiliarity with black American culture and my embrace of "white" American culture.  My favorite bands were Led Zeppelin, Queen, Aerosmith and other white hard rock bands when rap was just becoming a phenomenon among black teens.  I loved Hendrix too, but most of his fans were white rockers.

So, when explicitly asked what I was, I would tell of my multi-ethnic origins, (particularly if someone met my mom), but if someone called me black, I did not object or explain my other origins.  As an adult, if an Indian stranger approached me and would speak Hindi to me for example, I would explain that I was only part Indian.

So, viewing Obama from afar, my guess is that he probably embraced (and was accepted) black (American) culture (as opposed to black African culture) paradoxically because his mother was a white American, somewhat familiar with black American culture.  If his mother were foreign too, I think that Obama would not have become "black" as quickly.  But, of course, since he is "black" as defined in the U.S., he must consider himself "black."

Speaking as your basic albacore-hued guy, I only wish that Norquist had been more forthcoming--i.e., "John Kerry with a *great* tan."

There are any number of wardrobe colors that compliment Obama while failing most of us whiteys. Turquoise, white, mustard, lavender, beige: all these and more make me look like I've just finished six weeks of hardcore chemo. On Obama they ride with pride. Same with jewelry: a gold watch would look great on Barack Like Me; but on williamyard Like Me it just draws attention to my liver spots.

I can't recall seeing Obama's feet, but they couldn't possibly be uglier than mine. You notice my chipped and cracked nails because your eye is drawn to the glaring whitish patches of toenail fungus, next to which the curly black toe knuckle hairs are mere garnish against skin the color of curdled buttermilk, framed within topo maps of reddish bunions and calluses casting their own shadows like ancient Martian rock formations.

Norquist has every reason to be envious, but he would have saved face had he been more explicit.

Black people are white people with more melanin in their skin. Put that in your identity politics pipe and smoke it.

As almost nobody on this site believes in identity politics, to whom are you directing your remark?

I wonder what the reaction would have been, if Donna Brazile described Joe Lieberman as "Zell Miller with a beenie".

Thanks, jdalley, you made the point that I was trying to make, but with personal authority.

I wasn't saying that nobody in America would have noticed that Obama was "black".  I was saying that how you self-identify and how you act makes some difference.

My best support for this is Colin Powell.  He is clearly "black" by the American definition.  But, as he put it wryly himself, "I'm not THAT black."  

By which I think he really meant, not only he is of mixed race, but that being of Caribbean descent, he had a different attitude towards himself and race than do American blacks descended from slaves.

And by the career path he chose (the military) and the party he served most directly (the Republican) his race was a much less dominant part of his identity.

I guarantee you, if Colin Powell had run for president sometime in the last fifteen years, his "race" would be far less an issue than it has become with Obama.

Obama problems have been far less about race per se, and more about the kind of racialism with which he has voluntarily associated himself:  Rev Wright's church, the seditious American Left (Ayers and Dohrn) and the "loyal" American left, both of which obsess over race far more than the Right does.

Obama felt he needed lots of American black cred for his career, and thus went out of his way to marinate in it.  If he'd stuck to being a Hawaiian, Columbia U, Harvard Law guy of Kenyan descent he would have been so "white" identified that he was in danger of not having the support of American blacks.

Which raises the question, who are the real racists now-- mainstream whites or most American blacks?

I'm with you as almost always, BillyYard.

How about "John Kerry, but a lot better looking, a lot cooler, not self conscious, not a pompous moron, and who didn't marry richer wife after richer wife.  And without one of those wives being a total asshole."  

Just a possible alternate suggestion.

gennitydo, I think Woody was being at least partly ironic.

Unlike ironyroad who always is, by self-definition.

Guys, I enjoy riding serenely past on the surfboard of my handle.

William Y: I laughed so hard, I cried. Let's throw in orange as a color that makes all white people look like chemo patients.  

I defy anyone to come up with a realistic case that Obama is anything like Kerry.  Besides, history and timing have so defined Obama as to make comparisons (at this point anyway) to *anyone* kind of silly.  

Even Obama, with his wistful nods towards Lincoln, is getting a wee bit too caught up in all this.  Lincoln, who couldn't give a speech without busting up the whole room in laughter dozens of times, who was unable to hold a grudge in any way or even to get angry very often (to be seen with our boy wonder, so far so good), deeply meloncholy, utter humble - I do adore you Barack, but no. No.

(Oh come on Channy my friend, I'm not buzzed enough to take your bait.  Besides, Powell himself has clarified that comment to mean *soley* darkness level, which, as I'm sure you know, has tended to be definitive within African American history).

I'm hearing rumors that there's an internet posting out there with WilliamYard using the word "whitey". Apparently the Republicans intend to disseminate it widely just before the election, to devastating effect.

I would have had more respect for him if he said Obama is John Kerry only African American the mere fact that he says tan proves he suffer from delusions of self-importance in that he actually think he is being funny or cute. I dont understand why republicans can't talk about Obama without reference to race in a derogatory manner I know they are IGNORANT and STUPID by the poeple they have as their candidates a parade of C students but you would think they would attempt to show they have a little class.

Keep attacking the guys race and watch it backfire on your stupid selves.

Carol

Yeah, as political fodder goes this one-liner doesn't amount to much.   And Democrats have better things to do than to play  racial "gotcha" with Grover Norquist.

But even silly, jokey throwaway line can be revealing as several posters here have noted.  

The idea that a black person is simply a white person with more pigment may seem to some like an obvious truth - but there's an underlying racial double standard here isn't there?  After all, We don't see folks like Norquist to characterize a white person as "a black person with pigment deficit."   It''s understood that "White" is the proper standard.  

citizenghost, your statement is all-the-more true because humanity probably started out in Africa.  Folks who are "white" had ancestors waaay back who evolved from black-ness to white-ness.  If we're talking about ultimate historical baselines, black is the standard and everything else is a deviation.

wha'da ya mean no one at tnr believes in identity politics? I laughed out loud when I read that. Go to the Spine and you will be overwhelmed with wall-to-wall identity politics....it is just not the kind that gets attributed to black and brown folks but anyone who is familiar with this magazine has to admit that when it comes to a certain identity, it is identity politics on steroids...

I was thinking about the bulk of the posters, who don't to my mind have identity politics on the brain.  But what do you mean by "a certain identity"?