A sheriff wishes death on the president, and a newspaper buries the story.

Tonight my racism chase takes me to that very blue, very Yankee state of Massachusetts, where the heart of a racist (that's the big guy to the right) is just as malevolent as the heart of the racist living in the heart of Dixie.

 "A sheriff in Massachusetts is refusing to apologize for joking that President Barack Obama could best serve the country by being assassinated.

Plymouth County Sheriff Joseph D. McDonald, Jr. made the joke during a local St. Patrick’s Day breakfast for Republicans on Sunday. He said that the ghost of Lincoln appeared to Obama in a dream and advised him to go to the theater, where the former president was shot in the head."

Of course this is a bit troublesome, because our ignorant friend in Massachusetts happens to be a sheriff. Hey I know that I blog about them, but I don't worry about the garden variety racist. (Like the the ones who posts anonymously on the Internet, or this guy.) But racists in positions of power are a different story.

Of course our friend is doubling down, and he doesn't see anything wrong with a law enforcement official wishing death on the president of the United States.

"It was absolutely in jest,” he told The Patriot Ledger. “It was a joke. It wasn’t a new joke by any means.”

 

McDonald claimed it was “absurd” to be offended by the joke because it had existed since the late 19th century.

“The basic concept of it has been around since the Andrew Johnson administration,” he explained to Patch. “The radical Republicans wanted him to take a much harder line on Reconstruction of the South, and the joke was that Johnson should have gone to the theater instead of Lincoln.”
McDonald also accused liberals of hypocrisy, saying he heard similar jokes told about former President George W. Bush." [Source]

Of course our cerebrum challenged friend is wrong with his analogy. I am quite sure that he can't find an instance of a democratic sheriff wishing death on former president Bush.

Now as troubling as this story might seem, there is an even more troubling aspect to it.

"The blog Blue Mass Group notes that The Boston Globe removed the joke from their report of the event, without explaining why. A source at The Globe confirmed, to Mediaite, that there was no question about the accuracy of the account. The source did not further explain the editorial decision."

I guess the globe didn't want to chase the Big R. But I thought that the press was supposed to report everything that happens. Shame on the Globe!

But don't worry folks; you don't need newspapers like the Globe, I have your racism chase covered right here.