The Andrew Sullivan's suicide watch, and a new political low.

Poor Andrew Sullivan has been absolutely unhinged since president Obama played nice Negro at the last debate with Mitt Romney. Andrew has been in a state of perturbation ever since. (I might have to stop following him on twitter. The guy makes me want to call the suicide hot line for him every time I read one of his tweets.)

"The Pew poll is devastating, just devastating. Before the debate, Obama had a 51 - 43 lead; now, Romney has a 49 - 45 lead. That's a simply unprecedented reversal for a candidate in October. Before Obama had leads on every policy issue and personal characteristic; now Romney leads in almost all of them. Obama's performance gave Romney a 12 point swing! I repeat: a 12 point swing.
Romney's favorables are above Obama's now. Yes, you read that right. Romney's favorables are higher than Obama's right now. That gender gap that was Obama's firewall? Over in one night....

Look: I'm trying to rally some morale, but I've never seen a candidate this late in the game, so far ahead, just throw in the towel in the way Obama did last week - throw away almost every single advantage he had with voters and manage to enable his opponent to seem as if he cares about the middle class as much as Obama does. How do you erase that imprinted first image from public consciousness: a president incapable of making a single argument or even a halfway decent closing statement? And after Romney's convincing Etch-A-Sketch, convincing because Obama was incapable of exposing it, Romney is now the centrist candidate, even as he is running to head up the most radical party in the modern era."
 

Calm down Andrew, let me explain what it is like to be a high profile black man in America when you want white folks- whose natural inclination is to be afraid of you- to see you as something less than threatening. You smile a lot, --even when it is forced. You retreat with your body language, you try not to argue or be snappy with your answers, and you do not raise your voice. Romney can act like Mel Gibson on a coffee binge, Obama, on the other hand, could not. (Head down, no eye contact)

What I am explaining is a political strategy that Barack Obama used to get elected. It worked for him because he was new, and every American was searching for that Magic Negro. Well the Magic Negro has been in power for four years, and suddenly he is not so magical anymore. Now his supporters want a fighter. They want someone to look Mitt Romney in the eye and tell him that he is a lying SOB. It's why Andrew Sullivan and others like him are so upset with his debate performance. They wanted Richard Pryor and he gave them Bill Cosby.

Now, of course, we have to see if president Obama understands the dynamics of the American electorate. They don't want an angry black man, but they do want someone who is passionate and can defend his record. Mr. Obama told black folks today while talking to Tom Joyner. (Whoops, maybe I shouldn't have said that. I know how it is when you Negroes talk to each other.) He said that he was too polite during the debate. I guess that was his wink/wink to you Negroes that he is going back to being himself, and if he comes off as angry well then so be it. We will see.

I am sure Andrew will be watching. Let's just hope that he isn't close to a very high bridge. If Obama loses again the poor guy might jump. 

Finally, will someone please tell Mitt Romney that it's not cool to score cheap political points with dead American heroes? Clearly Barbara Doherty seems to think that he needs to be told.

 "The mother of a former Navy SEAL killed in the Sept. 11 attack on the U.S. embassy in Benghazi, Libya is criticizing Mitt Romney for using her son as a political "football" and is questioning Romney's account of his meeting with him.
Barbara Doherty spoke with KIRO Radio's Ross and Burbank Wednesday morning. "I'm just upset that Mitt Romney is using this for his political gain and I don't think it should be a political issue when four young men have died," she said from her home in Woburn, Mass. 

   Doherty said her son never mentioned meeting Romney, saying it most likely "wasn't too meaningful."

She's not the only one questioning Romney's account. A close friend of Doherty's told The Ron and Don Show Glen had a much different recollection of the meeting. "He said it was very comical," Elf Ellefsen said in an interview with producer Libby Denkman. , "Mitt Romney approached him ultimately four times, using this private gathering as a political venture to further his image. He kept introducing himself as Mitt Romney, a political figure. The same introduction, the same opening line. Glen believed it to be very insincere and stale."Ellefson said Romney's use of Doherty for his campaign "makes him sick." [Source] 






 

Green Friday, and Andrew Sullivan wants to bring back the Bell Curve.

Today is Green Friday in A-merry-ca. It is a day of crass commercialism designed by merchants and corporations to get gullible shoppers into stores. Prices have been marked up so that they can be slashed right back down with coupons and promises of price cuts in the stores.

Of course, as we all know by now, it's working. Pepper spray, shootings, bomb threats, and mobs at every box store door. I don't think that Jesus wanted us to prepare for his birthday quite like this. Professional shoppers (see Mrs. Field) have been preparing for this day for months. (15,000 at the Mall of America!) So for all of you amateurs out there, you shop at your own risk on days like these.

I tried to brave the "madding" crowd today. (Today. Not early this morning. Not last night. Today!) People watching was interesting, but I just couldn't take the crowds after awhile. I will get whatever gifts I have left online. It's a shame God didn't have two sons who were born months apart. Oh well, Cyber Monday is just a few days away.

Finally, I used to respect the writings of blogger Andrew Sullivan; he was one of the few conservative writers in A-merry-ca who I considered relevant. So imagine my shock when I read what Jason Johnson penned over at Politc365 about Sullivan's contribution to the Bell Curve debate. At first I thought that Johnson's take on what Sullivan wrote might have been misguided, but then I read Sullivan's post for myself and I....well, read it for yourself:

"Two points: research is not about helping people; it's about finding out stuff. And I have long opposed the political chilling of free inquiry into any area of legitimate curiosity or research. I'm not going to stop now. Secondly, I agree that there would be very little, if any, use for this data in our society, apart from the existence of affirmative action. But when public policy holds that all racial difference in, say, college degrees, are due to racism, a truth claim has already been made. So the p.c. egalitarians have made this a public and social issue by a statement of fact they subsequently do not want to see debated or challenged using the data. That's an illiberal position, in my view.

I remain gob-smacked by the resilience of IQ differences between broad racial groups, controlling for much other data. Maybe if we understood what was going on - which particular and subtle combination of genetics, culture and generation makes this the result - we could help increase equality of opportunity. Maybe racial categories themselves have become so fluid and opaque the whole area is now moot. Maybe we should accept that differences in outcomes among racial groups have some element of irreducibility to them. Maybe the answer is to abolish racial affirmative action and replace it by class-based forms. Maybe the answer is to abolish affirmative action altogether (my preferred outcome). But all these questions depend on a thriving research culture which has been chilled by politics. That's what saddens me." [Source]

Holy s^%*! Johnson was right! A big WTF? for my British friend.

I have more of an appreciation now of how Johnson ended his post:

"Because everyone’s work proves that their people are the smartest. In fact, even when Roland Fryer, a brilliant academic at Harvard showed what a farce IQ tests are, his work was largely ignored. Less than 4 years ago Dr. Fryer’s research showed that IQ levels, which are supposed to be immutable, are equal for African American and White children but differences only show up on tests once they’ve been in public schools for 2 years proving that the impact of racism and schooling is muting IQ scores more than actually assessing them.

Of course, his research was largely ignored by the press and pundit mags because it didn’t support the sexy self-aggrandizing narrative that people like Andrew Sullivan live by: Whites are smarter than Blacks, but it is their extreme benevolence that leads them to allow us to play house in the societies ‘they’ve’ created."

Not all of us Mr. Johnson. Some of us still choose "to play" in the fields.

HI, I AM FIELD NEGRO, AND I AM AN OB.......

"I have never felt more convinced that this man's candidacy - not this man, his candidacy - and what he can bring us to achieve - is an historic opportunity. This was a testing; and he did not merely pass it by uttering safe bromides. He addressed the intimate, painful love he has for an imperfect and sometimes embittered man. And how that love enables him to see that man's faults and pain as well as his promise. This is what my faith is about. It is what the Gospels are about. This is a candidate who does not merely speak as a Christian. He acts like a Christian."

~~Andrew Sullivan~~

Whoa there Andrew, lets not have the "O" man walking across the swimming pool just yet.

But still, that speech the "O" man gave here in Philly today almost had me completing the title of this post. Today, finally, the "O" man became a "black" candidate. I even think he pulled the good Reverend from under the bus a little bit (Although I think his shoelaces might still be stuck). The "O" man embraced his race, and confronted some of A-merry-ca's racial demons. And this all happened just a few blocks away from where the concept of liberty was supposedly crafted in these divided states of A-merry-ca. He gave it a stones throw away from a bell that is as cracked as some of the bigots attacking him. Fittingly, it was right in front of the U.S. Mint, because his speech was on the money.

The "O" man had to know it was coming, and it seemed that he was ready (The shit about his racist maternal grandmother was classic). He said all the right things, and he tried to appeal to the best part of our nature. He even came at his own peeps a little. But it's cool "O" man, we get it, this isn't about us, you have our vote. This is about letting the rest of A-merry-ca know that you don't bite. "Ahh come on field, he had to say what he did, it was a calculated political move and nothing else" Yes, but he could have kept up the whole I am the Tigerlike politician act, but he didn't. He stepped up to the plate, and talked about race and what it has meant to this country. I have been killing the guy since day one to get just a little real, so when he does, I am going to give him credit.

"..And yet words on a parchment would not be enough to deliver slaves from bondage, or provide men and women of every color and creed their full rights and obligations as citizens of the United States. What would be needed were Americans in successive generations who were willing to do their part — through protests and struggle, on the streets and in the courts, through a civil war and civil disobedience and always at great risk — to narrow that gap between the promise of our ideals and the reality of their time..."

OK "O" man, now you have me at least checking the ingredients in your "O" Aid. Do you happen to have Orange flavors?