Well. Although not a likely Pulitzer winner by any measure, on Wednesday (SBD is half a day short in his prediction), a Mr. Lewis Diuguid, a columnist for the Kansas City Star and member of its editorial board, stated in no uncertain terms that:
Mr. Diuguid's biography is nothing special as far as trained journalists go, but the chances are quite fine that he represents a fair number of academic and media types and those whose profession it is to be concerned about "communities." In other words, he's not alone in this thought. It frames his world view and reveals what he expects from people not like himself."The "socialist" label that Sen. John McCain and his GOP presidential running mate Sarah Palin are trying to attach to Sen. Barack Obama actually has long and very ugly historical roots. J. Edgar Hoover, director of the FBI from 1924 to 1972, used the term liberally to describe African Americans who spent their lives fighting for equality.
Those freedom fighters included the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., who led the Civil Rights Movement; W.E.B. Du Bois, who in 1909 helped found the NAACP which is still the nation's oldest and largest civil rights organization; Paul Robeson, a famous singer, actor and political activist who in the 1930s became involved in national and international movements for better labor relations, peace and racial justice; and A. Philip Randolph, who founded and was the longtime head of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters and a leading advocate for civil rights for African Americans.
McCain and Palin have simply reached back in history to use an old code word for black. It set whites apart from those deemed unAmerican and those who could not be trusted during the communism scare.
Shame on McCain and Palin."
In any event, he's absolutely right. Isn't obvious that Senator Obama has tried, tried, tried to transcend race this entire election? Look how He has tried to transcend His racist and socialist background. On His tour of personal discovery, the good Senator has shed His mentor and pastor of 20 years, Rev. Wright, and His other nutjob man in black Father Phlegm er Felcher or whatever his name is. Both racists of the worst sort. Twenty years in those pews, consuming a steady diet of black liberation theology (a sort of socialism is it not?) do not make Barack Obama a racist. Just like cavorting with an unrepentent Marxist and all-around rabblerousing, bomb-making, Constitution hating education professor does not make the Freshman senator a socialist. besides he hasn't spoken to Ayers since 2005, when he only 44. Nor does His playacting at New Party development in Chicago make Him a socialist, not to mention His affiliation with fascist friends of the PLO make Him a national socialist. He tried so hard to dissociate Himself from ACORN, which specializes in radicalizing communities with hate speech in an effort to get them to the voting palace. Barack Obama has moved past His past. He is not a racist socialist. How do we know? Well, He said He has. And others have attested to it. As one transformational figure has said, He's a "transformational figure." Apparantly, all the Senator's great deeds ar ein the future. And still, McCain and his ilk keep framing things in terms of race by turning to that tired old racist ploy of discussing one's opponent's economic plans. Raw, filthy historical racism. After all, says Diuguid, look at how all those socialists were treated. Hoover didn't give a rat's ass about Russian or East German or Chinese or Vietnamese or Cuban or Puerto Rican socialist/commie bastards, just the socialist/commie bastards who happened to be black.
Anyway, what better way to keep fence sitters and undecideds and independent thumbsuckers in baby-me mode until election day than by implying they are racists if they vote for such obvious racists as John McCracker and Sarah Paleskin.
The fact remains that at this point in the race, the only stone that Sen. McCain has in arsenal of personal destruction is the name of Unrepentent Socialist. He must beat Him with it mercilessly. It's high time that Senator McCain live up to his reputation as a mean SOB and fight like one. It's possible that's one more thing the press has been wrong about. Frankly, though, it doesn't matter what McCain calls Him because the past 20 months have destroyed any common language this country once shared. A further sign, perhaps, of the coming of the Transformational Figure.
