That's that. Now what? (Updated)

Every time you think the Republican party, which has used racially-charged imagery in its campaigns since the mid-60s, cannot sink any lower, they manage to drain a little more out of the pool. 

The birther questions surrounding President Obama were ridiculous but nothing is beyond the pale for the likes of Sarah Palin (To be fair, and has been pointed out, Palin has been back & forth on the birth certificate issue but her latest position seemed to be that it was "distracting & annoying"), not to mention the nonsensical ravings of Donald Trump.

David Frum is a conservative (but Canadian! Horrors!) who wrote specches for George W. Bush and he sees the birther BS for what it is:

Yet even now, the racialist aspect of the anti-Obama movement has not subsided. Trump has moved from the birth certificate to questioning the president’s academic qualifications for the Harvard Law School. Trump himself was a troubled student (at one point he attended a military school) who nonetheless gained admission to Wharton. His father’s wealth and business success cannot have hurt with that application. Yet he feels himself qualified to pronounce on who is and who is not smart enough to attend Harvard Law. Barack Obama graduated magna cum laude. (And to anticipate a new line of attack – yes, Harvard Law School exams were blind-graded.) He was elected editor of the law review. And his classmates, left and right, universally admired his abilities.

I wish it were otherwise, but it does seem that these racialized attacks on Obama have exacted a toll on him. But they also have exacted a toll on the opposition to Obama. The too-faint repudiation of birtherism by regular Republicans has shaped not only the Obama brand, but also the Republican brand. It was not only white people who heard the implied message about who counts and who does not count as a “real American.”

I write as an opponent of virtually every major and minor action of this administration. Republicans should be fighting this president on policy, not winking at those who use race as a weapon. It’s worth recalling the generous words of John McCain on election night 2008:

[T]hough we have come a long way from the old injustices that once stained our nation’s reputation and denied some Americans the full blessings of American citizenship, the memory of them still had the power to wound. A century ago, President Theodore Roosevelt’s invitation of Booker T. Washington to dine at the White House was taken as an outrage in many quarters. America today is a world away from the cruel and frightful bigotry of that time. There is no better evidence of this than the election of an African-American to the presidency of the United States. Let there be no reason now for any American to fail to cherish their citizenship in this, the greatest nation on Earth.

And those who imagine that they somehow enhance the value of that citizenship by belittling the American-ness of their president – they not only disgrace the politics they uphold, but they do damage that will not soon be forgotten by the voters a revived Republicanism must win.

Read the rest here.

So, now that the President has released his birth certificate? What is the next line of meaningless-noise on the horizon?

I really wonder how anyone can be proud to call themselves a Republican when we see this constant stream of effluvium.

 

 

Comments

[Rick]

Yo Mr. Informed... Sarah Palin isn't a birther... and neither are most Republicans... find another straw man...