Tuesday was spent in the news industry and blogs online breathlessly waiting release of a video by Drudge Report that promised to reveal the Obama Hates Whitey tape proof of Obama’s evil once and for all.
What they got at the end of the day was a release of the same old video of the same speeches the GOP sought to use to attack Obama in the previous election cycle.
The Huffington Post has a long, brilliant, and well researched article outlining the events of the day, the obvious effort to incite the blogosphere and news cycle, and the ultimate fail at the end of the day.
The Daily Caller, working in collaboration with Fox News, released a video Tuesday night of a speech President Barack Obama delivered at Hampton University back in 2007. The release was preceded by an all-afternoon Drudge Report banner headline splash, billing the video as some sort of electorally game-changing revelation with racial overtones that was going to affect the 2012 campaign ahead of the first presidential debate.
It ended up being a rerun of a 2007 story that was already well known to reporters and political partisans. So, as a piece of new and incendiary news, it was something of a letdown. However, as a piece of Internet trolling that forced political reporters to bide their time until the evening release of the video, instead of watching the goings-on in the last days of Major League Baseball’s regular season, it was a work of genius.
So, here, in 2012, is how a screaming Drudge-siren scoop comes and goes, in 10 easy steps.
Drudge, Daily Caller Hype Old Obama Speech, Trolling Entire Political World
Go to the link provided, and read one of the most thorough takedowns of the right wing noise machine I have read in a while. Brilliant reporting.
From ThinkProgress, a blunt refutation of the racism claims by the Drudge, simply by quoting what George W. Bush had to say on the same topic.
Drudge bills Obama’s 2007 remarks as a “race speech” because of the suggestion that the rebuilding of Katrina is connected to a history of racial discrimination. There was another President who made the same connection, George W. Bush:
That poverty has roots in a history of racial discrimination, which cut off generations from the opportunity of America. We have a duty to confront this poverty with bold action. So let us restore all that we have cherished from yesterday and let us rise above the legacy of inequality. When the streets are rebuilt, there should be many new businesses, including minority-owned businesses, along those streets.
In New ‘Bombshell’ Video, Obama Criticizes Federal Response To Hurricane Katrina
FWIW, what was there NOT to criticize about the federal response to Katrina? The Bush administration basically let a major American city die, right before our eyes.
As for the matter and content of this effort by the GOP and right wing noise machine, I have only this to add.
Anyone, anyone of you American voters who at this point do not understand that the heart of GOP strategy and belief system is a profound and never ending racism, then all hope that you will ever become an enlightened human being is lost.
You should read the news reports where people are capturing GOP get out the vote calls nationwide, where callers have been caught on tape reciting the litany of racist claims about Obama’s mother and father, drug use, you name it.
They have no morals. No sense of decency. No shame.
The GOP has now moved beyond just dog whistles. Beyond the simplistic Southern Strategy that substitutes references to welfare and food stamps for the old raw racism to give it an acceptable public face since the Nixon era.
They are now going for straight for the juggler, and by the end of this month will pretty much be shouting ‘nigger, nigger, nigger’ at the top of their lungs as they try one last desperate time to eke out an electoral victory by getting the votes of the hardcore racist remnants of the voting population of America.
I sincerely hope that when Obama wins in November, this will be the death knell of the current Republican Party.
And I will not wish it to RIP. It deserves to rot in Hell.
