Privileged White Man Questions Black Man’s Commitment to Civil Rights
Honestly, I have watched few things that have made my blood boil as much as Lawrence O’Donnell’s “interview” of Herman Cain last night. I use the phrase “interview” in the loosest possible sense of the word because it wasn’t really an interview. It was a carefully orchestrated smear campaign by O’Donnell.
Lawrence O’Donnell, a privileged white liberal who attended a prestigious private high school, graduated from pasty-white Harvard, the son of a prominent Boston attorney, and who never served in the military had the gall to actually question Herman Cain’s commitment to civil rights as well as his service during Vietnam.
While Lawrence was penning articles for the Harvard Lampoon, where he was “popular” “due to his wit and sarcasm,” Herman Cain was fighting to make something of himself in the racially segregated south.
The problem is that Herman Cain isn’t the “right” kind of black man. Like Clarence Thomas he is a conservative Republican. The current Democratic party is a coalition of identity groups, and African Americans are more closely identified with the Democrats than any other group.
Now that Sarah Palin has decided not to run I think I will be rooting for Cain. No matter which party wins next year, we lose. But watching Cain vs. Obama promises to be the most entertaining match-up.
(via Hot Air)
The Crawdad Hole 
“watching Cain vs. Obama promises to be the most entertaining match-up”
I need this, I need this, I need this.
Larry is starting off the pretzel twisting – but I don’t think Herman Cain cares or is afraid of their smears – I bet he’d go back on Larry’s program again and again – until everyone gets just how shallow they really are.
I am glad Cain is running, highlighting the emptiness of the race card.
His condescension is breathtaking. Cain is not quite black enough (read Liberal) for white man Lawrence. He didn’t quite do enough to fight in the civil rights movement as a 16 year old kid trying to keep his head down and make a life as best he could.
Mr. O’Donnell, born with a silver spoon in his mouth and protected all his life from everything from physical want, to the draft, to unpressed trouser creases, thinks he has a much better grasp of what appropriate behavior should have been for a poor young black boy in 1961 Georgia.
” Really, Mr. Cain, concentrating on making it through school so you could succeed as a black man and not be hungry and poor was very unseemly behavior IMO”, sneers the wealthy white son of privilege, graduate of the private St. Sebastian’s School and later Harvard. “I do think you ought to have been out there getting your head cracked in at 16 instead of worrying about food on the table”, opines the pasty intellectual who has never been served a glass of wine that was not perfectly chilled, much less involuntarily missed a meal.
I have great respect for those black and white people who broke the law to change it. It’s not an easy thing to do. As much as we admire Rosa Parks, she had the legal team of the NAACP behind to support her. It was a well thought out organized act. Cain wouldn’t be that lucky. O’Donnell is a clueless mean asshat.
WMCB, if you were ever to start a “Rant of the Day” email, I would be your first subscriber. : )
Honk!
Ditto. Rock on.
And great post. I cannot believe I ever liked O’Donnell (for his work on “The West Wing.”). Are MSNBC hosts incapable of being at the very, very least, POLITE? This constant belittling, belligerent condescending arrogance on display is astonishing.
As noted so well above, how dare this privileged white man chastise how Cain was able to be where he is today. That takes some kind of hubris, doesn’t it? Wow.
It’s about time someone actually called Herman Cain on his shit. It’s too bad that we don’t always treat our guests like this.
What “shit”, exactly, does Mr. Cain need to be called on? Or are you of the opinion that black men need to stick to drinking from the approved “colored” political water fountains?
The problem, Sean, is that the idea of diversity of political opinion, left right and center, taking root across the black community scares the crap out of you. It just rocks your narrow bigoted little world, and not in a good way.
Me, I think it’s about time the left got called on all their Uncle Tom and Oreo shit. Because it’s been stinking up this country for a long damn time. Let’s air it out, shall we? You ought to see how this interview is flying all over twitter, and how many people are recoiling in disgust.
You and those like you don’t own the media and the sources of information anymore, Sean. The narrative is getting outta your control. People are going to decide for themselves. So maybe you and your friends ought to clean house and back up a minute, before you Oreo and Uncle Tom yourselves right off of your high horses, in full public view.
What makes Lawrence O’Donnell so disgusting is his smirk that says “I got you, you ignorant ____. I may be wrong, but that’s what I read on his face.
It’s what I read, too.
I saw O’Donnell on the Morning Joe show once……talking down to Glen Greenwald the same way……calling Glenzilla a wimpy “progressive,” when Larry was the real thing: full blown socialist. He said it proudly, out loud—-Glenzilla looked quite surprised by that.
True story.
When people like Lawrence O’Donnell get their just dessert, is very satisfying. Soon he’ll get the Keith Olberman treatment from MSNBC.
Your lips to God’s ears.
I’m amazed that Cain doesn’t fire back with something along the lines of “How dare you challenge my blackness”.
While it would have been fun to watch, it shows just how much restraint, pride and actual color-blindness Mr Cain has that he does not even feel the need to go there…. pretty impressive.
New poll just out. It’s Zogby, but still. That’s a BIG fucking lead.
Zogby is not a very accurate poll. I’ll wait for a good poll, but the numbers speak of a candidate who’s moving up fast. Wouldn’t that be interesting? Cain is genuine, imo. He has that going for him.
Imo most of this is a sign of how much the voters hate what Romney stands for. This could have gone to Perry if he hadn’t flubbed the debates.
OT – bit on c4p I see a lot of poster as disgusted with the GOP as the pumas are with the Dems. I knew this would happen if her supporters felt she was not being given a fair shot at the primary.
SP saw what happened to Hillary, and how she was already getting the same treatment, not just from the opposition, but her own party. I imagine a few in her family must have felt it wasn’t worth it.
Cain has an impressive amount of grace. He responds very calmly and without even a teleprompter. I like his clarity and courage, too. He doesn’t run from controversy, but he doesn’t try to bully people and shut down the conversation, either. He knows where he stands and he’s not defensive about it.
Absolutely stunning interview.
Points to Cain for holding his shit together.
Obama doesn’t have half of his self control.
New Gallup out as well.
Obama’s approval rating down to 38%
I think Obama was there before, but soon he’ll have 35% approval and 60% disapproval. He’s planning to do another bus campaign, and Americans are tired of a president that only knows how to campaign.
Most polls are absolute garbage at this point. The only measures that mean anything are the views of the incumbent.
“Poll: Nearly half of Americans can’t name a single GOP presidential candidate”
http://hotair.com/archives/2011/10/07/poll-nearly-half-of-americans-cant-name-a-single-gop-presidential-candidate/
Even the primary numbers are probably junk.
Election time is too far away. Right now, I see polls for their movement, not so much for the actual numbers. Cain is moving up, but I’m not sure Perry is out.
Blessed ignorance.
Herman Cain: Math degree from Morehouse, Master’s in Computer Science from Purdue. Ballistics analyst for the U.S Navy. Employee of Coca-Cola, Pilsbury, and Burger King. CEO of Godfather’s Pizza and Nat’l Restaurant Assoc. FRS director in Kansas City, Radio talk show host in Atlanta, GA. Cancer survivor. Not a politician, but an experienced leader.
Just to reinforce, he was Chairman of the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, that’s one of the 12 Fed banks in the nation. Impressive for a politician.
O’Donnell’s behavior may come from other sources besides mere privileged pseudo-liberal arrogance. The Dem Establishment might be worrying that Cain could bring a significant percentage of African-Americans over into the GOP, or at least cause many of them to start thinking about going independent–depriving the Dems of one of their most reliable groups of voters.
If I hadn’t seen O’Donnell treat Glen Greenwald so rudely, I might agree with you.
But since I did see that, I’ll chalk up O’Donell’s comments –which are par for the course, for him– to privileged, pseudo-liberal arrogance.
Even Mika was appalled by his treatment of Glenzilla. And O’Donnell has never been back on the Morning Joe show.
Oh, I can accept that part of it is PPLA, but I think there may be more than one root to O’D’s rudeness.
I remember that exchange. O’Donnell was telling Glenn he was the better socialist, like there was some kind of purity test.
I suggest we have two “Douchebags Of The Week” this week, with O’Donnell as the second one. 😈
Honk!
So many douchebags, so little time….
Well well well. Remember Mr. Spinner? The Obama bundler who was in charge of the DOE loan program , whose wife was an attorney for Solyndra? The one who was so, like, TOTALLY RECUSED from anything to do with Solyndra? Kept hands off, he was! Nuthin to see there, move along. At least according to the WH 2 weeks ago.
New email dump today:
Read more: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1011/65448.html#ixzz1a8FcIJ7A
What can I say? Sheesh
You know, primarily because we’re a late state and the whole dang shooting match in terms of primaries may be decided before it gets to us, I’m seriously thinking of writing Palin in. OTOH, I think it would immensely entertaining to see Obama, the Dems AND the GOP bigwigs squirm if Cain became the nominee to go up against the first black President.
I’m not at all for playing identity politics but they started this “race” game to the point it’s gotten absolutely ridiculous so let them learn a few hard truths about what equality truly means.
Yeah, the way they have crammed so many primaries into January, Mitt might be anointed by Feb. (I hope not). If that’s the case I’ll write in Palin as well. Our state is supposed to count write ins but they frequently don’t report it.
It depends where you live, but in some states if you write in a candidate from one of the major parties, it counts towards whoever was nominated by that party. In 2008 I really wanted to write in Hillary but because she was a Dem and Obama was the Dem nominee, a write in vote for Hillary would have just been counted as a vote for Obama.
I meant write in at the Primary.
Yeah, talking about the primary, yttik. For the general, I’ll go with the GOP nominee, even Romney, although it will absolutely pain me to do it.
Ahh, primary rules are all different and vary from state to state. Our state has completely canceled our 2012 presidential primary entirely. Doesn’t matter, on the Dem side when you voted, your vote didn’t count at all anyway. All candidates come from caucuses. I can’t write anybody in even if I wanted to.
Our state has completely canceled our 2012 presidential primary entirely
😯
I can go you one better. Sort of. Kind of. We have a Governors election this year. At least I think we do. I say that because you never hear about it. We literally almost missed voting in the primary because there was no publicity about it. And no one’s talking about the upcoming election. Now, they might be yakking it up about it around Louisville or Lexington but out here in the hinterlands they’re barely saying “boo”.
Or if they are, I’ve missed it completely.
Myiq will like this post
Heh. Holder is crapping his pants bigtime, and sent out an angry letter trying to hide behind the skirts and pants legs of our noble law enforcement officers:
House Oversight has responded thusly:
I think Holder’s “I take umbrage! UMBRAGE!” gambit fell flat. Issa ain’t skeered. Which means he knows even more and is drip drip dripping it out.
http://biggovernment.com/awrhawkins/2011/10/07/breaking-news-attorney-general-holder-just-sent-a-letter-to-fast-and-furious-investigators/
Issa’s probably a crook, too, but hey, one crook at a time… 😈
I sometimes feel like I’m running my own gun running op. Trying to get one set of bad guys to take out the others, then vice versa.
Primary is 3 months away but dayum …
“Poll: Perry now … fifth in New Hampshire”
http://hotair.com/archives/2011/10/07/poll-perry-now-fifth-in-new-hampshire/
Na Na Na Na…Na Na Na Na…Goodhaaaair, good-bye… 😈
Romney takes NH regardless, but Perry is sinking like a stone.
When I first moved to Atlanta in 1980, the Pizza Hut offered pizza with barbeque toppings and the Mellow Mushroom made Artichoke & Tofu topped pizza. The fact that a company headed up by a Georgian of ANY color could succeed in the pizza business, and actually pay homage to the Italian Gangsta every Chicago thug only WISHES he could be is testamony to Caine’s leadership, He listens to his customers, produces what they ask for and sells it til the cows come home. Unlike Bo who’s Jumbo Ears are for amusement only.
PS: I wondered if Larry, Laura and Kelly O’Donnel weren’t all related and got their MSNBC jobs the old fashioned way, Daddy.
This is why Crazy Larry is Republican no man’s land. When Maddow first started, she had a few Republicans on. Then she went to extremes on them and the word was out that there was no point in being on her show. She complained that she couldn’t get Republicans anymore.
Larry is at the end of his period of getting Republican guests. I don’t know why they even bother. MSNBC’s ratings are in the toilet.
Till recently I was thinking that millions of disgruntled Democrats should invade the Republican primaries and vote for Romney to try getting the least-scary Republican nominee for 2012. That would make those millions of disgruntled Democrats feel free to vote Third Party in 2012. Now I begin to wonder whether those millions of disgruntled Democrats should vote for Cain in the Republican primaries instead. He probably isn’t much more conservative than Romney, and he earned/made his own way in life and career as against inheriting wealth and power the way Romney did.
Unless I learn something I don’t yet know, I wouldn’t be any more scared of a President Cain than I would be scared of a President Romney. If Cain were the R nominee, I would feel set free to vote for a Third Party candidate.
I can’t imagine how much torture, pressure, and brute-force attrition it would take to make the Democratic Party give in to the need
for a legitimate primary fought to the bitter end.