Last updated on February 8th, 2013 at 07:42 pm
Even Morning Joe will call you out if you accuse Obama of having a “Kenyan anti-colonial” agenda. This morning on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe,” Joe Scarborough and a team of analysts laughed hysterically at Newt Gingrich’s birther statements regarding our President. They tried to stop, and even went so far as to read Newt’s entire quote to make sure he wasn’t being quoted out of context, but his entire statement was even more crazy. Hilarity ensued as the entire panel laughed at Newt.
Let this be a warning to Republicans that their scope of acceptable media appearances has now narrowed down to only Fox News, which in spite of what they tell their base, is not a good plan for “taking the country back”. Keeping our fingers crossed that they keep up this sad pony show of marginalization.
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A quick refresher for those of you who don’t follow Newt’s every utterance since he fell far off of his moral high horse way, way back when he was ruining our country with his Contract on America. Newt told the National Review that Obama has pretended to be “normal” but that Obama actually seems to be engaged in “Kenyan, anti-colonial behavior”:
Courtesy of Media Matters:
“Citing a recent Forbes article by Dinesh D’Souza, former House speaker Newt Gingrich tells National Review Online that President Obama may follow a “Kenyan, anti-colonial” worldview.
Gingrich says that D’Souza has made a “stunning insight” into Obama’s behavior — the “most profound insight I have read in the last six years about Barack Obama.”
“What if [Obama] is so outside our comprehension, that only if you understand Kenyan, anti-colonial behavior, can you begin to piece together [his actions]?” Gingrich asks. “That is the most accurate, predictive model for his behavior.”
“This is a person who is fundamentally out of touch with how the world works, who happened to have played a wonderful con, as a result of which he is now president,” Gingrich tells us.
“I think he worked very hard at being a person who is normal, reasonable, moderate, bipartisan, transparent, accommodating — none of which was true,” Gingrich continues. “In the Alinksy tradition, he was being the person he needed to be in order to achieve the position he needed to achieve . . . He was authentically dishonest.”
Oh, my. A pause while we choke on the hubris of Gingrich’s charge that someone other than himself was authentically dishonest. Newt is, after all, the man who claimed moral authority over America, leading the charge against Clinton during the blue dress witch hunt and who subsequently was discovered to be cheating on his second wife with his third wife, whom he had proposed to before he told his wife he wanted a divorce. When called out on this behavior, Newt claimed it didn’t matter how he led his life. What mattered was what he said.
Please repeat that several times. It’s all you need to know about the modern day GOP. It doesn’t matter how they live their lives (or what the facts are), what matters is what they say. Sadly, Newt seems to be stuck back in the Dark Ages pre-YouTubes and the like. This tactic may work for the Fox octogenarian vote, but it ain’t gonna cut it out in the real world.
Newt’s accusations toward Obama are best read as projection and confession. They are, nonetheless, amusing in their transparent attempt to appeal to the ignorant birthers of his base.
Birtherism in big words is still birtherism. By “Kenyan anti-colonialism,” it’s clear to whom Newt is whistling Dixie. One wonders how exactly Gingrich thought this would be a winner since the GOP base prides themselves on anti-intellectualism, but then again, those are the very people who latch on to big words they don’t understand and proceed to lob them like missiles of ignorance at the other side, never realizing that the joke is on them.
Speaking of jokes, here is the Morning Joe laugh fest:
Morning Joe never broke down what anti-colonialism meant or why this was so funny, other than the obvious birtherism and far-reaching desperation of Gingrich, who seems determined to remind us of exactly what a hypocritical liar he is.
First of all, where did Newt get such big words like anti-colonialism? Surely not on his own. No, as he admits, he was citing conservative Dinesh D’Souza in Forbes
“The real problem with Obama is worse–much worse. But we have been blinded to his real agenda because, across the political spectrum, we all seek to fit him into some version of American history. In the process, we ignore Obama’s own history. Here is a man who spent his formative years–the first 17 years of his life–off the American mainland, in Hawaii, Indonesia and Pakistan, with multiple subsequent journeys to Africa.
(So, it’s OK for John McCain and Sarah Palin to have lived off of the mainland….but not for Obama….)
“[O]ur President is trapped in his father’s time machine. Incredibly, the U.S. is being ruled according to the dreams of a Luo tribesman of the 1950s. This philandering, inebriated African socialist, who raged against the world for denying him the realization of his anti colonial ambitions, is now setting the nation’s agenda through the reincarnation of his dreams in his son. The son makes it happen, but he candidly admits he is only living out his father’s dream. The invisible father provides the inspiration, and the son dutifully gets the job done. America today is governed by a ghost.”
Oh, see, it all makes sense. Obama is a ghost. Is now a bad time to point out that ghosts are white and if Obama were white, we wouldn’t be having this “discussion”?
Second of all, aside from the blatant appeal to racism here, both of these fellows (the author and the parrot) are misusing the concept of anti-colonialism. That or they both meant to admit their racism.
It would be inaccurate to judge Africa by European or American standards (far be it from me to argue with the desperate conflation of the Grand Old Party of whites), but I’m gonna go with a “Yeah, so what” here because even though the evidence is non-existent and the charge ludicrous, it gives us a moment to examine exactly what the GOP’s leader and possible 2012 contender knows and values. It seems, not much:
Colonialism as defined in context with Africa’s history (yes, boys, it does matter and just as a reminder, Africa is a continent…just sayin’, want to make sure y’all keep up):
According to Science.Jrank.Org’s “Anticolonialism in Africa – Aims And Objectives – Economic, Nationalists, Political, Colonialism, India, and Freedom” article:
“Socially and culturally, colonialism was a racist system. The era of “modern” nineteenth-century imperialism was also the era of scientific racism. Colonialism, mediated through racism and racist policies, limited and even forbade meaningful cross-cultural dialogue between colonizer and colonized. Throughout most of Africa and Asia, racism was “not an incidental detail, but … a consubstantial part of colonialism.” Harsh, brutal, and deliberately discriminatory treatment at the hands of European colonizers was the constant, painful reminder to Africans and Asians that they were a colonized and humiliated people. All nationalists, irrespective of ideological differences, were generally agreed that such treatment was indefensible; it must be ended.”
So let’s make this super simple in case a Fox watcher has wandered in to collect his five cents for leaving propaganda here: Newt is charging that Obama, via his father, thinks racism is bad. Newt is charging Obama as being pro Democracy and sovereignty. Boys, these are not bad things. Just a head’s up.
With that, I rest my case; the GOP is being led around by a bunch of Poujadist hypocrites. Newt is just the latest court fool to amuse their base with comedic dances of folly meant to distract from an utter lack of ideas. Each day, they get more willfully ignorant. And each day, I’m sure I’m not alone in wondering exactly why any of these folks are qualified to get a dime of my money, let alone run for President of this great country.
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Sarah has been credentialed to cover President Barack Obama, then VP Joe Biden, 2016 Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, and exclusively interviewed Speaker Nancy Pelosi multiple times and exclusively covered her first home appearance after the first impeachment of then President Donald Trump.
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