Will "Democracy" Cost You Your Health Care?

According to The Washington Post and Consumer Watchdog, "health insurers and their employees contributed $2.2 million to the top 10 recipients in the House and Senate since 2005, while drug makers and their employees gave more than $3.3 million to top lawmakers during that period."

PhRMA (Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America) chief, Billy Tauzin, says that all his industry's campaign contributions "simply reflect participation in American democracy."

"We do what most people do in political systems: We support people with whom we agree and with whom we believe in. We also support other people who don't always agree with us but are honest and fair and open-minded."

Of course, if you're naive enough to believe that, I've got some swampland in Siberia to sell ya. After all, this is the same Billy Tauzin who, while in the House, spearheaded that Medicare Prescription Drug Bill that ballooned the budget to pay the pharmaceutical companies whatever they wanted to charge only to leave two months later to take that PhRMA head job for $2.5 million a year. The same Billy Tauzin who's bragging that he's made the White House promise that any new health care reform will "block any congressional effort to allow the government to negotiate Medicare drug prices."

With some of these top Congressional beneficiaries of health sector "democracy," it will be no surprise how they will ultimately vote on this health care debate. However, it is interesting to hear their justifications in light of how much money they get.

Let's take a look:




Sen. John McCain
(R-Arizona)

$546,000


--Often talks about tort reform and severing the link between health coverage and employment










Sen. Mitch McConnell
(R-Kentucky)

$425,000

“I don't think we need to change the entire American health care system. We have the finest health care in the world now. We have some problems and we ought to do some niche fixes related to the problems.”









Sen. Max Baucus
(D-Montana)

$413,000

--Reportedly opposed to and planning to kill "the public option" in the Senate bill





Rep. John Boehner
(R-Ohio)


$257,000

--recently said, according to The St. Petersburg Times that the Democrats health care reform "will require (Americans) to subsidize abortion with their hard-earned tax dollars."








Rep. Eric Cantor
(R-Virginia)

$249,000



















Rep. John Dingell
(D-Michigan)

$180,000

--After being shouted down at a couple town hall meetings, wrote an op-ed piece in The Detroit News where he said: "I want to hear from my constituents, but also explain that by lowering costs, improving quality and giving more choices to Americans, we can save both our health care system and economy."









Rep. Earl Pomeroy
(D-North Dakota)

$104,000

"Under the current version of the House health care reform bill, the public insurance option would reimburse providers at Medicare rates, which unfairly disadvantages North Dakota. Medicare underpays providers in North Dakota to begin with, so a public option that pays Medicare rates could diminish the quality and level of services available in our state, leaving North Dakotans to potentially have drive to Minneapolis to see a specialist or having to wait longer to see a primary care provider." -- from Pomeroy.house.gov

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Joe the Plumber Goes Postal

Joe never wanted to be a plumber. He wanted to dance. It all started in the summer of 1984. Joe was but a misunderstood lad. He didn’t understand why he didn’t want to play football and baseball like the other lads. He couldn’t quite figure out why he was so obsessed with Fame and why Leroy was such a hero to him. At first, he thought he might be gay. But that fateful summer it all started to make sense. That was the summer he saw Footloose.


Like Kevin Bacon, Joe was stuck in a town that had outlawed dancing. Like Kevin, Joe was misunderstood. Like Kevin, Joe wanted to “dance in the sheets.” Everything started making sense. He was holding out for a hero, and it wasn’t Brian Sipe or Ozzie Newsome or any of those other crappy Browns. It was Ren McCormack! And like Chris Penn, he worked hard to copy every one of Ren’s rebel moves.

No one understood Joe’s newfound love. They ridiculed him. Once, in the boy’s shower, Joe flashed “Jazz Hands” and was beaten ruthlessly within an inch of his life. All was lost. He almost gave up.

And then he saw the Mikhail Baryshnikov/Gregory Hines vehicle, White Nights. He came away from that Soviet-era movie knowing three things: he loved Isabella Rossellini (see, he wasn’t gay after all), he hated the Soviets, and loved dance. He wanted to study ballet like Mikhail and tap like Gregory.

But his parents were adamant. His father roared, “I didn’t raise no faggot!” Actually, his Dad did understand. He had a secret love of macramé that he could only exercise during “hunting trips.” Unfortunately, Youngstown Steel had just closed; he no longer had a good-paying union job, and was stuck as a line cook in the local diner; he just could not afford to indulge his son’s dreams.

Joe’s life became a covert campaign of dance. He videotaped every episode of Fame, bought White Nights, watched PBS, the Breakin’s, all the musicals—especially Bob Fosse flicks. He watched All That Jazz at least once a day. Once, he even sneaked all the way to Cleveland just to see the Dance Theater of Harlem. And he practiced, practiced, practiced.

In 1987, he got his chance. An audition to Juilliard. He worked overtime, closing the local McDonalds every night for three months to pay for his bus trip to New York. He came into the studio with his cut-off shorts, Van Halen T-shirt, and a boombox. They openly scoffed. But when he turned on Nu Shooz’ “I Can’t Wait” and busted his Hollywood hip-hop moves, he really moved the judges. “Well,” one of them started, “we usually only accept students who are more … well, um, classically-trained, but you had me once you danced on the table and flicked my tie. Welcome to Juilliard, son.”

The elation died as soon as he returned to Ohio. “No, son,” his father said, “it’s too risky. You’re gonna be a plumber. There ain’t no union no more, but there will always be shit.”

Joe’s life became shit. But he did what his father wanted (not realizing that it broke his father’s heart—he would never weave a pot holder again). He tried to find the poetry in polybutylene but just couldn’t. With a broken heart, he got married, had kids, worked his way up the ladder.

“I always got a feeling Joe hated plumbing,” a co-worker recently said, “but, boy, you should see him move across the construction site.”

“Joe always hated being called a plumber,” a former girlfriend confided. “He used to fly into such a rage. I remember he broke a bottle over one guy’s head when he called him that. And then, one night, he put two guys in the hospital when they joked, ‘You must lay plenty a pipe there, Joe.’”

It all apparently came to a head last night during the presidential debate. The constant references to his unchosen profession just unhinged him.

“I don’t know,” his wife said. “We were watching that boring debate, and I kept telling him I wish I could vote Sarah Palin in for president. And he just kept getting angrier and angrier. ‘Joe the Plumber, Joe the Plumber,’ all night long. I could see the rage boiling over. I’d never seen Joe like that before. And then, Senator McCain said, ‘You’re rich, Joe!’ I don’t know where he got that. We live in a double-wide. But then Joe told me to get his shotgun.”

Mrs. Joe did just that. Joe took it, left their trailer, climbed into his ’74 El Camino, and has not been seen since. The authorities are now looking for him.

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For GOP, Chivalry Ain't Dead But It Sho' Is Tired

Ah yes, I remember it as though it were 5,327 years ago—August 29, 2008, the day America was in love with Sarah Palin. The Alaskan governor was a “breath of fresh air,” a “true Washington outsider,” a lipstick-wearing barracuda hockey mom who was going to take on her own party, reach out to Hillary voters, break the glass ceiling, and Maverick our cares away.

But by Sept. 1, the love affair was pretty much over when questions over her last child’s birth led to the revelation that Palin’s teenage daughter was pregnant. Blindsided, the Republican ranks donned their armor and went on the attack to defend her.

McCain already had to ditch his “experience” argument against Obama with the pick, he was soon forced to spin his earmarks stance (since his running mate had been for the Bridge to Nowhere before she was against it but after she took the money), and now they had to defend teenage pregnancy, of all things. The Religious Self-Righteous took up the standard, providing a deft flanking maneuver. “Unfortunately,” Family Resource Council president Tony Perkins said, “teenage pregnancy has become all too common in today’s society” (ignoring the fact that this year was the first in 15 that teen pregnancy rates have actually risen and that only 2.2% of teenaged girls get pregnant).

Meanwhile, the main host went on the attack, calling the MSM (mainstream media) “sexist” for raising questions about Palin’s family. Ironically, the “politics of victimization” (as they like to call it) got to feeling so good, the MSM attacks so effective, they kept it up, claiming almost any questioning of Palin was sexist and if they wanted an interview with the princess, they had to show proper “deference”

The press was flummoxed and perplexed. A public official just had to answer to the public (just like Dick Cheney, right?). Interviews were a vital part of campaigning. Why would the GOP want to cloister their damsel? “RaPalinzah, RaPalinzah, let down your raven hair!”

The answer became all too obvious with the guv’s three TV interviews: with misty-eyed Sean Hannity, Palin mechanically recited talking points; she stammered with Charlie Gibson; and totally crashed and burned with Katie Couric (Craven, King, and Spielberg couldn’t combine to make a more perfect horror); the woman is simply not qualified for the position she’s seeking.


Once again, the Republican Crusade was on the march. Bill O’Reilly accused Couric of “gotcha” journalism (obviously, “What newspapers do you read?” is an SAT question). Obviously, she and the entire MSM are in Obama’s pocket. And with his Mohammedan hordes steadily advancing and the Promised Land slipping away, the GOP keeps hacking desperately away. There was Obama’s “lipstick” controversy. In anticipation of a disastrous VP debate, they attacked Gwen Ifill for obvious bias because of her planned book on black politicians “in the age of Obama.” Last week, they even accused Newsweek of sexism because their cover of Our Fair Lady exposes too many wrinkles and unsightly facial hair.

This constant cry of “Moose!!!” seems to be working against the press. Ifill was definitely spooked, never once asserting herself or the rules like she did with Cheney and Roberts four years ago—even when Palin declared she wasn’t going to answer questions and stuck strictly to her talking points. While there are tons of Palin stories in the ether, nothing has stuck like the three-week Jeremiah Wright Fest earlier this year. And even though poll after poll said she lost the debate, conservative and liberal pundits claim she’d actually won.

The marauding GOP machine’s got the press cowering. But with all their bluster, rage, and pyrotechnics, they can’t bludgeon the rest of us into believing that Sarah Palin’s qualified to be VP. In fact, only 39 percent of America now thinks she is.

Some of this might indeed be sexism (it was quite interesting watching old timey feminists questioning Palin’s abilities as a mother). But you can’t combat sexism using the equally sexist chivalric notion of “protecting” Palin. Either she’s capable, knowledge, and experienced enough to be veep, or she’s not. Constantly attacking everyone who even mentions her name, sheltering her from the media, only leads us to assume that she’s not. This tactic is only insulting to her, to feminists and women in general, and to the American people. In fact, we can only assume that this is just a smokescreen, and the louder you scream the more it seems that she must not be qualified and you know it.

So, if she’s worth the position, then “Free Sarah!” This past week, with her “palling around with terrorists” and whooping up the squires and yeomen of your party into a lynching party frenzy, we know the woman’s up for the attack. Let us she if she’s actually capable of defending herself.

Besides, your throats must be getting raw by now with all your screaming. McCain, for one, looked utterly exhausted in last week’s debate. He looked totally demoralized having to defend Obama against his running mate’s attacks. He needs a break. And now the Palin clan has been found guilty of ethics violations in Troopergate? Damn. Now, I know Johnny can’t throw the princess under the bus, but perhaps he should maybe toss her into the moat. You know, just to see how a barracuda fairs against the piranhas of the press.


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Johnny Jumpin' Sharks

SPLASH!!!

I was at work Wednesday afternoon when I heard the noise. People were already gathered at the window by the time I got there. I sidled up next to Beatmeiser, who was staring out the window, dumbfounded.

“What happened?” I asked.

“He’s finally gone and done it,” Beatmeiser answered, stunned.

“Who?”

“John McCain.”

“What’s he done?”

“He’s finally jumped the shark.”

I looked out the window. McCain was down in the icy waters of Punk Ocean, arms sort-of raised in victory with his leather jacket glistening in the sun. a Coast Guard helicopter was already swooping in to rescue the Senator. Fox News was already heralding him as a hero again.

“Damn,” I said, disappointed yet again in the “Maverick.”


Like a lot of you, I kind of liked McCain eight years ago. I fell for the whole “Maverick” schtick, and just loved the “Straight Talk Express.” He seemed a breath of fresh air after years of Clintonian “It depends what your definition of is is” BS.

(Author’s Note: Just because I may or may not like a politician’s mediated image does not mean I’d vote for the bastard. I like Huckabee—he’s charismatic and funny—but there’s no way in hell I’d vote a fundamentalist preacher in for president.)

But also like a lot of you, I’ve been really disappointed with John McCain these past few months. All the lies, half-truths, manufactured outrage has been taking its toll. This campaign is just meant to depress the Obama vote and probably won’t work. But it seems as though the Maverick will try anything to win this election.

Since 2000, McCain has made little concessions to Bush with his eyes on this year. It was understandable. He’s a politician, not a messiah. The problem came for me when McCain caved on waterboarding. McCain, who (if you haven’t heard) was a victim of torture during his imprisonment in Vietnam, was initially outraged over Bush’s pro-torture stance. There was some harrumphing and posturing, but when it came down to it, Bush made his intentions to torture clear, and McCain quieted his opposition. The political theater complete.

But, to me, this was more than just “politics as usual.” Here, McCain was supposed to be a moral beacon. He knew the terror and futility of torture firsthand. He could’ve provided much-needed cover for much weaker politicians to oppose Americans officially torturing prisoners. But he caved—his desire for the Presidency so strong, he was willing to violate the same Geneva Convention he probably clung to so desperately in the Hanoi Hilton.

So, why should we be surprised if McCain lies about things small (“I always buy American”—I don’t know, I’m sure Lexus, VW, and Honda have American plants) and large (“Obama will raise your taxes”—neglecting to add, “if you make more than $250K a year”)? After all, that is actually a part of politics. Though both candidates said they were above that sort of thing, they are both doing it. Besides, the chips are down for the Republicans. The war, the economy—so much GOP philosophy (deregulation, pre-emptive war, anti-environmentalism, supply-side economics) seems to be filing for Chapter 11. Even tried and true culture war tactics seem to be falling on deaf ears. Hear anything about gay marriage lately?

McCain seems to be twisting in the wind. He’s embraced “agents of intolerance” like the Hitler-praising John Hagee only to cut him loose when he actually starts praising Hitler. He’s flip-flopped on off-shore oil-drilling and the Bush tax cuts. With the picking of Sarah Palin, he’s thrown his experience argument out the window and now embraces a running mate who embraces the very same earmarks he’s railed against for years.

McCain probably no longer recognizes himself. And to cover all these reversals, obfuscations, and naked desire to “just win, baby,” to maintain his image of integrity, his camp has manufactured a campaign of outrage. The man has been outraged with Wesley Clark, personally insulted by that ultra-hippy Supreme Court, furious with Obama too many times to count, pissed at Madonna, and damned near ready to kick Jim Webb’s ass. McCain’s been so pissed so often, I’m surprised nobody’s either straitjacketed him or simply cried, “Wolf!”

And each time a new “outrage,” another lie comes out, I’m thinking, Oh, he’s gone and jumped the shark now. I’ve thought it couldn’t get anymore outrageous. But each time I’ve been wrong. McCain’s simply been practicing for Wednesday afternoon. He was on his skis, he was in the water; but he was jumping some mackerel, a dolphin or two, a stingray.

I mean, this is the same man who promised to run a campaign based on dignity and ideas. When he’s called on it, he blames Obama for McCain’s negative ads, saying the Dem should’ve debated him 10 times as he’d originally requested. This is the man who still rides around on the “Straight Talk Express.” Yet, he won’t allow the press to even talk to his running mate. And if they even think about reporting on her spotty past, they’re accused of being sexist. And if you use “lip” or “stick” in a sentence, the manufactured rage is far louder than the indignation heard over Darfur.

They apparently jumped a marlin on that one. Still a pretty big fish, and it’s got that really sharp nose.

But, even with all that subterfuge and lack of substance, McCain is falling in the polls faster than an A-4 Skyhawk over Hanoi. The Palin stunt is no longer working. No matter how hard they try, the issues keep popping up. While McCain talks about the fundamentals of the economy being strong, the Bush administration is begging for a Wall Street bailout. McCain’s own economic advisor, Carly Fiorina says neither he nor Palin (she later adds Obama and Biden) could run a company. The Maverick suddenly wants to fire the head of the SEC, the FEC, hell even the ACC! (Understandable, Duke is the root of a lot of evil—but you can’t pin this economic collapse on Coach K.)

With his stock falling with each tick of the clock last week, McCain then went back to the tried and true lie, blaming Obama for our economic woes! No, it wasn’t McCain who’s been a heavy supporter of deregulation for the past three decades. It was Obama! Phil Gramm, the architect of a lot of this deregulation, wasn’t a McCain advisor. He was Obama’s! McCain wasn’t the chair of the Senate Commerce Committee for six years. It was the four-year senator, Obama! Well, that explains why McCain earlier said the economy wasn’t his strong suit.

You could tell that Johnny was flirting with that shark jump last Friday night. You could see that fire in his eyes. But it wasn’t until the polls came out earlier this week having the Maverick down four to nine percentage points that the leather jacket, water skis, and homoerotic '70s shorts came out and you could hear the boat revving.

Then he did it. In a vain attempt to appear as though he’s got a handle on this Wall Street debacle, that he’s large and in charge, and that he cares for the middle class (or at least those of us in the middle class who make $2.5 million a year), John McCain announced that he’s suspending his campaign. As we heard the splash, we found out that the details of this suspension are just as murky as the water he’s now wading in. Does it mean he’ll air no more ads? Will there be no more canvassing? No more fundraising? What does “suspending” his campaign mean?

The Coast Guard helicopter’s dropping a line down to the man right now. No, suspending means canceling today’s debate. Ahh, now we see the real reason. But no, we don’t. Yesterday, the idea was floated that they not cancel the presidential debate, merely postpone it, to say, October 2nd. You know, when the veep debate’s supposed to be. Who wants to see young, beautiful Sarah Palin debate that crusty, old Joe Biden, anyway? She has more executive experience than Biden and Obama combined. Trust us on this one, people.

And now, it all makes sense. Look into the water and you’ll see that McCain did indeed clear a shark on Wednesday. It was a hammerhead. He’s still holding out the option of jumping a great white later. It all depends on how this latest ploy works.

Hey pilot! Why don’t you leave the old bugger in the water a little while longer? Maybe he’ll grab the Straight Talk dinghy and float off into the sunset. I’m sure Fox will laud him as hero as he majestically disappears.



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Maverick Question of the Week

Which of these Mavericks is actually foreign-born and may not have been qualified to run for President?



A. Samuel A. Maverick (for whom the term was coined)



B. James Garner (TV's Bret Maverick)



C. Mel Gibson (Film's Bret Maverick)


D. John McCain (The GOP's Maverick)

Check the Comments for the answer.
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Palin Comparison

Much like the rest of you, I spent much of Friday in confusion. That maverick John McCain really threw us for a maverick loop with his maverick choice (did I mention John McCain is a maverick?) for VP. Like the rest of you, I had no clue who the hell Sarah Palin was, and, before I could even start to wrap my head around her bio, my boy TRF (a Republican staffer working on the Hill) sent me a triumphal email over the pick. We traded our usual, faux-combative emails where I warned him, though not knowing why, that the GOP was going to live to regret this one.

At the time I couldn’t figure out McCain’s logic. I’m thinking that most Hillary Clinton supporters are middle-aged, pro-choice feminists. Especially with Roe v. Wade in the 5-4 balance and Ruth Bader Ginsburg stunt-doubling for the Crypt Keeper, how would they find the NRA, pro-life governor at all appealing?

Just because she’s a woman?

And why would McCain negate his most effective argument against Obama—his lack of experience—by nominating someone with arguably less experience to be a “heartbeat away” from the Presidency? Sure, I’ll admit that she has roughly two years of executive experience. But it’s Alaska, for godsakes—one of the smallest, most homogenous states of the Union which gets the most federal funds of any other and every citizen gets an annual welfare check from the oil companies just for living there. How hard could it be to govern that place? Even W. couldn’t mess that one up!

And now, with every day revealing a new surprise about the woman, I’m even more baffled. The abstinence-only advocate has a pregnant teenage daughter (note: many conservatives are claiming this reportage unfair, that family should be off-limits, but Palin’s been the one touting her own “hockey mom” credentials, her military-bound son, and her Down’s syndrome baby as reasons to vote for her; if it was fair to scrutinize Kerry’s military record since he brought it up, why isn’t Palin’s motherhood fair game—after all, only 2.2% of teens get pregnant in this country which makes her situation extremely rare and Palin advocates abstinence-only, which clearly isn’t working in her own family). The maverick Palin hired a Washington lobbyist to get $27 million in earmarks for her town of 9,000 when she was mayor—the same amount Boise, ID, population 100,000, got—wrote a letter to Ted Stevens requesting $200 million in earmarks for the state while governor, and was for the Bridge to Nowhere before she was against it. She’s also apparently a supporter and/or member of an Alaskan secessionist party. The Pentacostal governor, like our President, also believes she’s doing God’s work—even when trying to get a $30 billion natural gas pipeline built through Alaska. “I think God’s will has to be done in unifying people and companies to get that gas line built, so pray for that.”

While I definitely don’t understand McCain’s logic in choosing her, I see why he would choose a woman. The Republican brand is rusted, and demographic studies show that it will continue to erode. In less than 40 years, there will be no majority race in the United States. Any party that wants to survive has to reach out to women and minorities.

The GOP, however, has a lot of recent history to overcome. They were the “party of Lincoln,” as they often claim, but those Radical Republican days are long gone. Black folks stayed Republican until 1960 when JFK made that famous phone call to Coretta Scott King while MLK was in jail. After his loss to Kennedy, the card-carrying NAACP member, Richard Milhouse Nixon devised his Southern Strategy, exploiting whites’ anxieties and racism to electoral victory. Those anti-segregation former Dixiecrats also jumped to the GOP ship, and ever since we have had “Welfare Queens,” “reverse racism,” and Willie Horton ads. Blacks now feel quite alienated by the GOP and feel that that party exploits prejudice to blacks’ detriment and their gain. Most black folks can’t help but feel suspect to any overtures made by Republicans, still smarting over past slights.

I don’t think Latinos feel much better about the party. After all, it’s the GOP that drives 187-like, heavily-racialized anti-immigration crusades, often claiming that “those people” can never truly become American, how they ruin American culture, you know the drill.

Much to their defense, it was also the Republicans who first advocated for the Equal Rights Amendment. It was an official part of their platform from WWII until the 1970s—when Phyllis Schafly had it expunged. Ever since, they have been notorious in excoriating “Feminazis,” being anti-choice, and generally deriding most feminist causes.

This is the legacy current Republicans have to overcome if they truly want to reach out to women and minorities. And they will have to run female and minority candidates. But running those candidates isn’t the point. It is not simply a matter of throwing up a black, Latino, Asian, or woman. A black candidate can be just as racist as any Klansman, and many of the (to quote a friend) “self-loathing Negroes” the GOP throws up makes you wonder. And Phyllis Schafly has proven that a woman can be just as sexist as any male chauvinist pig.

I don’t know if Sarah Palin’s a sexist, or not. I’ll give her the benefit of the doubt. I see that she has definitely energized the conservative base. But I don’t see how her views and her record will appeal to liberal or moderate women—self-described feminists or not. I also don’t see why, if McCain were compelled to choose a female running mate, why he wouldn’t pick someone with more of a proven track record, a Christine Todd Whitman, Kay Bailey Hutchison, or Condoleeza Rice, a woman who one might not agree with but one who has earned her place at the table. When you compare Palin to these women or Hillary Clinton, she is most definitely lacking.

In fact, the Palin pick smells a bit like the choice of Clarence Thomas. The only thing that qualified that man for the Supreme Court was that he was black and conservative. It was the condescending tokenism of his choice that had outraged blacks. So far, it seems the same, tragic logic was used for Sarah Palin. With her spotty, short record, it is hard to fathom what qualifies her to be veep except that she’s young, conservative, and, to quote a leering Orrin Hatch on Charlie Rose last night, “quite feminine.”

I don’t know if feminists will ultimately end up as resentful over her choice as blacks are over Thomas. I do have a feeling, though, that they aren’t going to fall for the okey-doke nor vote for McCain just because he’s picking a woman to be second-in-command. The Republicans do need to reach out, but nobody’s looking for that type of tokenism. The next time they decide to pick a female for a prominent position, they need to make sure that that candidate truly and sincerely addresses female issues—such as equal pay for equal work, health care, education, maternity and paternity leave. The same holds true for minority issues. Until they do that, no amount of tokenism will erase their legacy, and they will forever be the party of Phyllis Schafly and the Southern Strategy—and will probably be relegated to the dust bin of history.

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Play That Funky Race Card, White Boy

"So nobody really thinks that Bush or McCain have a real answer for the challenges we face, so what they're going to try to do is make you scared of me. You know, he's not patriotic enough. He's got a funny name. You know, he doesn't look like all those other presidents on those dollar bills, you know. He's risky. That's essentially the argument they're making."

-- Barack Obama

"Barack Obama has played the race card, and he played it from the bottom of the deck. It's divisive, negative, shameful and wrong."

-- Rick Davis, John McCain campaign manager

Ah, that all-powerful Race Card. I don’t know about you, but I knew it was coming. It was bound to. Barack Obama’s being the Democratic presidential nominee flies in the face of 400 years of this continent’s history, 90% of which was dominated by slavery and Jim Crow. His very presence brings that history the fore, which is very uncomfortable for many. Most prefer not to think about it. Many point to the past 40 years and think that equality has been achieved. But, despite the great gains made by black people in this country, there’s still a lot of work to be done. Instead of acknowledging this, many like to paper over this ugly sore with laudatory proclamations of what a great, multicultural society we have today. Yet, despite these claims, Obama has been suffering a whispering campaign about how he’s a closet Muslim terrorist, his wife a black radical, etc. But it is not the whisperers who are accused of using race as a weapon, but Barack Obama. And all because of that pesky, little Race Card, which, apparently, we blacks have constantly used to get where we are. While I’m still waiting for my Card and still can’t quite figure out what one looks like or how to best use it, the latest claims by the McCain campaign has made me wonder where the Race Card came from. This is what I found:

According to the UK’s Guardian, the term “race card” originated in Britain in 1964. After waves of colored immigrants, race had become such a hot-button issue that politicians on both sides had a gentlemen’s agreement not to exploit it. That was until Tory Peter Griffiths rode the slogan, “Want a nigger neighbor, vote Labour” all the way to victory. Instead of giving the man credit for a catchy slogan, they accused Griffiths of using race like a trump card in whist. Thus, “race card” was born.

Slower than the Mayflower, it took some 30 years before the term became popularized here in the US. I wonder what event in the ‘90s could have coined a new racial term. Why, the most racialized event in the past 15 years: the OJ Simpson trial!

After the trial was over, Simpson defense attorney Robert Shapiro evidently decided that his client wasn’t innocent after all, and started hitting the talk show circuit to spread his newfound belief. There, Shapiro claimed that Johnny Cochrane, Simpson’s black defense attorney, had “played the race card, and dealt it from the bottom of the deck.”

Bringing us to the present, I find it interesting that the McCain camp would hearken back to the OJ trial to find techniques to criticize Obama. But what is more interesting is how the Race Card got flipped. While the idea of using racial division to one’s own political advantage hasn’t changed, it has gone from a term of white, racial bigotry to white, racial victimization.

Of course, this was the ‘90s, which saw the rise of Rush Limbaugh and the Angry, Oppressed White Male. With all the civil rights legislation, racism was over for women and minorities, and now the pendulum had swung the other way with affirmative action, racial quotas, and reverse discrimination. Everything was backwards (is that what reverse discrimination means?).

This Race Card had become so powerful that the racial tables had turned. Good, God-fearing, hardworking white Americans had become so paralyzed with guilt that minorities and liberal Feminazis had taken over the world. A good, white man couldn’t find a job. The 1990 Jesse Helms “white hands” ad during a Congressional campaign against black challenger Harvey Gantt sums up the sentiment perfectly: “You needed that job, and you were the best qualified. But they had to give it to a minority because of a racial quota. Is that really fair?”

I gotta tell ya, as a black man, I feel utterly cheated by this whole Race Card phenomenon. While I don’t feel particularly oppressed at the moment, I haven’t received my Race Card in the mail yet, so I’m not reaping the privileges either. I guess being a minority helped me get into college – though I fit well within my alma mater’s academic parameters. But I definitely know it didn’t help me get that dream job at Goldman Sachs: “Well, Mr. Campbell, you have absolutely no qualifications to be a financial analyst. However, we have to hire one more minority today. So, I guess you’re it!”

But I’m not alone in this. So are most African-Americans. There seems to be an entire socio-scientific industry built on chronicling the disparities between blacks and whites. (So much so that when Freakanomics reported that test score differences are more class-based than race-based—in other words, middle- and upper-class blacks score the same as their white counterparts and poor whites score just as badly as blacks—it was wholeheartedly ignored.) Blacks come out on the short end when it comes to infant mortality, life expectancy, HIV infection rates, diabetes, and a whole slew of physical ailments. While black and white drug use is the same, the chances for first-time black offenders of being incarcerated are 48 times greater than whites.

Folks with “white-sounding” names are 50% more likely to be called back for job interviews than those with “black-sounding” ones. (William Robert Campbell at your service!). And, my favorite, in 2003 the American Journal of Sociology found that white men with criminal records are slightly more likely to get a call back for an interview than are black men with a totally clean record.

Where are these people’s Race Cards? As I said, I’m still waiting for mine. I got big plans. As soon as I get it, I’m going to go buy that $1.4 million house in my old Cleveland Park neighborhood with no money down and 2% interest (I’m willing to work for what’s mine). Then, I’m going to Georgetown University Hospital and become a well-paid neurosurgeon. Sure, I have neither credentials nor training, but I’m black, right? White folks will feel sooooo guilty that they’ll let me crack open their skulls. And then I’m going to flash my Race Card and make my books, My Booty Novel and Sunshine Patriots, international best sellers. See, I can’t wait to get minez. I just wish Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton would stop bogarting them all!

I’m guessing that’s not how the Race Card works. I couldn’t tell you. Nobody I know has ever gotten one. It’s a mystery to us. We’re starting to think it doesn’t exist—almost as though it’s a … a myth.

If the Race Card is indeed a myth (and I have my doubts), it would just be one in a long line of racial myths that have graced our shores since the Middle Passages. There was the “happy darky” who absolutely loved being a slave—just a-pickin’ and a-grinnin’ in the cotton field. The negro didn’t want freedom and was too child-like and feeble-minded to endure the rigors of slavery. Phrenology scientifically proved that the negro skull was too small to contain real intellect. The Bible definitively stated that black enslavement was the result of the curse on the sons of Ham. White people were just following the Word.

What these and so many other myths did was help excuse, defend, and justify white privilege. It had been proven unequivocally that blacks were inherently inferior. Whites were not oppressing them. They were doing blacks a favor. After all, it was the “White Man’s Burden” to colonize the world, subjugate its darker peoples, and extract its natural resources because, without them, the colored masses would be living in a world of darkness absent God’s Light.

In a way, the white man was the victim in all this. Sure, he was getting rich off the whole venture, but these people didn’t understand the stress and strain of this civilizing enterprise. In fact, those coolies and niggers were downright ungrateful. Slave revolts, malingering, colonial uprisings, independence movements … when would it all cease? And even when Europe gave in and gave those countries their independence, when America gave blacks the right to vote and all that civil rights legislation, they still kept coming at them, charging white people with “racism” all the time. They just kept playing the Race Card!

Look, I understand, nobody wants to admit that they somehow live a privileged existence. I, as an American, don’t like to think that the cheap shirt I just bought cost so little because some kid in Asia was locked up in a sweatshop being forced to make it for next to no wages. I work hard and try to do right by people. And so do most white people. Neither of us wants to hear that our little world might be built on the backs of others’ suffering. Besides, this is America, the Land of Opportunity, where, if you work hard, you can make it, because in America everybody gets a fair shake.

The abovementioned statistics, and so many more, fly in the face of that belief. And it’s hard to reconcile the two. Most refuse to even acknowledge them. And, inevitably, some become hostile to those stats and start getting angry at the people who produce them. They’re struggling, paying bills, and people are out there complaining about “white privilege” and “racism”. Are those people accusing me of being racist?

Well, I’m not racist? They’re racist! They’re the ones playing the Race Card. Not me. Hence, the effectiveness of the Race Card. It charges that those complainers are not just grandstanding whiners, but it also claims that they are using race as a weapon to further their own ends. They want more money for welfare (mistakenly believed to be mostly for African-Americans), they want more affirmative action, more racial quotas, they want to take away more jobs and more college slots from hard-working, deserving white people. It preys on white insecurity and blames the victim for their own victimization as well as conveniently turning whites into victims themselves (look at the White Hands ad—the white worker and employer were powerless in the face of racial quotas).

By charging the racial disparity commentator of racism, Race Card victims are attempting to silence her/him. It denies white privilege and seeks to shore up its defenses with that silence. We can easily dismiss those stats as racist as well and never be forced to address the inequalities in this supposed Land of Equality.

That’s why I find it curious that John McCain has taken this tack the past week. When he accuses Obama of using the Race Card “from the bottom of the deck,” what is he really up to?

Race is not exactly new to American politics. The idea of white victimization ain’t all that novel, either. In more recent times, we’ve had Nixon’s “Southern strategy,” Bush, Sr.’s Willie Horton, Reagan’s Welfare Queen. McCain himself has fallen victim when W. surrogates claimed that his adopted Bangladeshi daughter was actually his black love child back in 2000. Some claim it lost him South Carolina.

So, no, race and American politics have often been bedfellows. And, with Barack Obama’s historical candidacy, it can’t be avoided—no matter how hard we try. After all, nobody’s looking at him, saying, “Hey, who’s that half-white guy?” Because of that, there are going to be people who vote for Obama because he’s black, and there’ll be folks who will vote against him for the same reason. People are inspired by racial pride, and operatives are out there preying on racial and religious fear.

And the latter are definitely out there. There’s Fox News, which constantly refers to the Dem as “Barack Hussein Obama.” There’s Sean Hannity suggesting that electing Obama “would mean a racist and an anti-Semite would be President of the United States.” Rush Limbaugh claims that Obama has “disowned his white half” and that he’s the “Affirmative Action” candidate since he “probably didn’t get out of Harvard without affirmative action.” Ann Coulter has called him a racist and advises people to read Hitler’s Mein Kampf in order to better understand Obama. There are also bloggers and emails circulating that accuse Obama of being a Muslim, black radical, closet al-Qaeda, etc., fanning the flames of fear and racism.

McCain knows this stuff is going on. He can probably guess that these attacks are not just coming from wack jobs and Fox News (redundant?)—that some of these people are probably attached to, associated with, maybe even funded by Republican sympathizers or backers. McCain himself has denounced some of these attacks.

Before you get all pissed, I am not accusing McCain of being a racist himself. Hell, I don’t know the man. I can’t look into his heart. Joe Lieberman claims that McCain “doesn’t have a racist bone in his body.” While I refuse to call him a racist, his record doesn’t exactly jibe with Joe.

McCain has come clean about originally voting against the MLK holiday. What he forgets to mention is that he supported Arizona governor Evan Mecham’s decision in 1987 to rescind an executive order creating a state holiday for King. Nor has he said anything about siding with our man Jesse Helms in voting to prohibit federal financing for the Martin Luther King Jr. Federal Holiday Commission. Oh, and has anybody heard about why he reportedly voted against the Civil Rights Act of 1990 four times?

And can we forget: "I hated the gooks. I will hate them as long as I live." But hey, he was a prisoner of war, captured and tortured by the people he made a living bombing. He later reversed his support of Mecham’s decision. He’s apologized for the MLK vote, protested the South Carolina Confederate flag, called the Religious Right “agents of intolerance,” and he’s got that black love child. So, no, I wouldn’t accuse McCain of being racist. I think his record, like most of ours, is just a bit ambivalent when it comes to race.

What I will accuse McCain of is what he’s saying about Obama, and that is that Obama is using the Race Card. By employing the Race Card accusation against Obama, he hopes to silence the man’s complaints or, if Obama does actually complain about the whispering campaign against him, to paint those grievances with a “racist” brush. “Oh, there you go again, injecting race into the campaign.” But race has been a part of this campaign since Clinton campaign staffers sent an e-mail that Obama attended a madrassa, and it hasn’t stopped. If McCain’s ploy is successful, it will silence Obama on said racial attacks and allow those racial attacks to continue unabated.

Meanwhile, McCain himself hopes to look as though he’s above the Race Issue (though his statements and voting record could suggest otherwise). And he can look like the victim in all this, suffering the slings and arrows of Obama’s racist attacks. In fact, this past weekend pundits reported that the McCain camp fears that anything they say will be misconstrued as racist by Obama supporters.

Pretty clever.

And downright disingenuous. When you claim that Obama’s inexperienced or is an empty suit, when you claim that his policies won’t work, nobody finds you to be racist at all. When you say he’d rather lose a war in order to win an election or that he wouldn’t visit wounded troops in Germany because there’d have been no cameras there (even though he’d visited wounded troops in Iraq and Afghanistan that same week), we don’t find those at all racist—distasteful, but not racist.

But, in all honesty, what people find offensive or not isn’t really the point, is it? The McCain campaign is attempting to put out that they are the victims of racism and will continue to be as long as this campaign continues (meanwhile, providing cover fire for the Fox News pundits, Rush Limbaugh, and random bloggers—nothing they say will be accused of being racist now either). And, if Obama was being taken to task for the comments of Jeremiah Wright, why isn’t McCain suffering the same fate for all these comments being said about his opponent? I’m assuming that that will never happen. McCain is never going to have to give a contrite speech about race before the nation. No, in the race debate, McCain is going to be seen as the victim of racialized tactics. See, that’s the beauty of the Race Card—it turns victimizer into victim and vice versa. And it has been a very effective tool in getting people elected. Just ask Jesse Helms, who was behind in the polls until the White Hands ad. Or Bush, Sr. The Willie Horton ad did wonders for his campaign. Ask McCain himself. His “black love child” cost him South Carolina. Better yet, just ask Peter Griffiths. “Want a nigger neighbor, vote Labour.” Gotta love it.

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