Crazy over Obama

-- by Dave

I'm glad that Glenn Greenwald pointed out the other day the strange fretting from the right -- mostly in the persons of Jonah Goldberg and Glenn Reynolds -- about the likelihood that people might actually vote for Obama out of fear of the possibility of rioting negroes in the eventuality of an Obama defeat at the polls.

Glenn quite correctly points out that the last time we had rioting in the course of an election, it was in the form of GOP operatives in Florida during the 2000 brouhaha.

I'd like to add two other salient points:

-- The people who are likely to be fretting about the prospect of rioting negroes are almost certainly not going to be voting for Barack Obama, no matter how fearful they might become. (Suggesting otherwise is so bereft of any sense of reality that one has to wonder if there isn't some projection going on here.)

-- There in fact already are "certain segments of American political life" that have become completely unhinged by Obama's candidacy itself, not merely the (now rapidly diminishing) prospects of his defeat: they're called the lunatics of the racist right, who have in fact gone so far as to promise his assassination -- which is why Secret Service security around him has been so tight.

I don't know about you, but perhaps, rather than speculating about a possible violent trend involving, oh, you know, those unnamed colored people who might -- just might, mind you, though there has been no violence yet associated with any of Obama's supporters -- go a-rioting if Obama actually lost, maybe it would be worth the expenditure of space in the public discourse to talk about the very real possibility that someone may in fact take violent action to stop Obama from becoming president.

We all know that there are people who would go down shooting before they let a black man into the White House: they've already announced themselves, and there are more than a few of them lurking out there. I have little doubt the Secret Service is fully apprised of this and doing the best job possible to protect Obama, as well as all the candidates, but recognizing that the threat level is higher for him.

Meanwhile, maybe the rest of us should be holding those in the public realm who indulge in ugly race talk about Obama accountable -- because we all can see that they're whipping up this kind of violent hatred. This includes right-wing pundits who sneer at Obama's white supporters as acting out of racial guilt and smug superiority. This is dog-whistle politics, and we know who they're whistling to. It's those fellas with the pointy hats.

And it's their ideological soul brothers at Free Republic:

Did the weakest Dem candidate for the general election won tonight? I think so.

By sending forth Hussein Osama out of Iowa, Democrats have unwittingly weakened their general election prospects.

Hussein's exotic mixture of radical liberalism, Kwanzaa Socialism, antipathy towards the unborn, and weakness against his jihadi brethren will all come back to destroy him against almost any Republican opponent, even the snake-grope from Hope.

I think we as Republicans should be celebrating tonight at the coronation of Hussein, in whose presence millions of Democrat women, from elementary school teachers to journalism majors to law school grads to dykes on bikes will go weak in their knees.

As defenders of this great Republic, and of the pinnacle of Western civilization that it represents, we should all come together tonight and agree on a common strategy that will keep the White House from becoming a madrassa.

God Bless America, Land of the Free.

Actually, I'll be curious to see how long it takes Goldberg and Reynolds to start calling Obama "Hussein." That's the way these things travel.