October 25th, 2012
By Dan Miller
Is Governor Palin so racist that she does not even know her proper place?
Horror of horrors! That mere woman will never come to her senses.
Former vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin released a statement on her Facebook page accusing President Obama of engaging in “shuck and jive shtick” regarding last month’s attack in Benghazi, Libya.
“Why the lies? Why the cover up? Why the dissembling about the cause of the murder of our ambassador on the anniversary of the worst terrorist attacks on American soil? We deserve answers to this. President Obama’s shuck and jive shtick with these Benghazi lies must end,” Palin wrote.
For those who aren’t familiar with the phrase, “shuck and jive” is a racially-tinged expression. According to the user-submitted Urban Dictionary, the term “originally referred to the intentionally misleading words and actions that African-Americans would employ in order to deceive racist Euro-Americans in power, both during the period of slavery and afterwards.” (Emphasis added)
Clearly, President Obama does not engage in shuck and jive shtick (whatever the phrase means). He may occasionally stretch the truth just a little, but that’s different; he’s our beloved, post-partisan, post-racial President and that’s to be expected from one so great.
It turns out that “shuck and jive” is racist only if a conservative uses it, particularly when speaking about President Obama; not when President Obama’s press secretary and he of the leg tingle use it. Nothing President Obama says or does can possibly be characterized as racist — particularly singling out Blacks to support him because “we are greater together than we can ever be on our own.”
That sort of thing would be racist only if a White candidate sought White votes in similar fashion.
Such stuff must stop, in the interest of civility and dignity. Can’t we also stop referring to opponents as bullshitters? It’s undignified and demeaning. Oh, wait — President Obama did that, so it’s not only OK, it’s presidential.
Although one does not normally use the infamous reference to bovine excrement in polite society, perhaps Governor Palin at least would not have been as racist if she had put this on her Facebook page instead of the shuck and jive shtick:
Former vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin released a statement on her Facebook page accusing President Obama of engaging in “bullshit” regarding last month’s attack in Benghazi, Libya.
“Why the lies? Why the cover up? Why the dissembling about the cause of the murder of our ambassador on the anniversary of the worst terrorist attacks on American soil? We deserve answers to this. President Obama’s bullshit with these Benghazi lies must end,” Palin wrote. (Suggested change emphasized for clarity)
Even mere women like Governor Palin can occasionally comprehend world affairs and what presidents are doing when they use “intentionally misleading words and actions” to deceive. Nevertheless, she must try to redeem herself by becoming a community organizer in Chicago. Then, perhaps, she will know better next time.
Unfortunately, “bullshit” would also be racist. Every statement averse to President Obama is racist because everything negative said about him is racist.
Bloomberg columnist Jonathan Alter called the comments are “rank racism” and “racist tropes.”
“I think this is rank racism. You know sometimes people on the right get very upset with people on the left charge racism. But shuck and jive, that’s like talking about watermelon or, for Jews, talk about Jews are greedy, or the Irish are drunk, or whatever. These are racist tropes and we need to call them what they are,” Alter said.
“And I actually think, at least implicitly, Trump was playing on racism today with his ridiculous stunt demanding college transcripts. What’s this subtext,” Alter said, which changed the topic to focusing on how it’s racist to talk about Obama’s college records.
“What is that about? It’s about affirmative action, we know what it’s about,” Matthews said.
“He’s basically saying Barack Obama was too stupid to be at Columbia — because he was an affirmative action student, and therefore — because he was an affirmative action, he must not of had good enough grades to stay in college or whatever he’s talking about. It’s racist. Let’s get serious about this,” Alter said.
Matthews, perhaps fearing no one is taking all these charges of racism seriously says they’re not seeing things.
Mr. Trump could not conceivably have had any reason beyond racism for seeking to have President Obama’s college information and passports made public. That must be why he didn’t demand the papers of grossly unvetted Governor Romney as well.
Be all of that as it may, a reference to bovine excrement is no less descriptive of President Obama’s words and conduct before, during and after the Benghazi bump in the road, than “shuck and jive.”
The Obama Administration’s initial response to the “not optimal” Benghazi situation, and the later responses as well, were bovine excrement and remain so. Yet our fearless principled media have generally been loath to say much about it.
CBS footage suggests that Obama did, in fact, describe the Benghazi attacks as premeditated terrorism–not in the Rose Garden but in the White House itself, in a portion of an interview that did not air until more than a month later.
During that time, both CBS and Obama could have referred to the interview, but did not–likely because doing so would have vindicated Obama at the cost of exposing his subsequent deceit.
Fortunately, good can come from many disgusting sources, even Governor Palin. Her racist shuck and jive comment gave the principled media something worthwhile to discuss, eliminating the need to waste precious paper, ink and air time on the substance of the continuing Benghazi fiasco. Who cares about that inconsequential sort of stuff (particularly if it can be made inconsequential by ignoring it)? Although some racists sadly afflicted with terminal conservativitis may claim to have a fleeting interest in such trivia, everybody else just wants to learn the true facts about really important matters — stuffing women in binders, other aspects of the horrid Republican War on Women, why continued Federal support for Big Bird is essential, how the military no longer needs horses or many bayonets, and how Governor Romney’s Bain caused the death of a poor woman with cancer and his grossly unfair wealth. Such is the only proper focus for the election and it is the job of the principled media to help President Obama to make it so.
(This article was also posted at Dan Miller’s Blog.)
Articles written by Dan Miller
Tags: affirmative action, Benghazi, Palin, satire, shuck and jive, transcripts
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I think everyone is missing the anti-semitic element in Palin’s obviously racist comment. “Shtick” is a Yiddish word meaning, among other uses, something that’s made-up and insincere. So in addition to being a racist and a Moose-murderer, she must also hate Israel. Shouldn’t that qualify her to have at least one foot (attached to a well-turned ankle) in the Obama camp?