Jack & Jill Politics

Media Matters has the story:

On the May 7 broadcast of his nationally syndicated radio show, Rush Limbaugh defended his “Barack, The Magic Negro” song — a parody mocking 2008 Democratic presidential hopeful and Sen. Barack Obama (IL) — and said, in response to reports about the controversy this parody has generated: “If I were to think about Barack Obama being in any trouble — needing Secret Service — I would look to Clinton Inc. before I looked at me. Try that, drive-by media. Get that out there.”

[...]

Additionally, in response to a report by CBS Sacramento-affiliate KVOR, during which anchor Chris Burrours stated, “There are groups this morning saying that not only is the song racist, but it’s putting Barack Obama at increased danger,” Limbaugh asked: “[C]ould it be that these sponges who do not listen to the program — obviously found out about this from the Chicago Tribune story yesterday that — where did they hear about it? Did they hear about it from Media Matters for America?”

Racist Rush adds to his rap sheet by claiming his audience thought the Barack the Magic Negro parody “was one of the most creative and funniest they’d ever heard.”

Please let Rush Limbaugh and better yet, his bosses at Premiere Radio Networks, know how creative and funny you think “Obama the Magic Negro” sung to the tune of “Puff the Magic Dragon” really is.
I am sending an email to both as soon as I finish this post. Thanks.

Rush Limbaugh
rush@eibnet.com

Premiere Radio Networks Contact Page

Premiere Radio Networks, Inc.
15260 Ventura Blvd. 5th Floor
Sherman Oaks, CA 91403

Main: (818)377-5300
Fax: (818)377-5333
Toll Free: (800)533-8686

The Rush Limbaugh Show
1-800-282-2882
rush@eibnet.com
fax: 212-563-9166

The Rush Limbaugh Show
1270 Avenue of the Americas
New York, NY 10020

Yet another reason to love Media Matters…

During the recent controversy over former radio and television host Don Imus’ remarks about the Rutgers women’s basketball team, some cable-news viewers may have noticed something unusual: the presence of significantly more African-Americans. The nature of the controversy led the cable networks to seek comment from a far more diverse group of people than they ordinarily do, which begs the question: To the extent these cable programs included a more diverse guest lineup during the Imus controversy, why do they provide such diversity only when issues of race are in the news cycle? Do cable-news producers view the guests added to the lineup during the Imus controversy as qualified to talk only about issues of race, and not other issues of national and political significance?

Some interesting observations:

• The whitest network is not Fox, but MSNBC
• No network had more than 5 percent of its guest from non-black people of color
• Countdown and The Situation Room actually had a week of ALL WHITE PEOPLE
• Latinos are seriously under-represented. Thus the surprise over the massive immigration rally turnouts. MSM had no clue. Ya Basta!
• O’Reilly is best when it comes to gender balance. Nearly 50/50

The Imus controversy did not jumpstart a “national conversation on race.” Neither did Katrina. Nor did the Virginia Tech shootings get us to address our gun culture. We are a short term memory society though we have the technology to call up any moment from the past and learn from it. This lack of perspective is exacerbated by those who are our primary gateways to the world around us: television news services.

There are numerous studies on the value of diversity in the newsroom, yet as America gets browner, the voices telling us what we need to know remain pale. Women are trusted enough to vote but not participate fully in democracy by informing their fellow citizens. We have a long way to go, and studies like the Media Matters one only highlight how feeble our commitment really is.

If America becomes majority people of color, and this sort of imbalance still exists, there will be a painful reckoning for the powerful, who have refused to acknowledge change and won’t be prepared when it comes, seemingly from nowhere. This is a wake up call. So wake up yall.

Technorati Tags: cable news, diversity, media matters

Lawd, have mercy (emphasis mine):

As his wife, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.), campaigns for black votes, she often adopts a Southern twang she does not usually use in front of white audiences and is more likely to assail the Bush administration over its response to Hurricane Katrina — a particular frustration of many African Americans because that disaster struck majority-black New Orleans.

Obama, too, employs a slightly different style of speechmaking in front of black audiences, invoking, for example, a hypothetical “Cousin Pookie” in a speech in Selma, Ala., to talk about African Americans who do not vote. But while Obama has eschewed overt appeals to black voters, comparable to the way Hillary Clinton targets women with specific policy proposals, the substance of his remarks to African Americans, some Obama allies say, reflects an ability to speak about issues that a nonblack candidate probably could not have.

Why “Pookie” and not “Ray-Ray” or “Lil Man” or “Peanuts”? (Etc). Did “Pookie” test best with African-American focus groups? Or is the number of black people with cousins named Pookie who also vote Democratic statistically significant?

I don’t even know where to start here so I’ll just say that it’s going to be very interesting to watch Obama and Clinton court the black vote while convincing whites and others of their independence and arms-length approach. Very interesting indeed.

The Chicago Tribune did a story on Rush Limbaugh’s airing of a racist parody of “Obama the Magic Negro“. So has the Seattle Times. I think Digby did a good job de-constructing this, if you’d like more background. I’ve also posted on this earlier.

Someone actually posted some of the clips from Racist Rush’s explanation of why he ran the song. Ugh. Check it out.

According to Rush, all the white people who support Barack Obama are actually racist, because he’s not “real”, like Snoop Dog or Al Sharpton.

They are just “assuaging their white guilt” and bestowing “white benevolence”. But guys like Rush are really looking out for black people. He’s on our side. Yeah. Right.

Barack Obama’s campaign apparently isn’t taking Racist Rush too seriously:

Obama’s campaign called the song “dumb,” although a spokesman said they don’t think anyone is taking the song seriously. — The Swamp

However, Media Matters has the goods on Rush and according to Crooks and Liars, not everyone at Racist Rush’s job is happy about his racist commentary.

According to Media Matters, Rush Limbaugh has a lengthy rap sheet of racism. For example, a small sampling of their record:

“Could we not say that if Obama wins … he will own Al Sharpton?”
“The government’s been taking care of [young blacks] their whole lives”
“Obama Osama”
“[t]here can only be one reason” Survivor scrapped “segregated” competition after two episodes — “the white tribe had to be winning”

Like with Don Imus, when is enough enough?

I say we give Racist Rush the bum rush he deserves! But what do you think? For example, Rush airs in some cities where there are plenty of African-Americans…

I signed on to a letter with a bunch of other activists and bloggers recently that asked that footage from upcoming presidential debates be shared with the public. So that people can view them, blog them, share clips with friends, etc. I was one of several black bloggers and leaders to join a diverse group of people who pushed on the DNC. Take a look at the original letters here.

To his credit, Barack Obama was the first presidential candidate to support our call. He wrote to Howard Dean on May 3:

Dear Chairman Dean:
I am writing in strong support of a letter from a bipartisan coalition of academics, bloggers and Internet activists recently addressed to you and the Democratic National Committee. The letter asks that the video from any Democratic Presidential debate be available freely after the debate, by either placing the video in the public domain, or licensing it under a Creative Commons (Attribution) license.

As you know, the Internet has enabled an extraordinary range of citizens to participate in the political dialogue around this election. Much of that participation will take the form of citizen generated content. We, as a Party, should do everything that we can to encourage this participation. Not only will it keep us focused on the issues that matter most to America, it will also encourage participation by a wide range of our youth who have traditionally simply tuned out from politics.

John Edwards, who is usually on the cutting edge, followed with this letter:

Dear Messrs Walton, Moonves and Zucker, Mses. Sweeney and Kerger, and Dr. Dean:

Selecting a president is the most important responsibility Americans have. In an age of 30-second ads, 7-second sound bites and media consolidation, making an informed decision is harder than ever.

That is why I am asking each news network to make video footage from the presidential debates that they broadcast available on the internet for the public to view and use responsibly. I am also asking Chairman Dean, who is playing a valuable role in organizing many of the Democratic primary debates, to use his influence with the networks to make the debates more broadly available.

Chris Dodd also weighed in (but where was Sen. Clinton?) Looks like we’ve had some influence. Thanks to all those who signed the letter, but the thanks really goes to you, the readers of this and other blogs like The Super Spade which has posted on this. The powers that be are worried about what YOU think about this — and what you’ll tell your friends or family. So thanks for helping preserve freedom of speech. Especially thanks to Lawrence Lessig for leading the charge.

I’ve been following this story over the past few days and have read now both sides of the story. I found Joe Rospars, Director of New Media’s, version and half-hearted, shuffling mea culpa disappointing. So was the mainstream media coverage.

Most people seem focused on the he said/he said, Joe Anthony vs Obama Campaign, David vs Goliath angle. Yet what’s lost is the impact on the formerly large community Barack Obama once boasted in MySpace. 160,000 people became “friends” of Obama, thus indicated public support for him on their own pages. Many thousands linked in other ways using buttons and many more left supportive messages on Obama’s page. 160,000 people — to whom Obama’s campaign would be able to bulk-message at the right time for volunteers, donations and votes — were friends one day with Obama and then were given the back of the hand. By Obama.

Those people are not numbers. They are people. The Obama campaign’s misguided bid for “control” (what exactly was the big hurry anyway?) was more important than recognizing and respecting those people who were essentially shown the door and kicked off the new page. Sure. They can re-join. But why would they? Frankly the new page doesn’t make that clear. How strong was the former community?

If you think the group has no daily life, that once people friended Anthony’s Obama profile, consider this: as of this morning, there are at least 18,000 comments from members of that group responding to a bulletin Anthony sent them about the situation and asking for their advice.

To call their MySpace outreach “an experiment” seems naive or disingenuous. It shows a complete lack of understanding for and real sympathy with the netroots. It sounds like Obama’s team might need more adult supervision. Obama will need to do better than this. It’s very nice that Obama reached out to Joe Anthony and called him. But. At the end of the day, I ain’t impressed. And I’ll be watching.

No, I’m not talking economic growth or border security or energy independence. I’m talking about access to political debates. I missed last week’s major Dem debate and this week’s GOP versions. I move around a lot, and I assumed that in our IP-connected, anytime, anywhere media world, I’d have no problem finding an unedited copy of the debates to sate my appetite for democracy. No such luck.

Sure there were five million sound-bitten clips on YouTube and much in the way of text-based blog analysis. MSNBC, the sponsor of the dem debate, has a version on its website, but it lacks the full introductions, is incomplete or chopped up and doesn’t allow fast forwarding. iTunes was happy to provide me with the 2004 presidential debates (because painful flashbacks are just what I need right now) and the infamously reliable BitTorrent networks came up blank.

It’s easier to find child pornography online than a US presidential candidates debate. There is something very wrong when a citizen actively seeking to engage in the democratic conversation is left empty-handed on such a simple request. Imagine, these major media companies are “protecting their intellectual property” by denying access to obviously public-interest content.

Well, times they are a-changing. In a letter to Howard Dean, Sen. Obama wrote:

I am writing in strong support of a letter from a bipartisan coalition of academics, bloggers and Internet activists recently addressed to you and the Democratic National Committee. The letter asks that the video from any Democratic Presidential debate be available freely after the debate, by either placing the video in the public domain, or licensing it under a Creative Commons (Attribution) license.

Sen Edwards and Republican Matt Margolis (of Blogs for Bush) support a similar stance.

Hooray.

Technorati Tags: debates, copyright

I just started reading the stories here and here about the Obama campaign’s ham-handed takeover of a passionate volunteer’s MySpace site dedicated to Barack Obama. That site at its peak before the takeover had 160,000 friends. The nearest competitor, Hillary Clinton’s MySpace page has almost 43,000 friends. A stark contrast. The Obama campaign offered Joe Anthony a fee to take over the profile. When he came back with what sounds like a modest amount given the community he built alone and the value of that community to Obama as a source of voters and volunteers, the Obama campaign sought to cut him out so they could have the url and with MySpace.com’s help had Anthony’s access to his own profile blocked. News Corp strikes again! Good job Democrats at playing into your political opponents’ hands.

The idiots at Obama’s campaign weren’t able to keep Joe’s friends though. The new profile at the same location is up to 16,000 friends. That’s rapid growth, sure. The campaign is betting they can build the numbers back up given enough time. Even with a boring MySpace page that looks like it’s had the soul sucked right out of it.

I have a few problems with their “strategy”. If the Obama campaign didn’t understand how the netroots would react to this behavior and active assault on the netroots and why it might have been worth 10 times more money than Joe was asking than for people like me and other bloggers with even bigger megaphones to not write posts like this? — wow, they must be really and truly incompetent.

Which makes me question Obama himself and why he would have such arrogant, small-minded, deceitful, hypocritical jackasses working for him. It makes me question his understanding of community engagement and empowerment, since he just crushed one. One devoted to supporting him. What’s his campaign’s plan for communities who aren’t on their side? It makes me question the things he says about wanting to be a campaign that represents all Americans. At My.BarackObama.com, the images say “This Campaign is About You.” Apparently, maybe not.

Above all, it makes me continue questioning where I will put my vote. I won’t forget this, that’s for sure, because it says a lot to me about how Obama really treats the everyday people supporting him behind the scenes. This type of disrespect for others and corner-cutting — faking it til you make it — can often trickle down from the top management. What’s different today is that the screwing of people like Joe Anthony can’t take place in the dark anymore. Not in the same way thanks to the blogosphere and people like you. The Clinton and Edwards campaign have always shown sincere respect for the netroots. It’s hard to say that about the Obama campaign looking at this story if it’s all true.

However, I am certainly interested to hear the Obama campaign’s side of the story…

There’s an issue that every class of black folk are indignent about — underclass, working class, middle class and even the Black Crusaders. And that’s police brutality and harassment. I think 30 or 40 years ago, there was a hope that integration of police forces would help alleviate this problem. But the racist way of dealing with minorities appears to be part and parcel of the culture of U.S. police procedure. Being hassled by the police for little or even no reason is something that has happened in every African-American family. It’s not fair. And it needs to stop. Racial profiling is racism. Period. There’s an interesting article in CNN that breaks down the phenomenon based on a Justice Dept report that was last released in 2002.

Traffic stops are the most frequent way police interact with the public, accounting for 41 percent of all contacts. An estimated 17.8 million drivers were stopped in 2005.

Black, Hispanic and white motorists were equally likely to be pulled over by police — between 8 percent and 9 percent of each group. The slight decline in blacks pulled over — from 9.2 percent in 2002 to 8.1 percent in 2005 — was not statistically significant, Durose said, and could be the result of random differences.
The raw numbers

The racial disparities showed up after that point:

# Blacks (9.5 percent) and Hispanics (8.8 percent) were much more likely to be searched than whites (3.6 percent). There were slight but statistically insignificant declines compared with the 2002 report in the percentages of blacks and Hispanics searched.

# Blacks (4.5 percent) were more than twice as likely as whites (2.1 percent) to be arrested. Hispanic drivers were arrested 3.1 percent of the time.

Among all police-public contacts, force was used 1.6 percent of the time. But blacks (4.4 percent) and Hispanics (2.3 percent) were more likely than whites (1.2 percent) to be subjected to force or the threat of force by police officers.

People interviewed described police hitting, kicking, pushing, grabbing, pointing a gun or spraying pepper spray at them or threatening to do so. More than four of five felt the force used was excessive, but there were no statistically significant racial disparities among the people who felt that way.

Two years ago, the Bush administration’s handling of the 2002 report and its finding of racial disparities generated considerable controversy.

Departing from normal practice, the earlier report was simply posted on the statistics bureau’s Web site without any press release announcing it.

The bureau’s director at the time, Lawrence A. Greenfeld, appointed by President Bush in 2001, wanted to publicize the racial disparities, but his superiors disagreed, according to a statistics bureau employee.

Greenfeld told his staff he was being moved to a new job following the dispute, according to this employee, who requested anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to reporters.

This time there was a press release.

It’s not just in your head. We’re not over-sensitive. I think this is an issue that is hard for white people to get because the fear of not knowing what might happen during a police interaction and the humiliation of being treated like a criminal while trying to pick up your kids from school or head to your parents’ house or to a dinner party in a different neighborhood just isn’t something they experience or hear about. Except from their black friends.

From the article, it sounds like the Bush administration was trying to bury this report in 2002 due to embarrassment. I will be interested to hear the presidential candidates’ answers on this issue and I am willing to bet a lot of other minorities are eager to hear their positions on racial profiling too.

Or Americans in general. Rikyrah alerted me to this story so the hat tip goes to her. What can you say about an administration this lazy, incompetent and uncharitable toward its own citizens. In the Washington Post today:

Allies offered $854 million in cash and in oil that was to be sold for cash. But only $40 million has been used so far for disaster victims or reconstruction, according to U.S. officials and contractors. Most of the aid went uncollected, including $400 million worth of oil. Some offers were withdrawn or redirected to private groups such as the Red Cross. The rest has been delayed by red tape and bureaucratic limits on how it can be spent.

In addition, valuable supplies and services — such as cellphone systems, medicine and cruise ships — were delayed or declined because the government could not handle them. In some cases, supplies were wasted.

When will Congress open hearings on the Bush administration’s continued mishandling of Katrina relief? Why is the Fox News Debate such a high priority for the Congressional Black Caucus and this issue is not?