If you haven't had the privilege of marching against racism or confronting KKK members face-to-face, you may have trouble with this -- they look like regular people. They don't glow in the dark. They're shopping in the next aisle at Wal-Mart.
SC Rep. Joe Wilson is but the most obvious (and perhaps most recent) example of what the political divide really is over President Obama - it is that element in our society that reduces down to "Can't you see he's black?"
As I've written before, when I first talked to my boss, who is African American, about Obama, I said that one of the things I love about him (as a politician and an admirable figure) is that "he's as much mine as he is yours." He laughed. We agreed.
When you hear the robots chanting whatever Beck and Limbaugh tell them to say, it's all about bankrupting the country, big government and freedom -- presumably from tyranny. Yet they had no worries over 7 years of "emergency" war funding that cleaned out the treasury, no concerns over illegal wiretapping of citizens, and attribute torture to trusting Jack Bauer (a fictional guy from the TV series "24") to do the right thing in the infamous and equally fictional "ticking bomb scenario."
Don't chase down the details that reveal what those torture sessions really did. They did what Cheney wanted them to do -- elicited false confessions. More sand to throw in the umpire's face.
But it always comes back to an intense effort to keep Americans afraid of what Obama "really" wants to do. Sinister motives about ruining the country, "indoctrinating" children and killing senior citizens. And John McCain sits quietly, yet his leadership could really matter right now, on these points. He and Lindsay Graham, who are great friends and used to show signs of caring about some level of simple respect for the presidency, could single-handedly save their party from the lunatic fringe. They could take to the floor of the Senate and say, for the record, that they are disgusted by these tactics and all calling for ALL Republicans to cease and desist or risk being called out by Obama for lying and being called out by them -- for the record, every time. Graham would be the front runner for 2012 overnight and McCain would take a position in political history that he wants - Statesman.
But instead, he sits, Twittering and refusing to apologize for exposing the country to the possibility of Sarah Palin being near an important button. Even more important than "send."
And the Republican party has the bark stripped off it, revealing that those who remain and who support and allow these egregiously racist threats to our president ... those who continue to call themselves "Republicans" or even "Conservative" are now the so-called Christian Knights of the Republican Party. They are to Christianity what binLaden is to Islam.
They are dangerous and they are neither crazy nor stupid.
It's so much easier to dismiss people who you think are "limited" in the grey matter department. That's not what we have here. We have White Supremacy, secret societies (see C Street). Convinced of their superiority, they do not fear jail or disgrace. They fear only the non-white becoming powerful.
Don't dismiss them. Stay with the facts. Be like Barack -- who looked like Jackie Robinson at the podium on Wednesday night. You don't answer a heckle like that. You stare, shocked that the white hood slipped off briefly, revealing the face of hatred. Barack said everything by saying nothing, but oh, my, what must have run through his mind ...
Mr. Wilson, you're no Strom Thurmond.
Mr. Wilson, you dropped your torch and pitchfork. Please see the Sargent-at-Arms on your way out.
Mr. Wilson, thank you for making the pro-choice argument better than I've ever heard it.