As a writer and journalist since 1992, I have written hundreds of articles, editorials and essays and thousands of words on hundreds of topics, but the one thing that connects each and every one is I own all those words.  It does not matter if the words are wise, silly, entertaining or dull as a dish rag.

They are all my words and no matter how much distance time puts between me and my words, they’re never too far and never too distant for me to be held accountable for them.

The reality for every writer is we may forget what we’ve written, but as long as it is written down somewhere those words are never truly lost and once found, they are potentially capable of returning to bedevil us anew.

This is a reality Ron Paul would rather not face.

Paul’s appeal to voters isn’t lost on me.  He seems like the perfect anti-politician.  He’s not a pretty boy with polished teeth and a fussed over hairstyle and a meticulously managed media image.  Paul is rumpled, short, not particularly photogenic or worried about tailoring his message to fit a particular focus group or demographic.   What Paul is strong on his message of individual freedom, non-intervention in foreign affairs, not spending money on non-essential frills and pet projects

Paul is also strong on his ties to the racist newsletters published under his name and weak on answering questions about them.

You can’t blame the Paulinistas for trying to frame the debate on their own terms on the issues they think are winning ones for them. Unfortunately for them (and Paul), he can’t run from his coziness with the racism he permitted to be published under his name.

Pile up enough of Paul’s hostility toward civil rights, his indifference to racist rants on a publication with his name on the title, and his refusal to distance himself from his ties to extremists like the John Birch Society and you can conclude once you get past the kindly, but slightly crazy old uncle act, if Ron Paul isn’t a bigot himself you couldn’t slide a piece of paper between him and those that are.

Claiming he never read the newsletters is an extraordinary admission to Paul’s lack of accountability and responsibility. If Ron Paul can’t be bothered to care about running a raggedy newsletter, why should anyone trust him to run the whole damn country?

Separating Ron Paul’s various explanations over the years about the newsletters is a laborious process, but it comes down to this: if you’re a publisher, you may not read everything that goes into your publication, but it stretches credulity to say you had no idea what was going in it, never read it, didn’t disavow the statements when they originally occurred. don’t know who wrote them and only disagreed with them after you decided to run for president.

Paul’s dilemma is once upon a time he seemed quite aware of what the content of his newsletters were as he explained in 1995 to CSPAN.

Along with that I also put out a political — type of business investment newsletter, sort of covered all these areas. And it covered a lot about what was going on in Washington and financial events, especially some of the monetary events since I had been especially interested in monetary policy, had been on the banking committee, and still very interested in, in that subject. That — this newsletter dealt with that.

That is a completely weak and inadequate explanation of the bigoted content of his newsletters. It’s also a reason to ask—no, DEMAND that Paul explain himself totally, fully and completely.

So far he hasn’t.

WASHINGTON – Rep. Ron Paul has tried since 2001 to disavow racist and incendiary language published in Texas newsletters that bore his name, denying he wrote them and even walking out of an interview on CNN Wednesday. But he vouched for the accuracy of the writings and admitted writing at least some of the passages when first asked about them in an interview in 1996.

Some issues of the newsletters included racist, anti-Israel or anti-gay comments, including a 1992 newsletter in which he said 95% of black men in Washington “are semi-criminal or entirely criminal.”

Paul told The Dallas Morning News in 1996 that the contents of his newsletters were accurate but needed to be taken in context. Wednesday, he told CNN he didn’t write the newsletters and didn’t know what was in them.

Paul, who leads polls in Iowa leading up to the caucuses there on Jan. 3, published a series of newsletters while he was out of Congress in the 1980s and 1990s called The Ron Paul Political Report, Ron Paul’s Freedom Report, The Ron Paul Survival Report and The Ron Paul Investment Letter.

In 1996, Paul told The Dallas Morning News that his comment about black men in Washington came while writing about a 1992 study by the National Center on Incarceration and Alternatives, a criminal justice think tank in Virginia.

Paul cited the study and wrote: “Given the inefficiencies of what DC laughingly calls the criminal justice system,“These aren’t my figures,” Paul told the Morning News. “That is the assumption you can gather from the report.” I think we can safely assume that 95 percent of the black males in that city are semi-criminal or entirely criminal.”

Nor did Paul dispute in 1996 his 1992 newsletter statement that said,”If you have ever been robbed by a black teenaged male, you know how unbelievably fleet of foot they can be.”

Paul believes the Civil War was unnecessary. A better alternative would have been to buy the slaves instead.

Paul voted for the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday, but says he would have voted against the 1964 Civil Rights Act as he explains at the 4:20 mark during an interview with Chris Matthews.

Ron Paul vs the 1964 Civil Rights Act

On July 3, 2004, He cast the only vote against a bill commemorating  the 40th anniversary  of the Act as he explained in remarks from the floor of the House of Representatives.  Taken from his own website, Paul is obviously proud of his opposition.

Ron Paul: Mr. Speaker, I rise to explain my objection to H.Res. 676. I certainly join my colleagues in urging Americans to celebrate the progress this country has made in race relations. However, contrary to the claims of the supporters of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the sponsors of H.Res. 676, the Civil Rights Act of 1964 did not improve race relations or enhance freedom. Instead, the forced integration dictated by the Civil Rights Act of 1964 increased racial tensions while diminishing individual liberty.

The Civil Rights Act of 1964 not only violated the Constitution and reduced individual liberty; it also failed to achieve its stated goals of promoting racial harmony and a color-blind society. Federal bureaucrats and judges cannot read minds to see if actions are motivated by racism. Therefore, the only way the federal government could ensure an employer was not violating the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was to ensure that the racial composition of a business’s workforce matched the racial composition of a bureaucrat or judge’s defined body of potential employees.

Ron Paul a.k.a. Dr. No

Thus, bureaucrats began forcing employers to hire by racial quota. Racial quotas have not contributed to racial harmony or advanced the goal of a color-blind society. Instead, these quotas encouraged racial balkanization, and fostered racial strife.

Of course, America has made great strides in race relations over the past forty years. However, this progress is due to changes in public attitudes and private efforts. Relations between the races have improved despite, not because of, the 1964 Civil Rights Act.

In conclusion, Mr. Speaker, while I join the sponsors of H.Res. 676 in promoting racial harmony and individual liberty, the fact is the Civil Rights Act of 1964 did not accomplish these goals. Instead, this law unconstitutionally expanded federal power, thus reducing liberty. Furthermore, by prompting raced-based quotas, this law undermined efforts to achieve a color-blind society and increased racial strife. Therefore, I must oppose H.Res. 676.

Maybe there is a good explanation for Paul’s out of touch views on race, but I haven’t read or heard a good one yet.  The 1964 Civil Rights Act made life easier for minorities and harder on racists, but Paul considers this to be a bad thing.  I consider this makes him unelectable and unworthy to be seriously considered presidential material.

The Atlantic’s Ta-Neshi Coates isn’t buying the “Ron Paul is the Victim” rap either.

Racism, like all forms of bigotry, is what it claims to oppose–victimology. The bigot is never to blame. Always is he besieged–by gays and their radical agenda, by women and their miniskirts, by fleet-footed blacks. It is an ideology of “not my fault.” It is not Ron Paul’s fault that people with an NAACP view of the world would twist his words. It is not Ron Paul’s fault that his newsletter trafficked in racism. It is not Ron Paul’s fault that he allowed people to author that racism in his name. It is anonymous political aids and writers, who now cowardly refuse to own their words. There’s always someone else to blame–as long as it isn’t Ron Paul, if only because it never was Ron Paul.

Cain has no juice in Black America, but the Tea Party loves him.

If I wanted to waste the time, I could fill up my blog with posts of nothing but updates of the Stupid Stuff Black Conservatives Say.

Rep. Allen West (R-Fla): “You have this 21st-century plantation that has been out there, where the Democrat Party has forever taken the black vote for granted. And you have established certain black leaders, who are nothing more than the overseers of that plantation. And now the people on that plantation are upset, because they have been disregarded, disrespected, and their concerns are not cared about.”

“So I’m here as the modern-day Harriet Tubman, to kind of lead people on the Underground Railroad, away from that plantation into a sense of sensibility.”

Star Parker: Our black president is a traitor to his race. Our struggles put him in power and now he’s not taking care of his folks.

Herman Cain: “I am an American Black Conservative, an ABC and proud of it!  I won’t stay on the Democratic plantation like I’m supposed to.”

Jesse Lee Peterson: The NAACP is no different than the KKK in that the KKK harmed black Americans by their physical bodies, but the NAACP steals their hearts and minds and souls. And they kill black Americans by making black Americans or causing black Americans to hate their country, to hate what’s right, to depend on the government rather than depending on themselves.

I would be amused by a sellout like Allen West comparing himself to Harriet Tubman if I wasn’t so sickened by his fawning smooching of any White conservative ass in reach.   West is the kind of happy house Negro whom if Harriet Tubman tried to show him the way to freedom he would go running in the other direction back to Massa’s loving arms and stinging whip.

But this is what ABC’s as Cain described his pathetic little clique of Negroes Behaving Foolishly specialize in.  They make White conservatives feel good about themselves.  They blame Black people for their sorry lot in lives and they love to talk about plantations and slavery.  If any of them had been slaves they would have been up in the Big House hoping for Mister Charlie or Miss Ann to brush off some table scraps they could fight the dogs for.

If you have ever heard of “a beard” used as a slang term you know it’s typically used to describe someone concealing their same-sex orientation by dating or even marrying someone of the opposite gender. Rock Hudson, Elton John and other gay men who were pretending they weren’t used women as their “beard.”

There are Black sellouts like Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain who proclaims, “To all of those people who say that the Tea Party is a racist organization, eat your words” who serve as “beards” to the White Far Right.   The predominantly White and conservative types who make up the Tea Party eagerly seize upon the presence of the paltry few Blacks who agree with them to proclaim, “See, we can’t be racists. Herman Cain says we aren’t!”

Jesse Lee and friends.

This is essentially defending yourself from accusations of race-based bigotry by grasping for the thinnest of straws. You’re okay because a member of the minority your offending says you are. Opportunistic hustlers like Cain are happy to be bussed in, given a prominent speaking spot and paraded about as conspicuously as possible. Black folks at Tea Party protests are like the lone brother hangin’ out with his three or four White buddies in beer commercials.

American Black Conservatives love to thump their chests and boast how they are freed from “the Democratic plantation.”  Seems to me though all they’ve done is trade one Massa for another.  They never question or challenge conservative orthodoxy.   They simply parrot the same rhetoric as any other right-winger.  Issues of race, poverty, unemployment or any other issue of concern to many African-Americans, never concerns them.  So when someone like Star Parker calls President Obama a “traitor to his race” how can anyone take her seriously.  All she does is sell-out and betray Black people as she panders to White conservatives.

Cain, West,  Parker, Peterson and the rest of the Negro right-wingers rushing to give cover to the contemporary conservatives of the Tea Party are as important to them as the Black maids were to the White women of the segregated South. They are modern versions of ”The Help.”

West is happy to stay on the Republican plantation.

In the movie Chinatown, the sinister Noah Cross explains, “Politicians, ugly buildings and whores all get respectable if they last long enough.”   Perhaps that is why as the 100^th birthday of Ronald Reagan is observed on February 6,   Reagan is being remembered, reassessed and romanticized.   Conservatives get misty-eyed reminiscing over the good old days when “Dutch” Reagan was large and in charge.  Liberals recall him with a bit less sentiment, but like attending the funeral for someone you didn’t like, are reserving their criticism for another time.

Even if you couldn’t stand the guy (and more often than not I couldn’t) , you had to hand it to him for his uncanny ability to turn a phrase, interject humor and show the kind of strength so many others have tried to emulate and failed dismally to pull off. An example was Reagan singing the praises of Dr. Martin Luther King:

Twenty four years ago, when President Ronald Reagan signed the legislation making Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday a national holiday, he praised the civil rights leader for “awakening something strong and true, a sense that true justice must be color-blind.” In a 1986 message to the Congress of Racial Equality marking the observance of the holiday, Reagan was even more effusive in his praise, describing King as a “truly prophetic voice that reached out over the chasms of hostility, prejudice, ignorance and fear to touch the conscience of America.”

But even what Reagan gave gracefully with one hand he took back grudgingly with the other:

Yet, throughout congressional consideration of the legislation, President Reagan opposed the idea of a national holiday for King. Indeed, Reagan associated himself with the views of North Carolina’s Sen. Jesse Helms, the legislation’s most obdurate congressional opponent. During the Senate debate, Helms called for the opening of the FBI files on King, which he claimed would show that King was a communist or at least a communist sympathizer. When asked in an October 1983 news conference about Helms’ allegations, Reagan responded, “We will know in about 35 years, won’t we?” (referring to the time for the opening of the FBI files).

Reagan went on to say, “I don’t fault Sen. Helms’ sincerity with regard to wanting the records opened up. I think that he is motivated by a feeling that if we are going to have a national holiday named for any American, when it’s only been named for one American in all our history up until this time, that he feels we should know everything there is to know about an individual.”

That was Reagan all over: capable of soaring and inspirational rhetoric, yet far more coldly calculating than advertised.

I don’t get how Reagan has been raised to near-deity standards in some conservative quarters. However, if you look at his Republican presidential predecessors (Ford, Nixon, Eisenhower) and successors (Bush and Bush Jr.), he does stand pretty tall in comparison to those guys.

If anything Reagan came along after the maddening mediocrity of back-to-back Chief Executives (Ford and Carter) and even if all his deeds matched up with the high-minded rhetoric, Reagan made a lot of Americans feel good about themselves and the country. He was probably not just the Great Communicator, but the Great Cheerleader as well as he seemed to personify both confidence and a bit of old school swagger as well.

Reagan’s kindly uncle veneer masked a lot of ugly policies and deeds by his Administration which was one of the most corrupt Washington has ever seen. Reagan may not have had a bigoted bone in his body. He simply didn’t seem to give race much thought His inept handling of the Bob Jones University case was one example of The Gipper fueling the suspicion he was a nice old man who wasn’t interested in messy details.

No president can be all things to all people and Reagan is certainly no exception. I wouldn’t go so far as to chisel his face on Mt. Rushmore as some of his admirers suggested with complete sincerity, but I wouldn’t say Reagan was evil, vindictive, dumb or senile as some of his detractors have.   He hired creeps  like Ed Meese, John Ashcroft and Don Regan to be his inglorious basterds and they fell to the task with relish.

The sunny optimism of Reagan has been replaced by the doom-and-gloom conservatism of today where everything is going wrong, getting worse and sucking hard.  The ideological inflexibility of the Tea Party would not have much patience with Reagan’s “aw gee whiz and shucks” affability,  preferring the “eat glass and pound sand” vitriol of a Palin, Limbaugh and Beck.

When I assess the Reagan Presidency he’s no hero to me, but neither was he totally a villain.  My expectations of President Reagan was I expected nothing from him and he delivered on it.   Reagan did his share of dirt, but  his approach was to slip the knife in with a smile.   Nixon was a thug who breaks into your house at night and strangles puppies while you sleep.  Bush41 was a wimp and his blundering idiot son a total screw-up of everything he touched.

The praises of Ronald Reagan will be sung this weekend and his legacy pondered.   Reagan’s most ardent supporters consider him one of the nation’s greatest presidents, but that’s in part because many of those who believe he damned near walked on water conveniently overlook Reagan’s many shortcomings and outright failures as president.

There’s one in every family.   That one nerve-wracking niece or nephew, annoying aunt or crazy uncle you try to avoid at family gatherings who tracks you down like a heat-seeking missile, gets you in a corner and proceeds to pummel you into submission with their non-stop nuttiness and crazy thoughts.

In the family tree of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., his niece, Alveda King is the sap.   An unabashed right-winger who is vehement in her opposition to abortion, gay rights and same-sex marriage, Alveda, who boasts she is carrying her uncle’s mantle forward told the thousands who attended Glenn Beck’s Restoring Honor revival meeting in Washington that Dr. King, if he had been assassinated 42 years ago, would have also been there as well.

Alveda is an anti-abortion activist and something of a homophobe.  In a 1998 speech she said, “Homosexuality cannot be elevated to the civil rights issue. The civil rights movement was born from the Bible. God hates homosexuality.”  She claims Dr. King would oppose gay marriage and was a Republican.

Beck, a former drunk and drug addict, peddles a particularly poisonous and phony populism, and King is all too happy to lend him a little cover by being his token Negro friend.  Her appearance at this strokefest for Beck’s ego was shameful and embarrassing.  But Alveda King is not easily shamed or embarrassed.

Though Beck’s snake-oil medicine show last Saturday focused more on that old-time religion than criticizing President Obama,  Beck went after him again in a post-rally interview with his employer, Fox News.

Beck said “[Obama] is a guy who understands the world through liberation theology, which is oppressor-and-victim.”   He added, “People aren’t recognizing his version of Christianity.”

Beck, who also backtracked on his earlier proclamation describing the president as a “racist” amplified his attacks on Obama’s stated Christian beliefs saying on his Fox show, “You see, it’s all about victims and victimhood; oppressors and the oppressed; reparations, not repentance; collectivism, not individual salvation. I don’t know what that is, other than it’s not Muslim, it’s not Christian. It’s a perversion of the gospel of Jesus Christ as most Christians know it.”

No word from Alveda if she agrees with her buddy Beck in demonizing the president.

Dr. King isn’t the first person to have family members whom devoid of little talent and skills of their own greedily attempt to appropriate a legacy they played no part in.   Alveda is just particularly despicable in how she exploits her bloodline to flog her particular views.   Nobody is questioning her right to be as pro-life and anti-gay as she wants to be.   It is just a bit contemptible how she has body snatched a dead man and tries to put words Dr. King never said in his mouth.

Salon.com profiled Alveda and exposed her arrogance and disdain for the late Coretta Scott King, the wife of her uncle.

In 1994, she released a letter condemning Coretta Scott King’s support for abortion and gay rights, saying it would bring “curses on your house and your people … cursing, vexation, rebuke in all that you put your hand to, sickness will come to you and your house, your bloodline will be cut off.”

Alveda is dismissive of her aunt, who died in 2006, saying, “I’ve got his DNA. She doesn’t, she didn’t … Therefore I know something about him. I’m made out of the same stuff.”

he same stuff?  Only if Dr. King was full of crap.

Her uncle had a dream. Alveda King has a scheme. Pimp his last name and try to hijack his legacy.

When the only thing you have to go on is your last name that’s what you use in hopes some of the reflected glory will shine on you.

It hasn’t.  Alveda King is the LaToya Jackson of right-wing politics.   Another talentless non-entity jock riding a more accomplished relative and pathetically attempting to gravy train their reflected glory.   The only reason she’s worth talking about at all is because she’s such a  bad joke even while she lacks the self-awareness to know it.

Nothing a ranting demagogue like Beck the Babbler can say or do will lessen the impact and importance Dr. King had upon America.   Alveda King Beal is a different issue entirely.  If she wants to lend out her name to give cover to conservatives who would like to roll back the racial progress her uncle accomplished that’s her call.

But she needs to be called out as the total fraud she is when she presents herself as The One anointed to carry Dr. King’s work forward.    All Alveda is a  “obscure twig on the King family tree” as  columnist Elmer Smith wrote in  the Philadelphia Daily News.

She doesn’t exalt Dr. King.  She exploits him and in doing so has exposed herself as unworthy of  his legacy and totally unqualified to appoint herself as his messenger.

Is this the future of "choice" in Oklahoma?

Arizona’s harsh new policy cracking down on illegal immigrants got more attention, but equally punitive legislation went into effect in Oklahoma when the Republican-dominated state legislature overrode vetoes by Democratic Gov. Brad Henry to enact some of the nation’s most repressive abortion laws.

One law requires women seeking an abortion to undergo an ultrasound procedure and watch the monitor and hear a detailed description of the developing fetus.  The second law eliminates lawsuits against physicians who do not give the woman information about possible fetal birth defects.   No exceptions are made for women who are victims of rape and incest.

I can count on one hand how many times over the years I’ve written about abortion and that’s probably something I should  be a bit  embarrassed about, but what is about to happen in Oklahoma isn’t just repressive, it’s downright pornographic.

These laws exhibit a perverse love of poking and prodding women’s bodies for no good reason—and often for great harm. The ultrasound law specifies that a vaginal probe must be used, even though doctors often prefer to skip that if their patients have been through sexual trauma in the past. But it’s hard to imagine these legislators caring too much about rape victims. They love the idea of penetrating the vaginas of unwilling women so much that this is the second time they’ve tried to pass this law. And the other law is an attempt to encourage doctors to perform amniocenteses on pregnant women, but withhold any information from the patients regarding actual test results. Apparently, sticking needles into pregnant women for no good reason seems like reward enough to these legislators.

The cliché is if men could get pregnant they would have a completely perspective about pregnancy.  How many guys would want a camera shoved up their butt to see the baby in their womb wiggling?   If you’re pro-life there might be an argument to be made that a woman should be fully informed about her pregnancy options.  You lose me though when it is mandatory that the ultrasound must be performed with a vaginal probe instead of simply using a transducer over the maternal abdomen.   When my wife was carrying our first child there was something magical about the process of seeing the baby on the monitor.  Had the obstetrician gone up the old hoo-had to sneak a peek I would have chilled back in the waiting room.

his is just the latest example of predominantly male politicians asserting their God-given right to control a woman’s reproductive organs since she’s not capable of making those kind of tough decisions for herself.

“Git on back to the bedroom, honey. Put on your sexiest flannel nightgown ’cause I’m gonna go fetch my cowboy hat and spurs. I’m feelin’ frisky tonite”

When is the matriarchy taking over and what the hell is wrong with the women of Oklahoma that they would sit back and take this crap without rioting in the streets?   I’ve never been there, but I’m informed Oklahoma is a very conservative and religious state

I’m not going to call it religious zealotry as much as I’m going to call it subjugated women being submissive and deferential to the insistence of men to control the bodies of women and bend them to their will.

What’s surprised me most is how few women know extreme the new Oklahoma abortion restrictions are and how even fewer seem to be roused into taking action.   I know that feminism isn’t what it once was and many young women seem more interested in squeezing into a pair of skinny jeans than marching in the streets demanding their reproductive rights be respected.

Because I can assure them wherever you they there is someone who is thinking right now, “Those restrictions in Oklahoma are fine, but they don’t go far enough.”

It is not okay when women are treated like ignorant children and breed mares by forces outside of their control. If the bodies of men were being regulated and restricted in this way there would be armed insurrection in the streets of Oklahoma.

That isn’t to suggest women should take up the gun, but meekly turning the cheek and hoping things will just work themselves out if they don’t protest won’t get them a damn thing except more Draconian legislation designed to take away a woman’s choice.

Well-behaved women rarely make history and they don’t preserve, protect or defend their basic human rights either.

If young women are “utterly complacent about the state of affairs” maybe it’s because their mothers and sisters were too successful and made things too easy for them. Where there is no struggle there is no progress and for too many kids today a struggle to them means trying to squeeze into some skinny jeans.

While the defenders of Roe v. Wade were fighting to keep it from being overturned, the pro-lifers were moving on multiple fronts and if they couldn’t get rid of Roe, by God, they would do everything they could to make getting an abortion as difficult, shameful and humiliating as possible.

Parental notification. Waiting periods. Slide shows of fetuses. Spousal permission required. And when that doesn’t work close down as many abortion clinics as possible and watch the number of physicians willing to provide abortions dwindle.

You’ve got to give the pro-life forces credit. They had a strategy. They had the money and organization. They had the boots on the ground. They worked the plan and while they haven’t accomplished the Grand Plan yet by overturning Roe, they haven’t given up on it. They’re probably praying for Ruth Bader Ginsburg to hold on until 2012 for a Republican president to appoint her replacement and give John Roberts the sixth vote he needs.

To what’s left of contemporary feminism I have a message: If you think you can sit back safe, snug and secure in the thought where you are and what happens to women in Oklahoma means nothing to you, you’re living in a fool’s paradise. If the time comes to assert control over your reproductive organs, your silence won’t save you. Repression doesn’t make exceptions for passive non-combatants. You can play the part of Switzerland if you want. When the deal goes down nobody in Oklahoma will give a damn about you either.

This procedure won't be available for women seeking abortions in Oklahoma.

"Maverick" is so 2008. Now it's "Reload." Only who's the target?

I’m as bored of Sarah Palin’s ongoing idiocy as much as anyone, but underestimating her ability to inflict blunt force trauma upon the American body politic is a mistake.   Her talent for leading the Angry White Men of the Tea Party by the nose provides the Republican Party with energy even if they lack any new ideas beyond variations of recycled Ronald Reagan riffs.

A  new phenomenon is emerging:   The Angry White Woman embodied by Palin, the failed ex- governor who quit on the people of Alaska so she could relocate to the lower 48, peddle a politically empty book, become a Fox News contributor, and pocket thousands of dollars speaking to her fans at Tea Party rallies.   Palin hopes riding a wave of White resentment against the nation’s first Black president will make her his replacement.

Palin’s policies, such as they  are, are articulated on her Facebook page.  She took  to it Sunday to author a post about the NCAA basketball tournament, but did so by drawing some provocative and troubling comparisons that seem to have nothing at all to do with sports.

Unless you consider politics a blood sport.   The usage of emphasis and italics are all by  Palin and are reproduced verbatim from her Facebook page:

Warning: Subject to New Politically Correct Language Police Censorship

Today at 4:59pm

March Madness battles rage! My family and I join millions of Americans enjoying college basketball’s finest through March Madness. Underdogs always get my vote as we watch intense competition bring out the best in these accomplished teams.

The Final Four is an intense, contested series (kind of like a heated, competitive primary election), so best of luck to all teams, and watch for this principle lived out: the team that wins is the team that wants it more.

To the teams that desire making it this far next year: Gear up! In the battle, set your sights on next season’s targets! From the shot across the bow – the first second’s tip-off – your leaders will be in the enemy’s crosshairs, so you must execute strong defensive tactics. You won’t win only playing defense, so get on offense! The crossfire is intense, so penetrate through enemy territory by bombing through the press, and use your strong weapons – your Big Guns – to drive to the hole. Shoot with accuracy; aim high and remember it takes blood, sweat and tears to win.

Focus on the goal and fight for it. If the gate is closed, go over the fence. If the fence is too high, pole vault in. If that doesn’t work, parachute in.  If the other side tries to push back, your attitude should be “go for it.”  Get in their faces and argue with them.  (Sound familiar?!) Every possession is a battle; you’ll only win the war if you’ve picked your battles wisely. No matter how tough it gets, never retreat,  instead RELOAD!

- Sarah Palin

I wonder is does everyone who reads what Palin says see the clever usage of metaphor and ambiguity?   Someone posted on Facebook they thought it was a little too slick and sophisticated to come from Sarah Palin.  Perhaps, and perhaps she’s a quicker study that she let’s on. The last time the Left “mis-underestimated” a Republican governor with a skimpy national profile and mangled syntax, George W. Bush had the last laugh for eight years.

There’s enough ambiguity in  Palin’s post for her to say, “Oh for goodness sake, lighten up folks. You libs have no sense of humor.” Plausible deniability is a wonderful thing.  Especially if a fan takes things a bit too literally and decides to parachute onto the White House lawn or “bombs” the offices of  the press such as The New York Times or CBS News.

Palin loves to skewer the out-of-touch elites for mocking her plain speaking persona. Even if someone ghost-wrote this post, it’s her name associated to it, so either she wrote it or approved it being written for her to put her name to it.   Whether or not she claims authorship or not, she owns these words and the responsibility that comes from how they are construed–or misconstrued.

In politics there are opposing viewpoints and opponents. We can hold differing opinions about an issue and defend our position with great passion, but that doesn’t mean we come to blows to “win.” We express our differences, we disagree, we move on. Nobody has to lose for the other side to win.

“Enemy” is a strong word. A  much stronger word than “opponent.”  Does Sarah Palin believe liberals and Democrats are the “enemy?” It is not enough they be defeated at the polls, but  removed as a possible threat as well? That term just seems more than a little intemperate. It seems ominous.

I don’t see Michigan State, West Virgina, Butler and Duke waging “war” next Saturday.  I doubt these coaches and teams view each other as implacable enemies  to be vanquished and requiring the spilling of  “blood, sweat and tears.”

If Palin was channeling her inner Winston Churchill, she should know the correct quotation is “blood, toil, tears and sweat.” Perhaps those lessons haven’t covered historical accuracy yet?

I do hope it’s just me and I’m not finding the funny in this post by Palin.  Someone with the obvious ambitions of Palin who aspires to the highest elected office in the land must guard against these  languid lapses into troubling language.  Veiled calls to inciting violence against one’s perceived “enemies”  are like taking a frothing-mad pit bull off its leash.   One moment it may rip out the throat of the enemy and turn on it’s own master’s neck in the next.

Sarah Palin may always be considered something of a political lightweight and a bad joke being played upon the American electorate.  But this joke is getting a lot less funny and a bit scary as she inches ever closer to the edges of American extremism.

My wife once attended a school board meeting where one gentleman, frustrated by his failure to sway the other members to his side of the debate, showed up dressed in combat fatigues and camouflage, opened up his briefcase and produced a shoe which he used to BANG INCESSANTLY ON THE TABLE until the board president adjourned the meeting.

I went on to write a column where I said when you pull a silly and stupid stunt like that it no longer matters whether you are right or wrong; when I can’t hear what you’re trying to say, you lose the argument by default.

For months we’ve heard the loud and raucous anger of the Tea Party protestors wasn’t fueled by racism but by concern over deficit spending and healthcare reform.    We were assured the few idiots who did carry signs comparing President Obama to Adolf Hitler or depicting him as a witch doctor were only a small lunatic fringe and not representative of the movement .

In fact, the real insult according to leading figures within the Tea Party was how the actions of a few rotten apples were being blown out of proportion to tarnish everybody else.

It must be nearing the midnight hour.   Saturday in Washington the masks came off and the true face of the protestors were exposed for all to see.

Yesterday, Tea Party protestors, upset over the upcoming vote in the House of Representatives screamed “kill the bill” and called  Rep. John Lewis a “nigger.”   Rep. Emanuel Cleaver was spat on by a protestor and Cleaver was hurried away by Capitol police who arrested the person.   Cleaver declined to press charges.   In a separate incident demonstrators called Rep. Barney Frank a “faggot.”

Whether it is fueled by fact or fear, earnest concern or partisan perspective, honest difference of opinion or a complete disdain for the opposing viewpoint, when you start calling people “nigger” or “faggot” or spit on them and mock them for suffering with Parkinson’s Disease that is when the argument is over and you have lost it.

I believe in every American’s right to demonstrate peacefully for the causes they believe in, but when you can’t control your hatred and bigotry, I don’t have any more regard for you than you do for me.

For months we’ve been told the racists and crazies are only a teeny, tiny minority of the Tea Party protests. Well, you can take that bullshit and sell it somewhere else because nobody is buying it here. If these people are the minority, they’re the vocal minority and the only ones whose matter because nobody else seems to be trying all that hard to repudiate their bigotry. No one in the Tea Party itself and certainly none of the contemptible cowards who make up the Republican leadership who think appealing to racist and homophobic rage will sweep them back into power.

Maybe they’re right. Appealing to the racism of some White voters took George Wallace pretty far before some nut shot him. The same thing might well happen for the GOP in 2010. Rage is a powerful incentive to cast a ballot against someone, but most folks don’t like extremists from either side of the fringe.

The dangerous thing is how much further into anger, resentment and hate the Tea Party can tap into before something even uglier and far more dangerous happens? They keep warning not to push them too far. Maybe they should be worrying what might happen to them if they push everybody else too hard.

My blood doesn’t run cold at the prospect of a Democratic meltdown in November. Big damn deal. After eight years of the Bush/Cheney cabal, the self-absorbed anger of a bunch of Tea Party bigots doesn’t phase me. They don’t have the monopoly on rage.

The Party of No has made a deal with the devil to climb into bed with a motley group of racists, homophobes, and extremists. Let’s see if they can get back out with their dignity intact.

At some point if The Tea Party supporters want to shake the “racist” tag they’re going to have to make it clear they do not welcome, tolerate or support racism (and homophobia which you’re glossing over) AT ALL.

Because until they do, I have no reluctance in deeming the entire Tea Party a pack of seething bigots who are primarily motivated by an intense racially motivated animus against the president.

As Dennis Green said, “They are who we thought they were.”

The Dems could use the sort of passion and commitment Wellstone had in abundance.

“If we don’t fight hard for the things we stand for, at some point we have to recognize that we really don’t stand for them.”  ~  Paul Wellstone

As the House of Representatives stands poised to finally vote on healthcare (or maybe not vote depending on which parliamentary trick Nancy Pelosi plays),  Republicans and the vast right-wing are howling like raped pigs,  yet there is really no reason to pump ya fist if you’re a Democrat.

Come November there will be fewer Democrats in Washington than there are now.  It won’t be because the GOP  came up with any better ideas.   In non-presidential election years, the party in power usually takes it on the chin.   This year though the Democrats may deserve to be hammered .  Because of their own ineffectiveness and timidity  they have brought much of the pain upon themselves.  Estimates vary about how much blood will be spilled,  but nobody is predicting Democrats will gain seats in the fall.  The question is will Harry Reid win his reelection bid and stay Senate Majority Leader (doubtful) and will the Dems lose control of the Senate and House?

If they do that might not entirely be a bad thing.     Passing healthcare reform will cost the Democrats dearly.   Not passing healthcare reform will cost them even more.   In this time where courage is in short supply and standing up for principle is necessary they need a Paul Wellstone.   And they don’t have one.

The late Paul Wellstone, the liberal icon from Minnesota  who died in a 2002 plane crash once said, “I represent the Democratic wing of the Democratic Party.”   There are too many Democrats in Washington who don’t.   When he’s not on one of his bipartisan kicks, I think President Obama can be counted as part of  the Democratic wing of the Democratic party.

As far as  Ben Nelson, Blanche Lincoln, Bart Stupak, and the other sell-outs  that make up the Blue Dog Democrats bloc I have my doubts.   The only thing these guys seem interested in is covering their own asses and making sure they get reelected.     The strength of the Democratic Party is its diversity and it is truly a national party with a variety of perspectives.  Unfortunately on major issues  the party breaks up into Balkanized factions that have little in common.

Given a choice between a weak Democrat who’s with the president sometimes and a committed Republican who you know is against his policies all the time, I’d rather have the Republican.   Better to know who your enemy is than to wonder who your friends are.   I’m willing to live with the Democrats out of power if that means getting rid of the DINO’s (Democrats In Name Only) and replacing them with committed progressives who aren’t trying to be Republican Lite.

The Republicans will make healthcare reform their number one campaign issue against the Democrats.   They believe allowing people to suffer and go without medical treatment and medicine is a winning issue with voters.   At least with their voters who presumably are all in perfect health and never will lose their jobs or coverage.

Well, what of it?  I would rather support a representative, senator, governor or president that stands up for what’s right than a bunch of cowardly chickenshits who only do what’s easy and politically expedient.   The Democratic and Republican parties are already almost subsidiaries of Corporate America and real, systemic reform is darn near impossible to get without spilling blood in the street.   There was a slim chance healthcare reform would include the public option, but single payer was never seriously considered.   Obama, Pelosi, and Harry Reid knew even with a Democratic majority there was never a real commitment to push for either.

It may cost the president and his party in November if a number of Democrats go down to defeat, but deeds have consequences.  There are a lot of voters just like me who voted with enthusiasm for them in 2008  only to be disappointed, disillusioned and disgusted by how badly they have botched healthcare reform.  Even now Pelosi is chasing for enough votes to pass it in the House.

The Democrats had exactly three things they needed to get done before the elections:  stop the economy from collapsing, pass healthcare reform and get Americans back to work.  One out of three is not good enough.

Whatever I was expecting from the Democrats was not the timid and weak way they have exercised the mandate they were given.   Nor did I expect the president to squander his momentum wasting time in the futile pursuit of cooperation from the untrustworthy likes of Mitch McConnell and John Boehner.   What was Obama expecting from people who screamed “You lie!”  and predicted if they could stop the president on healthcare it would be his “Waterloo?”    You can’t work with people dedicated to ensuring you fail.

Wellstone knew sometimes you have to start a fight to win one.

Wellstone, like Obama, was a community organizer and knew how tough it is to wage a grassroots fight against entrenched, powerful interests and their minions all too happy to defend a corrupt and ineffective status quo.    This is the moment for Obama and his party to stand up for principle and run on their record or stand down and go down in bitter defeat.   It’s their call to make.  Too many people fall through the cracks the Republicans are ignoring and need the help healthcare reform can offer.  But there is no Wellstone or Ted Kennedy alive to prod, push and shame their colleagues into doing the right thing.  They’ll have to find the guts to do it all by themselves.

Wellstone cautioned,  “A politics that is not sensitive to the concerns and circumstances of people’s lives, a politics that does not speak to and include people, is an intellectually arrogant politics that deserves to fail.”

The insensitivity of Pelosi and Reid to the Democratic base  has left them looking weak, indecisive and put the Democrats a nightmarish situation where they could both win and lose at the same time.  The president’s dithering and mixed signals confused his own party and emboldened the opposition.   The Democrats could have gotten healthcare done months ago when they had the momentum and the public support.   They failed to act and now they have neither.

The Democrats could use the sort of passion and commitment Wellstone had in abundance and their current leadership seem to lack.   His brand of unapologetic liberalism has been abandoned for cold pragmatism and cutting side deals with pharmaceutical companies.

Now it’s all on Obama and the Democrats to deliver or suffer the consequences of failure.   Upon their own heads so be it.

Mo'Nique and Gabourey Sidibe

Mo’Nique and Gabourey Sidibe don’t need my career advice. If they were to ask me for it though, I’d tell them this: enjoy the ride. It won’t last.

Hollywood loves you now.   Just don’t count on them embracing you.

The cold hard truth is there isn’t a lot of roles in Hollywood for plus-sized sistas. Mo’Nique and Gabourey are not going to have careers like Meryl Streep and Sandra Bullock. There are no romantic comedies with Will Smith gazing in rapture into Gabourney’s eyes. Mo’Nique will not play Lady Macbeth or squeeze into leather and spandex to replace Halle Berry as Storm in another X-Men movie. It’s not going to happen.

The movie industry is extremely harsh on women. Ask Kathleen Turner. Ask Angela Bassett. Get a little older, don’t apply Botox to chase away the wrinkles and when gravity begins to take its toll, you’re scrambling for jobs on television, slob comedies and Tyler Perry schlock fests. Plus-sized women catch hell when they’re White. It gets no easier when you throw color in the mix.

Mo’Nique’s Best Supporting Actress made her the fourth Black woman to win the award, joining Hattie McDaniel, Whoopi Goldberg and Jennifer Hudson. Halle Berry took the little gold man home as Best Actress in Monster’s Ball, a movie widely despised by every Black person I know who have seen it. That isn’t to say there aren’t Black people who love the movie. I just never met any that have.

Jennifer Hudson hasn’t made enough films to be included in determining what type of career she may have. She apparently has dropped 60 pounds to play Winnie Mandela in a bio flick so good for her. It’s just unfortunate actresses have to hire personal trainers and diet like mad in order to pursue their livelihood. There’s the way the world should be and the way the world is and it doesn’t look to be changing around in favor of the fat folks anytime soon.

The thing about winning an Oscar is how it’s no guarantee of better scripts and better roles. Mo’Nique has no new film projects lined up. Maybe she’s choosy and wants to do something special instead of another brain-dead Martin Lawrence comedy. Then again, perhaps things are quiet on the Mo’Nique movie front based upon the fact that her phone isn’t ringing off the hooks with calls from Spielberg, Scorsese and Tarantino begging to work with her.

When you’re a Black woman in White Hollywood, you can be celebrated and you can win awards, but will you find steady work? It ain’t necessarily so as the career arcs of Goldberg and Berry following Oscar wins demonstrate.

Goldberg won acclaim in 1985 for her first film, The Color Purple, but had to wait five years for Ghost to actually win an Academy Award. Twenty years later and Goldberg hasn’t even sniffed another nomination.

Whoopi was nominated for Best Actress. Once.

Berry’s career is a cautionary tale on how to completely squander your post-Oscar buzz. Take on projects that either cater to your vanity (Perfect Stranger), are supposed to show off your acting chops but nobody bothers to go see it (Things We Lost in the Fire, Gothika) or total stinkers (Die Another Day, Catwoman). Berry’s last movie, Frankie and Alice where she plays a women with multiple personality disorder (one which is a raving racist) wrapped in January 2009 but has yet to be released. None of this is a good sign for Berry’s continued status as an A-list star.

Shock jock Howard Stern recently ripped into Sidibe saying, “There’s the most enormous, fat black chick I’ve ever seen. Everyone’s pretending she’s a part of show business and she’s never going to be in another movie,” Despite being wrong about Sidibe’s post-Precious film prospects (her next movie is Yelling to the Sky ), Stern isn’t completely off-base.

Precious was the little movie that could and Sidibe has benefited from the enormous good will it has engendered. It seems as if while everyone is cheering her breakthrough performance, we’re supposed to act as if Sidibe isn’t obese and how her weight will limit the roles available to her.

I’m the last guy to bash anyone over their weight, but the fact is fat is funny to Hollywood producers. Would Eddie Murphy have a career anymore if he didn’t have his fat suit flicks (The Nutty Professor, Norbit) that cater to wringing cheap laughs from morbid obesity?

Only White guys get away with looking like beached whales in Hollywood. Jack Nicholson was a big star. Now he’s just big. Marlon Brando ate his way to mammoth proportions. Jack Black and Philip Seymour Hoffman are far from hard bodies. Women in Hollywood don’t have the luxury of packing on the pounds. Body image doesn’t always trump acting, but you just don’t find heavier females given the breaks a paunchy male gets to make movies.

Black actresses toil in a business obsessed with image, celebrates gaunt skeletal women with enormous boobs on rail-thin bodies. Good looks are not enough. Acting chops are not enough. Being in exactly the right place at the right time under the right set of circumstances won accolades and awards for Mo’Nique and Sidibe. It isn’t enough to sustain a career.

Halle Berry fits the movie industry’s superficial standard of beauty; light-skinned, acceptably thin, but still slinky enough to be sexy, alluring looks and a non-threatening persona. All that in Berry’s favor and she still can’t find decent scripts. Sidibe and Mo’Nique are a harder sell to white audiences. How do they get paired up with Brad Pitt or Will Smith in a movie? Answer: They don’t.

Sidibe says “People look at me and don’t expect much. I expect a lot.”

It’s great that Gabourey Sidibe is comfortable in her own skin. I’m skeptical fat acceptance extends to the production offices of Hollywood studios. Howard Stern was overly harsh in his assessment Sidibe’s career prospects are dim. He was also absolutely right.

Tavis Smiley: talkin' loud and sayin' nothin'.

Once upon a time there were two Black men who were considered our “leaders.”  Martin Luther King, Jr., was a soft-spoken, but eloquent Baptist preacher who spoke of  the content of our character meaning more than the color of our skin.   Malcolm X was the fiery acolyte of Elijah Muhammad who thundered about the wickedness of the White Man and “the bullet or the ballot.”

Martin and Malcolm had little in common with each other except neither of them ever enjoyed the universal support of  the people they purported to lead.   The true stress test of leadership  is does their stature diminish or grow over the passage of time.   On that score, Martin and Malcolm  have established themselves as two sides of the same coin and though their tactics couldn’t have been more different, they both wanted the same objective: freedom for Black people.

Once you’ve seen the real thing in action, how the hell are you going to settle for the clown act of  Tavis Smiley and Al Sharpton?   That’s like trading in Miles Davis for ‘Lil Wayne.    That’s also why the recent bitch-slap between the two race hustlers is something I don’t take seriously.

Tavis pulled the plug on his annual State of the Black Union slumber party, but since he can’t go an entire year without some sort of pseudo ”event,” he’s offering up instead “We Count!  The Black Agenda is the American Agenda.”    What exactly is this “Black Agenda?”  Apparently,  Smiley is expecting  a big dose of big spending by the Obama Adminstration on programs specifically targeted to aid and assist Blacks.   It’s also an excuse for Tavis to prove yet again his swaggering self-importance never takes a day off.

Leaving aside how damn dumb do you have to be to think that Obama is going to screw his chances of reelection in the ass by making such an announcement, what makes Tavis think the problems of a Black family catching hell in Detroit are so much worse than a Latino family catching hell in Los Angeles?    We didn’t wake up the day after Obama won to any sort of post-racial America.   Neither did we enter a Black Disneyland where we got our 40 acres, a mule and an unlimited shopping spree at Wal-Mart.

I don’t see our problems as exclusive to African-Americans.  Certainly there are issues that effect us in disproportionate numbers, but it’s counter-productive to always cast Black people as eternal basket cases whose only recourse is yet another government “solution.”

The only good question Reverend Al asked Saint Tavis about this latest gabfest was, “Who made up the guest list?”

Well, of course Tavis did which means it’s top-heavy with his favorite Black intellectuals (Cornel West, Michael Eric Dyson, Julianne Malveaux), representatives of the Civil Rights establishment (Jesse Jackson, Dorothy Height, Marc Morial,  Benjamin Todd Jealous,  Sharpton) a token militant, Louis Farrakhan, and several other members of the Tavis Smiley Black Pack.

What’s odd about these bull sessions Tavis loves to throw is who doesn’t get invited.   Black conservatives and libertarians are shunned.   So are lesbians and gays and discussion of LGBT issues don’t seem to be part of the agenda.   As for any thinkers, intellectuals, or prominent figures that don’t hang with Tavis, they’re left out of the mix.

Here’s a short list of Black folks you won’t see Tavis swapping war stories with:  Shelby Steele, Juan Williams, Leonard Pitts, Jr.,  John McWhorter, Marc Lamont Hill, Bill Cosby, Dr. Allen Poussaint, Roland Martin, Joseph C. Phillips, Melissa Harris Lacewell,  Manning Marable, Larry Elder, LaShawn Barber, Keith Boykin, Farai Chideya, Phill Wilson, Mark Anthony Neal, James Rucker, Star Parker or Stanley Crouch.

Tavis Smiley and Cornel West hangin' out.

Does it matter if you recognize all those names or agree with what they believe in?  No, but what does matter is they represent a perspective that won’t be heard at the Tavis Talk-a-thons because Tavis doesn’t want to hear them.  There’s a range of political perspectives that never get an airing because they don’t fit into his agenda.   No voices of dissent will be heard during Tavis’ bull sessions.  It’s all just one great big circle jerk /ego stroke session.

George Curry, a columnist for the National Newspaper Publishers Association and the former editor-in-chief of Emerge magazine pointed out Smiley’s problem with Obama dates back to the 2008 election.

“The nation got a glimpse of Tavis being a legend in his own mind during the presidential election. In 2008, he asked candidate Barack Obama to participate in one of his town hall self-promotions in Louisiana, a state that he had already carried two weeks earlier. Hillary Clinton, seeking to win over more Black voters, accepted Tavis’ invitation. Obama, trailing Clinton in Texas, declined to attend but offered to send his wife, Michelle. Tavis rejected the offer as well as a second plea from Obama that Michelle participate. Consequently, many of Tavis’ previous followers on Tom Joyner turned against him, prompting him to quit the show.”

“Tavis likes to pretend public opinion turned against him because he had the gall to stand up to Barack Obama. No, people were more disappointed that he was eager to lie down for Hillary Clinton. And he still lies down for the Clintons, even calling Bill the nation’s first Black president.”

Tavis says, “It’s time for a choir rehearsal so that we’re all singing from the same page.”    Didn’t we just come out of Black History Month?  At what point were all African-Americans ever of one mind on anything?   You can find a few folks who can find something positive to say about slavery (full employment!) and even King and X never enjoyed universal support within the race, so what changed?

Tavis would love to be  the left-wing alternative to the Tea Party thorn in President Obama’s side,  but despite his obvious distaste for Obama, he lacks the vision to mount a sustained political opposition.   He’s not willing to damage his own standing with African-Americans by taking on the president with the fervor of a Sarah Palin.   Unlike Palin who has no pull with Blacks, Smiley knows in any competition with Obama he’s going to finish a sick second best.

Smiley, has his own issues about being “accountable” after he served as the Judas Goat for Wells Fargo to lure minority buyers via “Wealth Building” seminars  to take out sub-prime loans.    Though he has since severed his ties to Wells Fargo, he needs to come correct about his own shucking and jiving before he points an accusatory finger at President Obama.    Perhaps Dyson or West will work up the guts to ask Smiley how exactly does publishing R. Kelly’s autobiography from his book company  uplift the race?

There is nothing wrong about holding Obama as answerable to where he’s fallen short.  It’s just a bit hard to take when it comes from a grandstanding egotist like Tavis Smiley.