"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.