Dig Bill Maher at the end here. Pretty cool.
The Beautiful Struggle: A Father, Two Sons, and an Unlikely Road to Manhood 
Copyright © 2009 by The Atlantic Monthly Group. All rights reserved.
mr. coates:
I am a regular reader of yours and I am surprised and shocked that after your excellent discussion about why "uppity" is a problem and your popularizing the piece about "white privilege" you aren't talking about McCain's unwillingness to look at Obama while they were talking or look at him when they shook hands.
You know full well that McCain's people wanted a free flowing debate, but then when they got it, their candidate essentially froze out Obama by not even acknowledging his presence.
Is this what would have happened at townhalls?
You need to look at this picture and ask yourself how many times you, me and every other colored man has been put in this position, looking to the white man while we shake his hand as he looks away at his girlfriend or wife or his buddies.
http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2008/09/live-blogging-o.html
Its the unwilingness to take a colored man seriously.
Its the unwillingness to address the colored man as an equal.
Its the unwillingness to accept that in some situations, all things being equal, the colored man is as sharp and eloquent and forceful as his white counter part.
Its the unwillingness to accept that after years of shunting smart colored men aside to tertiary corridors - hip hop, movies, sports - they are still finding a way of standing tall and proud in the heart of western academy and western power
Obama might be a post-racial candidate and I have no problem with that but he's showing how racial so many of these whites - particularly McCain - is.
Say something Mr. Coates.
"come on man," come on, man. Sullivan links to this post at Talking Points Memo today:
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/220226.php
Watch the video. McCain always does this to his opponents, even the white ones. A debate is just another battle to be fought against an enemy for McCain.
Review some of McCain's previous debate performances and I'm sure you'll find the same contempt for his opponents. That's just who he is (and why he should be nowhere near the presidency of the United States).
Josh Marshall nails it int he link Scott posted.
For McCain everything is good vs evil. He is good therefore his opponent must be evil. Look at how he treats every issue, it is always a moralistic crusade.
And even th eikes of George Will has noticed and decided it makes him unfit to be President.
To get the thread back on topic, watchign Maher last night all I could do was go wow whiel he did this bit. It is funny but more than that it make syou uncomfortable, in a good way, because you know he is exactly right.
The rest of the show was kind of blah. Lisa Schriffen is such a tool that there is no point debating the issues, Ralph Nader is of course going to say both sides are the same so why bother, etc. To make his show work you need a Conservative who will actually defend the positions with some modicum of reality and a Liberal who will cnfront them when they lie.
His interview with Chris Rock was pretty good though.
Its all part of McCain's gangster street cred persona. If Obama had dissed his opponent like that, MC Cain would have popped a cap in his ass.
One of the best "New Rules" ever...just makes me glad that me and mine are among the "good ones," and not part of the thug culture.
Oh my! That was absolutely BRILLIANT! That needs to go viral!
QT
That was really F@#$%ing funny.
Ed Liddy (CEO of AIG) is pictured there - but he was put in place by Paulson this month. They should have showed Willumstad instead.
In case anyone ever wonders, showing Willumstad's picture wouldn't have changed the basic point.
And Franklin Raines is ...?