he was doing everyone a favor by giving us a gift - Paul Reynolds (R-AL)

It's not the thought that counts. It's just the idea of thoughtfulness.

Don't let the door hit you in the ass on your way out, GOP.

I so won't miss them.

Hey, GOP, the dry cleaners called; your sheets are ready.

Poor Saltsman is a simply a victim of PC. As we have learned, Republicans do not dislike victimology, just that practiced by Democrats, or more importantly Liberals (the Anti-Americans in Chief). When they are "victims" they revel in it, rolling in their new found glory, and rush to support the latest poor slob who was found to be just kidding when he made his faux pas (although they would never use a French phrase).

In Saltsman's defense, Barack Obama *is* a sorcerer.

Mr. Saltzman and I share the State of Tennessee. If you are not from the South, you will probably find it hard to understand how much this helps him.

Twenty-five years ago, there was a checklist for establishing one as a rock-ribbed Republican. Cut taxes - check. Reduce government regulations - check. Increase military spending - check. And so forth.

The Republican Party is now absolutely controlled by Redneck Republicans. So, the checklist is now expanded. Keep negroes in their place - check. If you don't subscribe to this attitude, there is no place for you in the current Republican heirarchy. Country club Republicans face a serious question. Will they take back their party from the Redneck Republicans, or will they become conservative Democrats?

You will notice where Saltsman and his supporters call home. The GOP -- party of the old south. The fools are doing all they can to marginalize themselves.

I can't get enough of this debacle. Telling a Republican racist he's a racist is like holding a liver snap over my beagle's nose. They just can't resist snapping at it.

I really urge the RNC to choose their first leader after the post-2008 shellacking based on whether they think he and the party are being victimized by not getting to tell magic Negro jokes without criticism. I really, really encourage this.

the GOP makes me think of lyrics from this Hank Snow song:

Like a bad motorcycle with the devil in the seat
Goin' ninety miles an hour down a dead end street
Goin' ninety miles an hour down a dead end street

Warning signs are flashing everywhere, we pay no heed
Instead of slowing down the pace, we're picking up speed
Disaster's getting closer every time we meet
Goin' ninety miles an hour down a dead end street

Yeah, ninety miles an hour down a dead end street
Well, ninety miles an hour down a dead end street

ditto Catfish. My first thought was that Saltsman knew exactly what he was doing and took a comfortable risk.

Everyone is just watching to see what these idiots do next.

They're claiming the song was meant for the Sharptin guy, well, what are they afraid of? If it was meant for Sharptin theyn say it's Sharptin. Man up - be a man!

Why name a song after a person it wasn't intended for, is this more of their imaginary friends syndrome?

I would suggest the black community stand up about this - if not, they may well be headed down the same road as the Palestinians.

With those idiots, you give them an inch, they'll see if they can get a foot.

I wish racism were just confined to the deep South. It isn't. And despite so many posters' desire for it to be so, the Republican party isn't just confined to the South either. Orange County just south of LA is about as Republican as you can get. Upstate NY is very Republican in state elections.

The less powerful have always been the brunt of jokes. Polish jokes, blonde bimbo jokes come to mind. A certain mindset finds all of these funny.

Why would a bunch of racists be bothered by receiving a racist cd? Of course they defend it. Of course, this also guarantees their continuing minority status in government.

Keep negroes in their place - check.

Not a bad idea, really, as long as its recognized that "their place" now includes the White House . . .
:)

Jen F. I know all about that, I live in S. Orange County, dems don't have a chance of getting elected here.

To put it nicely, it's lily white in almost all of the city halls here. In fact, women have a hard time winning a lot of the seats during election also.

I have the feeling that a lot of nominal Republicans in the rank and file are Repubs because they always have been, and that if they knew what those in control of the party were actually doing and saying, they would not call themselves Repubs anymore. Plus, they were taken by the propaganda they were fed as part of the 40-year effort to demonize liberals. If Obama can govern as a competent liberal, many of these people can be split off from the party, leaving only the true mouth-breathers as members and voters.

This help them land that evasive Southern white male vote they've been trying to steal from us.

Darn their hides!

What a lot of people are missing is the key issue itself: It's not just the general question, is BTMN in poor taste per se etc. The core issue is: what sort of person, in context, can "get away with" promulgating such "humor"? We can argue that it's in the pale for some radio blowhard like Rush (or, Jon Stewart "on our side") to dish this sort of thing out. But it is absolutely beneath the sniff test for someone like Chip Saltsman representing a national party in some way, who is running for their Chairmanship. Got that, too?

This tells us what we need to know about what kind of utter trash we are up against - everything from the deliberate disdain for accommodating the hated "liberal" (read, just plain bourgeois rational) media, the spiteful attraction to the very person who is attacked and the grotesque loyalty to ones fellows whatever they do, and so on ad nauseum. Indeed, their response to the criticism over BTMN is worse in many ways, and certainly even more revealing, than the bare use of it was. This episode is a capsule summary of why the modern Republican Party should indeed be razed and plowed under with salt (how about lead or arsenic fluoride, just to be special) as Brad DeLong likes to say.

BTW what's up with Bristol's "reported" (as Faux put it) new born "Tripp"? Not even a verbal report has appeared on Drudge (even with my pleading ;-), I don't see pictures around (except retreads with other babies etc.) or on Google images. I hate to pick on a potentially real baby and his teen mom in the spotlight, it just has the same weird otherworldliness as the previous pregnancy "mystery" FWIW.

Fark the farking Republicans. I don't care what they do.

I blame David Ehtrenstein, the character who wrote it in the first place, in a piece of empty tripe in the Los Angeles Times on March 19, 2007.

I'm sorry, I don't care how smart you are and how well-read you are on post-modern queer theories -- you write something like this, you give a present to the Racist Right. And you know you're doing it. But you do it anyway because it shows just how post-racial race-savvy snarky-cool Hollywood you are. And your simpering self-referential blog entries on the question don't help.

Go put it in Cahiers du Cinema, you jerk.

Dixiecrats have taken over the GOP.

By now I look like a celebrity stalker I guess, but let me make one "final" followup remark in "fairness" (; -) to the "poor" girl since I questioned the baby's existential status:

Bristol Palin could earn $300,000 for baby pics

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/28424559/

The implication, Tripp is real, and not a "trip", get it? So now what, about Sarah not showing proper signs of her own pregnancy (if a MSM blogger like Andrew Sullivan worries about it, it must matter!) I still think it's funny that girl answering at SPs office in AK hadn't heard about it yesterday afternoon. But if you don't care, good for you.

So what's up where's the cd? I dont think i can make an informed judgment about bigotry of this thing until I've heard the whole song. Maybe its funny.

I'm sure its not. But everyone makes stupid jokes once in a while. Is this part of a pattern or a onetime example of poor judgment?

If you want to brand someone a racist could we agree that the threshold is higher than one bad joke, or defending a friend who made one?

No doubt some Republicans feel they were models of restraint. After all, they didn't use the epithet that they wanted to...

Mark r, go read my first comment, Neil B ☺ on December 30, 2008 at 9:50 AM. I explain why it just isn't a matter of the "joke" per se, but *who* is throwing it around. So the threshold, crisp or fuzzy regardless, is not about details of a joke by itself or even how many a person uses, but that person's "station" in life. Running for RNC chair means you're not supposed to be passing out (otherwise quasi-acceptable from literal satirists etc) trash like "Barack the Magic Negro." This is the point that everyone should try to wrap around, not just listen to the song and think about it as an independent object.

He ought to go join Katie Dawson's country club. They could snap towels at each other in the locker room to the tune of BTMN.

I wish racism were just confined to the deep South. It isn't.

I'm from eastern Washington state. Plenty of racists. Democrats can't get elected dog catcher here.

Dixiecrats have taken over the GOP.

Yeah, about 44 years ago. The day after LBJ signed the Civil Rights Act of 1964 into law southern Democrats defected en bloc to the Republican party.

There aren't enough Republicans in eastern Washington, upstate New York, or southern California (or downstate Illinois, for that matter) to turn those states red in presidential elections, and with the possible exception of Washington, there never will be.

No one here said racism is confined to the south; that's a strawman. But numbers matter. The deepest shade of red is increasingly found in the South and the lower plains states. It's just a fact that the GOP is becoming increasingly regional.

So what's up where's the cd? I dont think i can make an informed judgment about bigotry of this thing until I've heard the whole song. Maybe its funny.

A lot of bigoted, hate-promoting humor is funny. Humor is a binding element in conversation, something people exchange among themselves to establish common cultural bonds. This is why you lead a speech to a bunch of stangers with a joke, to connect with them emotionally and culturally before getting into the gist of your argument. Whether they understand the cultural mechanism or not, people exchange "boss" jokes at work to establish a common view of their bosses, they exchange jokes about spouses to establish mutual understanding about marriage, and they tell racist jokes to establish racist cultural links.

I'm sure its not. But everyone makes stupid jokes once in a while. Is this part of a pattern or a onetime example of poor judgment?

What this was was a major component of this mans "sales pitch" to the RNC, carefully chosen to convince the voters that he is one of them, shares their interests and views, understands their needs and feelings. If I come in to your bank for a job interview wearing blue jeans instead of the grey suits everyone else is wearing, you are going to suspect that I am not understanding your corporate culture. If I list my membership in an all-white fraternity and and all-white country club, you will probably assume I think that is going to impress you.

If you want to brand someone a racist could we agree that the threshold is higher than one bad joke, or defending a friend who made one?

Saltsman was not cracking a joke while standing in line at Starbucks. As I noted above, he selected that song, along with everything else on the CD, to impress RNC voters, presumably after careful study and consideration and with the full knowledge that it has been in circulation for months and denounced as racist for months.

There are a lot of people who feel constrained by political correctness so depending on how offensive they find GOP pandering it might win their support. I can understand their feelings, because before I actually studied harassment in law school I had many common misconceptions that made me feel oppressed when the rules are actually not that bad.

This is another example of the disrespect some have for others and think a "joke" is cover. It IS an attempt to keep the racial divide in place.

The same as the attempts to play the woman vs man in leadership card.

It will not play with the majority of voters over time. There ARE more voters who ARE NOT
party devotees,reporters,pollsters or politicial experts. So often forgotten!!!!

Saltsman the dumb ass cracker lived in the South
And frolicked in the trailer park with a girl called Mary Lee
The little racist Republican loved to crack a joke
And told of other folk who were not quite just like him. oh

He should enjoy that!

As several have mentioned, the switch of the DixieCrats to the form the new RepuG Party. Larry Elder tried to defend Saltzman on Anderson Cooper, last evening - He brought up that old Southern Democrat voting pattern without mentioning the switching - This, also, happened in California, when formerly Southern Dems from Oklahoma and Texas living in the San Joaquin Valley switched parties.

Shortstop, those Rednecks in Eastern Washington and living in rural Washington, may not be able to turn the Evergreen State red, but, they did help overturn Affirmative Action programs via an initiative in the late '90s. Off year election, and the Antis turned out. When, Slade Gorton ran for re-election, a few years back, he put on chinos and Pendletons and campaigned as an Anti-Seattle pol, even though he lived in an upscale Seattle neighborhood. They, may be small, but, they keep reelecting "Doc" Hastings as a US Rep.

Chip, The White Supremist
Sing along to Puff, The Magic Dragon

(Chorus)
Chip, the white supremist,
Of the RNC
He’ll keep those negroes in their place
In the land of white and free.

Little racist party, upset because they lost
Makes Klan music on CDs and other fancy stuff. Oh.

(Repeat Chorus Twice)

Together the Right travels
Trying to please their base
Rural and big business whites
With prejudice of race.
War profiteers and Holy’s
Would bow whene’er they came
Battleships would fire their loads
When profits are too lame. Oh.

(Repeat Chorus Twice)

Bush can’t last forever
But his reign sure can
Selling out the government
Is now American
It really doesn’t matter
Who is now in charge
The system’s broke and so are we
The depression’s growing large.
One grey night it happened
Georgie Bush came no more
And Chip the white supremist
became a mighty bore
Without his right wing lord
Chip could not be brave
He wrote a song for all those folks
who want to whip a slave.

(Repeat Chorus Twice)

Like Midland et al said, it isn't even just who Saltsman is, but his using the BTMN song in a promotional while running for RNC Chair and not just "in line at StarBucks." BTW I note Malkin as expected is ridiculing people for being "sensitive", referencing the post-modern psychobabble about "magic negro" as a form of praise (but was that the context of the song?) etc. This time I don't think it will wash, they will look bad to most of the public (the ones not already a lost cause.)

I really hope Obama is taking names. I bet Rahm is. :)

I am so sick of hearing these stories about the Repubs. How they could have remained in power so long is beyond me. The fact that they see nothing wrong with this "gift" really exemplifies how much they have lost touch with the times.

PS: Look at the creative and analytical effort people put into comments here, and don't even get paid - just the appreciation of other commenters and readers. That's cool, and even more so from being so trans-capitalist ("just doing it".)

That's a defense the shoe-hurling journalist could use: "It was just a 'humor gift', really!"

Passing this obvious bigotry off as nothing more than a big joke reminds me of all those people who preface every criticism with "I don't mean to criticize," or who lead off every complaint with "I don't mean to complain" or say "With all due respect" just before delivering an insult. Conservatives have gotten really, really good in recent years about doing exactly what it is they deny with their last breath they are actually doing.

Another big fraud from Malkin, illustrative of how conservative hypocrisy/simple-mindedness work: She complains about how in the past, some persons not carefully characterized other than of course being "liberals" were putting out stuff defaming and attacking Bush, including assassination "joke" stuff. But of course she failed to note, the BTMN song was put out as promotional by a guy running for RNC Chair, not bloggers or random immature snark brokers.

delver24

Neil B:

The Palin older baby is 9+ months (36 weeks +) old (born April 18th), not the 7 months reported so you may be right.

As Republicans like Saltsman are drilling holes in the hull of the USS Republican to let the water out the party took on in the '08 elections, they are failing to see the listing that will ultimately spell DAVY JONES, and their political demise! -Kevo

God Bless the Racist Nazi Convention! Doucheland Uber Alles!

If he was italian and they called him "The Magic Dago" or "The Magic Spic" oh boy, hellfire and brimstone I tell you!

..and somewhere, Gene Autry is saying "Where's the $$ going to my estate?" Mutherfuggers where's may six-gun!

Doucheland Uber Alles is fantastic. I must steal that.

Whats the big deal about the "Magic Negro" Song? The song was coined by a guy running for chairman of the "Hillbilly Party". Lay-off the guy --- anyone that knows how to read and write --should be fully aware that conservative Republicans are "Ignorant Hillbilly Rednecks". I mean "For Gods Sake" were just 21 days away from getting rid of "Jethro-Goober Bush" and his "Moonshinin Staff"---and best of all we have almost heard the last of "President Chainsaw Cheny". Let these white racist pieces of **** go in peace.

Better still let's give them and their followers the state of Alaska and move their "Ass Wipen Patriotic Asses" to Alaska so that they can Help General "Bush with Tits Palin" save our asses from the Russians. P.S. Hopefully they would take Karl "Robert E. Lee" with them as Sec. of the Illiterates".

Shortstop is right. The Republicans are doing everything they can to become a rural Southern party. Yep, there are racists everywhere and there are still Republicans in every state, but right now if you want to be an important Republican it helps to be a good ol' boy (or in the case of Sarah Palin, a good ol' girl.)

They have abandoned the college educated and minorities of every strip. They have embraced the anti-intellectual. They deny reality when it contradicts dogma. Look at how the Southern Republicans led by McConnell proudly torpedoed the auto company bailout in the Senate earlier this month. Pure appeal to the south. The Republican leadership has abandoned any hope of making gains in upper Midwest anytime soon.

If you don't believe me just look at the map where Republicans gained strength and lost during the last election.

Someone is surprised that a dumbass cracker from the big piney woods of Alabama or a dumbass Okie both think "Barack the Magic Negro" is OK???

Are the average IQs of white people in either state even double-digit???

Let the Republicans have the inbred-moron South, nobody else wants it.

I believe Gingrichy called Saltzman out as well, how come no one is blasting good ol ging boy.

Frist also had some words for him.

Saltsman must have been dreaming of a White Christmas.

Looks like he got his wish.

And Ron, what is so great about the Republican drift is the way the Electoral College works: it's bad enough for them to lose total % support, but as their support stays good or increases in Southern states, they can't use the margin to help in Presidential elections at least.

Trent Lott called his apparent endorsement of segregation at Strom Thurmond's birthday party an "unfortunate choice of words" back in 2002. George Allen called his "macaca" comment a joke out on the campaign trail back in 2006 (FYI, he was speaking in Sarah Palin's "Real America" at the time). Now Chip Saltsman -- and all of his GOP backers -- say the "Barak The Magic Negro" song was just a joke.

That's a lot of racially insensitive jokes and poor choices of words for holders of national political office. The fact that they are all from the same party suggests that racial insensitivity is endemic to the GOP, that the problem is not just an occasional poor choice of words but rather bigoted patterns of thought.

Whether they like it or not, with these latest words the GOP has marked minorities as outsiders in their party for decades to come. Any policies they recommend, any odd individuals they trot out to defend the GOP, will not undo the voters' skepticism of their true racial attitudes and motives.

I wish racism were just confined to the deep South. It isn't.

It definitely is not confined to the South, but the difference is that it's still socially acceptable to be openly racist in the South. Listen to those OC Republicans sometime and what you'll hear are code words, not openly racist phrases. "Welfare queens" is probably the most famous, but there are a lot of them.

What's interesting to me is that the Southern attitude towards racism is starting to spread to other parts of the Republican Party. That woman who came up with the "Obama Bucks" was in Riverside, IIRC.

Racist Southerners will say out loud and in public the kind of stuff that racist Northerners will wait until they're alone with "their kind" to say. That's the real difference.

the gop is determined to make itself unelectable. It's been a reactionary party for a long time. It is therefore unsurprising that it's reacting reactionarily to Obama's election. If I were any kind of Republican but a Sarah Palin redneck, I'd be embarrassed to identify myself with the GOP.

But instead, these guys continue to embrace that ever shrinking base. Let 'em.

It definitely is not confined to the South, but the difference is that it's still socially acceptable to be openly racist in the South. Listen to those OC Republicans sometime and what you'll hear are code words, not openly racist phrases. "Welfare queens" is probably the most famous, but there are a lot of them.

and just thinking how Boehner got his feelings hurt over the bailout plan last month. It only hurts when words (not even real slurs) are directed at them. When they do it; not so much.

Maybe we should test that and start calling them some names along the lines of: 'white trash', 'bigot republican', and several more... after all, it's all just in good humor.

"Never interfere when your opponent is making a mistake." - Napoleon Bonaparte

Jen F: "... blonde bimbo jokes come to mind."

Ask, and ye shall recieve ...

Why did the musclebound blond lose his job at the Mars Candy factory?

He kept throwing out all the W's in the M&M assembly line.

What do you call the brunette woman who's standing between two musclebound blonds?

An interpreter.

What do you call the musclebound blond who's standing between two brunette women?

A mental block.

Why did the musclebound blond keep staring at the orange juice carton in his refrigerator?

The carton said "Concentrate."

What does that musclebound blond have in common with that bottle of beer he's holding?

Both are empty from the neck up.

What did the smart musclebound blond with the Ph.D. have that the other musclebound blonds didn't?

Dark roots.

And finally ...

A musclebound blond gets home early from his daily workout at the gym and hears strange noises coming from the master bedroom. He races upstairs to find his wife naked on the bed, sweating and panting.

"What's happening?" the musclebound blond says.

"Oh, my God! I'm having a heart attack!" cries his wife.

The musclebound blond rushes downstairs to grab the phone, but just as he's dialing, his 4-year-old son comes up and says, "Daddy! Daddy! Mr. Jones from next door is hiding in your closet and he's got no clothes on!"

The musclebound blond slams the phone down and storms upstairs into the bedroom, past his screaming wife, and rips open the wardrobe door. Sure enough, there is Mr. Jones, totally naked and crouching quietly on the closet floor.

"You rotten bastard," says the musclebound blond to his cowering naighbor, "my wife's having a heart attack, and you're running around naked, scaring the kids!"