Her previous actions have demonstrated clearly that she is a bigot. Injecting race as an issue is well within her assumed role. This is on the same level as Jeff Sessions commenting to Sotomayer about why she wouldnt agree with other judge who also was of "Puerto Rican" ancestory. For these buffoons, if you are of the "other" color, you must agree and think alike.

Imagine if, in 2008, Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.) was speaking on the House floor about Bush's economic agenda, and said, "In a recent article, progressive columnist Paul Krugman, a white guy, examined...."

That seems ridiculous, right?

Right. OTOH I can easily imagine any number of Republican congresspeople referring to him as "Paul Krugman, a Jew . . . ."

north carolina's virginia fox is a piece of work and has been for many many years. it is easy in the area of nc where she has ruled for years -- in various public roles -- to assume the air of aristocracy, and she has accepted that role to the hilt and for some time. for she is only about her personal power and her only limits are her rather low intelligence, and her antiquated, insulated racist enculturation.

the dif between her and jesse helms is that he would have said, "thomas sowell, the nigra..."

the only good news out of north carolina is that jesse helms is still dead...

Unfortunately white Southeners appear to have a tendency to do that. Remember during Sotomayor's hearings, Sessions thought she should have sided with the other Puerto Rican on the court in the New Haven Case?? Okay....

This is not unlike those who make an "I'm-not-racist" point by emphasizing that they have a black friend, having their picture taken standing with (maybe even touching!) that black friend, carrying that picture around in their wallets, and pulling the picture out of their wallets at very odd and incogruous moments.

Such people often claim that they are "colorblind" when it comes to matters of race, yet for some reason, the "color" issue always seems to come up in their daily discourse, if only to serve as an implied exoneration of alleged (or actual) racism.

In poker, this is called a "tell".

I'm not saying Virginia Foxx is a racist. I'm just saying she's clearly not colorblind.

How did she end her comments... "Let's all go down to da river and sing some negro spirituals."?

I'm mystified that the Republican leadership doesn't reign this in. They really are becoming entrenched as a fringe party. Although I guess the monster has eaten it's maker and the fringe IS the leadership.

I just can't figure out if they're so delusional that they believe this resonates on a national level, or if they're hunkering down with their base.

We're only seven months into Obama's first term. If this behavior continues (and I have no doubt it will) we could begin to see a severe backlash from the majority.

Translation to Foxx's bigotry - It's not just us good white folk that disagree with President Obama, even some of his own people agree with us! What a very dumb, racially limited mind this human being named Virginia Foxx has! I do hope her creator forgives her when she comes knocking on the pearly gates! -Kevo

I don't know anything about Cong. Foxx - never heard of her until this piece - but why do you disparage Tom Sowell? You might not agree with his analysis but he's a thoughtful, mainstream economist, not a bomb-thrower.

Well, all black folks think alike, right? So if some black guy disagrees with Obama, that proves he's a hypocrite, right?

Yeah, I used to live in the south. I know how this sort of thing works.

It's worth noting that Foxx is positioning herself as one of Congress' nuttiest members...

She's got her work cut out for her.

Thomas Sowell is a member of the lunatic fringe. He's managed to convince a few on the right that he's a rigorous thinker.

I just can't figure out if they're so delusional that they believe this resonates on a national level, or if they're hunkering down with their base.

Or, option 3: it's so second nature that they're both too clueless to realize it and too arrogant to examine it.

I think you're focusing on the obvious racist aspects of her comment, and ignoring the dog-whistle part: they're starting to depict health care reform as reparations by another name. They're trying to use the energy and reflexive racism of many Americans against the idea of reform by linking those plans to the thought that they will help illegal immigrants and people of color.

So, the GOP plan is to scare the old folks ("they're trying to kill ya, grannie!") and enrage the middle class ("your tax dollars will go to thieving, lazy minorities!") and bamboozle everyone else ("all government medical plans are flaming disasters, everyone knows this")

It's another illustration of the extent to which most Americans consciously or unconsciously see white as the default, and everything else as a deviation from the norm. An African-American's race is always relevant in this scheme, and a white person's race isn't.

...but why do you disparage Tom Sowell? -DBL

There is nothing disparaging about Sowell in the article, unless you count association with Foxx as a slight.

Ah, nevermind. I see it now. My mind kept inserting a 'not' after obviously. Silly me.

This is in the GOP DNA - all people of color think alike. Remember when Lindsay Graham chastised Sonja Sotomayor for one of judements, noting tat her judicial colleague, "also of Puerto Rican descent" voted the othr way.

And these folks wonder why they can't garner voters of color (even if that color is white, as in the case of Justice Sotomayor).

She's not quite in the Bachmann/King/Broun league, but she's getting there.

I beg to differ:

[Foxx] said the murder of 21-year-old Matthew Shepard in 1998 was not a hate crime.

"It's really a hoax that that continues to be used as an excuse for passing [hate crimes] bills," Foxx said on the House floor during debate on the Local Law Enforcement Hate Crimes Prevention Act.

She's as nutty as a Payday bar.

I'm not sure if this wackiness is catchy or not, but when I attend functions that elected republicans attend, I don't drink the water, I don't drink the koolaid and I don't drink whatever the republicans are drinking.

Check out Michael Lind's column today in Salon. He makes an excellent point: that a significant number of white Americans viscerally reject the idea that their tax dollars might benefit people who aren't Their Own Kind. That's why "illegal immigrants" is the favorite buzz-phrase right now with people trying to kill health care reform, and why Wilson reacted with such primal rage when a black man said that the canard about providing insurance to illegal aliens wasn't true. Speaking of primal rage, the letters thread following Lind's article is quite an education in the "thinking" of the kind of people he was talking about.

This is easily explained. Since every word and action of a non-leftist is presumptively racist, pointing out that the non-leftist is a black person preempts that line of attack.

And we expect better from Virginia Foxx. . . why?

Personally, I think we should all make a point to e-mail her office and tell her how much we miss her brother Redd.

Representative Foxx only mentioned Sowell's race because of the recent base accusations launched by Krugman, Dowd, Herbert, and others who declared that opposition to Obama's policies were rooted in nothing more than anti-black racism. Foxx merely mentioned Sowell's race to indicate that, no, opposition to Obama Care is not rooted in anti-black racism after all.

Liberals are indeed clever. First, they bring race into the discussion by hurling base accusations at town hall protestors. Second, liberals basically say, "If you are going to deflect our base accusations about racism, you must do so without mentioning race". As a result, simply saying, "I do not hate blacks", in response would generate more cries of racism by the liberal.

Why do liberals continue to play the race card? One doubts that liberals are arrogant enough or insane enough to believe the base accusations they launch. Rather, the explanation is simpler: liberals play the race card because it is an easy way to throw conservatives off message. As long as conservatives are busy talking about why they are not racist, they will not be talking about the flaws in Obama Care.

Once again, the Race Card. Very clever. And very old.

It's bad enough that Congress is full of nuts and corporate proxies, but it's worse that "we the people" keep putting them there.

Okay, if that's the way she wants it:

"Over the past few months, Rep. Virginia Foxx, a white female southerner, has argued strenuously against health care reform..."

As long as conservatives are busy talking about why they are not racist, they will not be talking about the flaws in Obama Care.

Bullshit. Conservatives aren't talking about the flaws in Obamacare. Hell, you can hardly find one who's even remotely familiar with what's on the table with regard to health care reform.

Instead, they go to town halls and try and shout down any discussion at all with cries of "liar." They gather at their circle jerk tea parties and bleat about how "socialism" will "enslave" us all and color in their misspelled signs of Obama as Hitler or the Joker. Watch a video of the Tea Baggers being interviewed this weekend on at the Mall in DC: not one could come up with a coherent thought, much less a reasoned analysis of the healthcare issue, but what they could tell you is that Obama is a "fascist" who has "already destroyed" this country and "next time they're bringing guns."

As for the racist angle, in my personal discussion with family and friends and even Facebook friends who are of the Tea Bagger ilk, I hear reported refrains of "ACORN" and jokes about watermelons and fried chicken in the Whitehouse and more serious, dark grousings about having to pay for "those people."

Sure, this isn't just about racism. It's about racism plus hatred of liberals plus a hysterical fear of governments that aren't right wing along with a healthy dose of low IQ.

I might just add:

There were 60,000 Tea Baggers who showed up in Washington last weekend according to official counts by the DC fire department. The Tea Baggers themselves are wildly exaggerating that number to almost two million.

So of this self-described two million, wow many of them were black or Hispanic? Zero.

Curious that.

Perhaps it was the abundance of Confederate Flags, or maybe it was signs depicting Obama as a monkey or from the 'hood or eating watermelons that kept the minorities away from joining this movement and its well-reasoned response to the "flaws" of the proposed health care reform.

Tom Sowell? You might not agree with his analysis but he's a thoughtful, mainstream economist, not a bomb-thrower.

Google "Thomas Sowell kidney" and then try to tell me with a straight face the man's not nuttier than a can of Planters.

in my personal discussion with family and friends and even Facebook friends who are of the Tea Bagger ilk, I hear reported refrains of "ACORN" and jokes about watermelons and fried chicken in the Whitehouse and more serious, dark grousings about having to pay for "those people."

You need a better class of friends. And family.

You need a better class of friends. And family

Tell me about it.

In just the past week I've heard from family that Obama is currently making a list and planning on assassinating anyone who disagrees with him. I've heard from friends that "welfare queens" are the reason they won't support health care reform and that Obama is planning on taking away all their guns.

I'm thinking of putting myself up for adoption on Craigslist.

re: "She's not quite in the Bachmann/King/Broun league, but she's getting there."

Oh, she's there all right. You were just too busy trying to find a valid argument from Virginia Foxx.

I'm with Snarky Bastard: Redd must be twirling in his grave.

"She's not quite in the Bachmann/King/Broun league..."

You're right. She crossed that line many moons ago.

Just one more member of Congress that has no clue why they are even in the room.
How did these people get elected anyway?

Maybe Rep. Foxx was channeling Maureen Dowd of the NYT, seeing a health-insurance debate in purely racial terms. Small-minded, I would totally agree.

Since the policy matter at hand had nothing to do with racial, ethnic, or diversity issues, it seems as if Foxx believes the color of Sowell's skin matters because both Sowell and President Obama are black.

From time to time resistance to Obama's health care reform is attributed to racism. Tea Partiers are labelled racists because almost all of the [90% Democratic voting] African-Americans stay away from the Tea Parties.

It isn't just Obama's policies. Charles Rangel has asserted that people who call him a tax cheat are racially motivated, despite clear [not beyond a reasonable doubt!] evidence of his tax cheating. William Jefferson said the same about the people who took is "ice cash" as evidence of a crime.

It hasn't just been Republicans, of course. Democrats who favored Hillary Clinton were accused of being racists because of some of their criticisms of Obama.

If an African-American can write criticisms of Obama's plan, then the claim that criticisms are inherently racially motivated are blunted. To make it an argument about racism, you have to impugn Sowell.

trex: Conservatives aren't talking about the flaws in Obamacare.

Mostly they are talking [e.g. today's George Will] about contradictions in the claims made for Obamacare, such as the claim that $500 billion (the figure fluctuates somewhat from occasion to occasioin) over 10 years can be saved by eliminating waste, fraud, abuse, and bad practice -- but without reducing quality of care, without reducing choice, and without federally mandated practice guidelines.

I like to believe that every life has value and some contribution to be realized but in Foxx's case?

Mostly they are talking [e.g. today's George Will]

George Will is a tea bagger? He must have stood out at the protests as the only one of two gazillion people there not wearing a message tee and jeans.

Will is a paleoconservative who wouldn't lower himself to share a cab with the likes of the tea baggers, but what he has in common with that crowd of drooling dunces we're seeing take to the streets is that his biggest concern is not cost -- surely, he had no opposition to stunning costs of the Iraq war or the Republican spending during the Bush years -- but the fact that it's SOCIALISM!

http://action.afa.net/Blogs/BlogPost.aspx?id=2147485090

Tea Partiers are labelled racists because almost all of the [90% Democratic voting] African-Americans stay away from the Tea Parties.

Not true. Not all tea baggers are racists, obviously, but a great many of them tip their hands with their signs and their emails. For the most part, even the very stupid are not stupid enough today to be openly racist; that would blow your cover right off the bat.

But when they start talking about the problem with America being welfare queens and ACORN and the Black Panthers and how Van Jones is tied to Communists and terrorist cells and how Obama is an Indonesian thug or a Kenyan usurper -- subtle as that may seem to your ears, Matt, it's racism. It isn't talk of policies or costs, it's talk of origins and groups composed of race. Period.

but without reducing quality of care, without reducing choice, and without federally mandated practice guidelines.

Yep, just like various European models that have borne out these claims with good success.

Next.

In other news, the President was asked today about Kanye West's outburst. Is it because he is a Taylor Swift fan? A fan of the Grammys?

Uh, no.

In another story, Rush Limbaugh again exposed his naked racism when he described a video of white kids beating up a black kid as "Obama's America" -- you know, the America where blacks are now empowered to beat whites with impunity because we have a black president.

I will wager that somewhere in America this week a white kid will beat up a black kid. Why isn't that Obama's America?

Because it doesn't fit the racist frame that Rush and Drudge and the tea bagging crowd want to promote. Race, race, race.

Oh for goodness sakes, could we all just cut it out? Let's stipulate that some people are racist and most are not. What percentage of the people do you think are sufficiently racist to oppose anything that Barack Obama does simply on the grounds that he is black, 2%, 5%, 10%?

The fact remains that some 40 to 50 percent of Americans oppose health care reform to the degree they understand it and 40 to 50 percent support it to the degree they understand it. In no way can racism account for this divide in the country on this issue.

And this is an argument that turns both ways. Barbara Boxer had some guy who was head of the Black Chamber of Commerce in front of her committee on cap and trade and wanted him to acknowledge the NAACP's position on cap and trade (which was in opposition to his). He was irate and saw it as blatently racist. I saw it as political and see Foxx's comments in the same way.

People who want to argue racism do it as a way to demonize their opponents. I don't claim to know what is in the mind of my fellow citizens. Racism is evil and that's why people use the label. My own view is that a very small number of people in this country are racist to the level that they would blindly oppose (or support) a policy based on the race of the person offering it. For those of you who feel otherwise, I hope you are wrong.

trex: George Will is a tea bagger?

No, he is a conservative, as I said in response to your claim about conservatives: Conservatives aren't talking about the flaws in Obamacare. .

trex: Yep, just like various European models that have borne out these claims with good success.

The European models do have government-mandated health care guidelines -- that is, "guidelines" that are enforced by government.

I'll note that some proponents of health care reform insist that such mandates are good policy, better value for the money. Obama quotes the "better value for the money", but he denies that the guidelines would ever be enforced under his policy. Since paractice guidelines for all specialties are published repeatedly every year by government, academic, and industry experts in peer-reviewed journals, and since nurses, doctors, and hospital administrators read them and implement them as well as they can, another set of government employess writing guidelines can't have any effect, as long as the guidelines are not enforced.

The European models do have government-mandated health care guidelines -- that is, "guidelines" that are enforced by government.

You know, this guidelines thing is just the stupidest bogeyman ever, and you are a buffoon for trying to leverage it. What -- Obama said there won't be any scary big government guidelines but there might one day be, so... gotcha?!?

The VA adheres to guidelines. It is frequently rated as the most superior health system in practices in the United States; superior to the Mayo Clinic and Johns Hopkins and U. of M. and all other top hospitals. So guidelines can be a very good thing.

Based on this, it looks like you own an apology to the "government bureaucrats" writing them.

another set of government employess writing guidelines can't have any effect

The Dutch have a health care exchange of private insurers regulated by the government with socialized care only for the elderly, mentally ill, and handicapped. Any guidelines are a result of studies of best practices and arrived at by panels of top physicians, insurers, and patients. Oh noes, the socialism of it all!

Empirically speaking, national systems of health care that are not profit-driven and that are at least partially socialized are superior to for-profit systems with layers of bureaucracy and the incentive to deny treatment.

I think that's a good way to keep commenting on it. Make a point of defining people as "...who is also white" or "...a fellow white man..." and so on.

trex: Empirically speaking, national systems of health care that are not profit-driven and that are at least partially socialized are superior to for-profit systems with layers of bureaucracy and the incentive to deny treatment.

Nevertheless, Obama has promised that the new guidelines will not be mandatory. What's not believable in his presentation is that his plan will reduce costs without mandatory guidelines: either it will not reduce costs, or the guidelines will be mandatory.

so, trex, what is your understanding of Obama's plan? Will the guidelines be mandatory or will they not be mandatory? And whatever the answer really is, should it not be made absolutely clear before the Congressional votes are taken?

what is your understanding of Obama's plan? Will the guidelines be mandatory or will they not be mandatory?

You have not so much as cited a single quote from Obama. If you'd like me to respond to something, give me something to respond to.

But while we're on the topic, let me just reference the position of the AMA, which supports the House Bill, on the topic of guidelines:

The AMA said better care guidelines and improved adherence to existing ones could save billions. For example, the AMA's Physician Consortium for Performance Improvement is developing evidence-based guidelines to reduce unnecessary diagnostic imaging and surgical treatments for back pain. However, the AMA noted that evidence-based guidelines are not enough to reduce overutilization.

Hello from Russia!
Can I quote a post in your blog with the link to you?