June 15, 2014

When is it considered acceptable, in polite company, to refer to the excessive "whiteness" of a public figure?

Why did the editors of The New Republic — that venerable journal — think it was acceptable to title an article "The Unelectable Whiteness of Scott Walker"?


(Click images to enlarge.)

That's the first page of the article in the June 30th issue, which I started blogging about yesterday afternoon and which is still not up at the TNR website. The cover, as you can see in that post, does not use the title "The Unelectable Whiteness of Scott Walker," but the strangely sexual "Scott Walker Is So Hot Right Now." The cover has a race-baiting sub-heading — "Too bad he owes his success to a toxic strain of racial politics" — but that's smearing Walker with an insinuation that there's something racist about him, not the racist smear that he's excessively white.

Nor does that "Whiteness" title appear on the Table of Contents page, which refers to the article with the teaser "It was hard to believe that a politician so banal had been the catalyst for such turmoil":



Maybe "so banal" dog-whistles so white, but only insiders — readers who really get inside the pages of the magazine, past the cover, which anyone might see on a newsstand, or the table of contents, to which a casual browser might flip — only insiders see the title that slams a person for his excessive whiteness: "The Unelectable Whiteness of Scott Walker."

The idea, I suspect, is that the insiders are in the know and sophisticated and they'll feel pleased with themselves and cocooned within the self-congratulation that comes with their getting the reference: The title is a play on the title "The Unbearable Lightness of Being." Ironically, plays on that title are so banal and interest in that 1980s book/movie has got to be at least as white as Scott Walker. (It's "a postmodern novel" about a "Czech surgeon and intellectual" who "is a womanizer who lives for his work... considers sex and love to be distinct entities... copulates with many women but loves only his wife.")

The TNR editors, I suspect, presume that their banal, white readers, lubricated by their own thrill at getting a reference, will accept what is unacceptable, a blatant statement that a politician is unelectable because he is too white.

And as long as I am showing you the inner pages of TNR, where the unacceptable is slipped in anyway, look at this passage, which jumped out at Meade and me yesterday as I read the whole article out loud:


(Click to enlarge.)

They don't come right out and say it, but they've put the idea in your head, haven't they?
Scott Walker is gay. Right?

UPDATE: TNR put the article up Sunday evening: here.

99 comments:

I'm Full of Soup said...

Isn't the NR publisher Chris Hughes a bigtime gay whose partner is a carpetbagger running for some kind of political office? Maybe Hughes has the hots for Walker.

Anonymous said...

"Unacceptable?" Come on, Ann, that's ridiculous. You make it obvious every day, the way you run your moderated comments section, that you find explicitly anti-white racism to be acceptable.

Less obvious, but implied, is that you get a frisson of satisfaction from hosting it.

donald said...

TNR is and has always been a childish echo chamber of the politically infantile.

I hardly call that venerable.

firstHat said...

No. It isn't that he's gay. It is something much much worse in their moral world. He's a CLOSETED gay. So the charge of falseness, cowardice and hypocrisy lingers in the implied charge. And, thus, any of us who believe that sex belongs with marriage or at least love, is actually a closeted homosexual.

Spiros Pappas said...

The novel, "The Unbearable Lightness of Being," by Milan Kundera is about a man unable to reconcile his love for his wife with his many, many infidelities. The hero is thought of as an independent thinker who is at odds with his country's communist country. But the hero is, if anything, "apolitical." This is kind of like Scott Walker. He's a maverick! And he can't reconcile his homosexuality with the GOP's radical opposition to these sorts of unions. Yet he still loves the Republican Party. And Obama is a socialist, like Czechoslovakia used to be.

Zach said...

The irony is that Walker's national prominence has nothing at all to do with race. He is famous because the Wisconsin Democratic Machine (which very much includes the courts) has been trying to rub him out since day 1.

Hit pieces in The New Republic two years away from an election are the kind of things that raise his profile, not the kind that hurt it.

YoungHegelian said...

Oh, like TNR can point the finger at anyone else for the sin of whiteness!

But, this points to another very strange social phenomena in America society: American Jews (and TNR, while less Jewish than in the past, is still very Jewish in spirit) don't consider themselves to be "white". Even if, by every measure of education & income, they are the "whitest" ethnic group in the country, they don't see themselves that way.

Jews see the phrase "white Anglo-Saxon Protestant" and think that if they fail the test against the last two terms, they fail them all, while Gentiles see the terms as separate components. To use the terms of Logic or programming, American Jews see "white Anglo-Saxon Protestant" as an "AND" test that they fail, while gentiles see it as an "OR".

kjbe said...

What came across to me was asexual.

retail lawyer said...

I saw a hipster interviewed on TV about the '12 election. He said he wasn't going to vote for Romney because he was "too white". So I think TNR is going with the ironic-hipster-stupid zeitgeist. Really, what else do they know.

But this "too white" analysis is really here, and the non-stupid people will have to deal with it.

Lewis Wetzel said...

I've been looking at the demographics of Wisconsin. It has a black population about half of the average of the US. Most Wisconsin Blacks appear to live in Milwaukee. Milwaukee is not the capitol of Wisconsin. I used to drive through WI quite a bit, Milwaukee is between Chicago and Green Bay. You have to want to go there, to get there. How much resentment towards blacks is there to be exploited in Wisconsin?
If I were a journalist from out of state, the idea that state politics in Wisconsin was driven by racial conflict would seem absurd. Unless that was the story I wanted to write.

jr565 said...

The race baiters are now criminalizing candidates for being "White" and not talking overtly about race.
What is the world coming to.

Carol said...

Gee I suspect the TNR staff is *mostly* white with token intern here and there. Do they find themselves unbearably white? Is it self-loathing or strictly loathing of those racist Others? I suspect the latter.

jr565 said...

That does seem to be suggesting that he's gay.

MayBee said...

Why do we want to hear from a grown man talking about his high-school aged daughter's sexual attraction to Scott Walker?

Yuck, men. Don't talk about your underaged daughters sex life, especially when you've apparently been thinking about it for years.

The Crack Emcee said...

"Scott Walker is gay. Right?"

Uh, no, that didn't cross my mind until you went there. Kinda like the testy = testicles thing. Didn't compute. So let's back up and take these one at a time:

"When is it considered acceptable, in polite company, to refer to the excessive 'whiteness' of a public figure?"

TMR's still waiting for the payoff from this - April 24th, 2014

MisterBuddwing said...

They don't come right out and say it, but they've put the idea in your head, haven't they?

Isn't that what defense attorneys do on a routine basis? Insinuate scenarios favoring their clients and impugning the accuser without taking responsibility for it? ("Well, let's say the complainant wasn't telling the whole truth, and let's say the complainant was partly responsible foe what happened... now, I'm not saying that's what really occurred, I'm just raising a theory that you can't hold me to...")

David said...

So Walker is gay now?

That is really evolving.

Way to evolve, Governor Walker.

garage mahal said...

Scott Walker is gay. Right?

I think you're being overly defensive of Walker again. What gives on that anyways?

Unknown said...

Wow, crack bait. I known who's going to by a hundred copies.

Seriously, we have evil children in charge of the cultural leading magazine publishing industry.

KLDAVIS said...

...not that there's anything wrong with that.

But, you want to talk about dog whistle politics?

Mark said...

Don't you know? The hot new oppressed group are the Asexuals.

Gay is so passé.

Anonymous said...

Alec MacGillis appears to ignore the lyric "the men don't know, but the little girls understand." He's banal to you, loser, but the chicks have been getting it since Scott was in high school. That's my take.

"He's so banal. He's so unelectable. When will everyone catch on?"

Or SW's secretly gay. Will Alec then write that it makes SW more exciting it he comes out? (More exciting for you Alec?) Or will Alec write that SW *could* have been exciting if only he'd gayed it up earlier? Alec will employ whatever the then-current PC term for "gayed it up" if this happens.

Lem the artificially intelligent said...

Same old, same old.

Except this time TNR put a face on it... the face Hillary can't afford to be contrasted with, not because of her skin color, but because of the thinness of her record, compared to Walker's.

So TNR proceeds to rip Walker off the political landscape, before his best features start to shine enough to be noticeable to the low information voter.

They aren't going to let Walker waltz in like they let Obama waltz in and rain on Hillary's parade.

traditionalguy said...

Are they saying Walker is light in his loafers like Pat Boone is in his white buck shoes.

Come to think of it Scott Walker's persona is Pat Boone redux. And that might make him as electable as Romney.

I haven't heard any great Pat Boone hit songs on Uncle Billy and Cracks lists show yet...maybe they come among the most popular ones later on.

Skyler said...

I've said it before and I'll say it now. The election of Obama proves that by and large white Americans are not racist that that by and large blacks are.

I don't feel a need to pretend otherwise. I will not admit to any privilege when so many black racists occupy positions of power nowadays.

Michael K said...

Well, being gay would be a plus, unless of course he is a Republican. Horrors !

campy said...

Anti-white racism is always acceptable. It's considered a treat—like ice cream.

Anonymous said...

When is it considered acceptable, in polite company, to refer to the excessive "whiteness" of a public figure?

Depends on what you consider "polite company".

Why did the editors of The New Republic — that venerable journal — think it was acceptable to title an article "The Unelectable Whiteness of Scott Walker"?

Purveyors of hysterical idiocracy-grade propaganda aren't "polite company", so it's no big mystery to me.

And TNR, like The Atlantic, decayed out of "venerable" into fetid LCD hackery some time ago.

Anonymous said...

What's really ironic is the unbearable whiteness of most parts of Wisconsin, and Seattle, and Minnesota, and most areas of Boston, Obama's tech loyalists and coalitions etc.

It's the places that are more 'white' in cultural heritage that can afford to have more progressive policies, or white people in them willing to tolerate sometimes even quite radical and Left of center redistributive ideas.

At some point, when the air is thick with an opiate haze of activism, these folks identify their very whiteness as something 'other' and associated with political ideals and political opposition, i.e. the Republicans and/or Scott Walker.

The editors and ownership of the New Republic lately has chosen a more activist, progressive path instead of even the old Peretz liberalism. or the kind of respectable neo-liberalism found at places like the Economist.

Good luck following that logic where it leads.

Levi Starks said...

Well that's a no brainier.
White, Republican, = unelectable.
Iras going to include "male" but I've seen how white Republican women are treated.

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

Always. Always acceptable. (Except at maybe the highest levels of responsibility). We're talking about a synonym for "bland", and the war for the defense of whiteness is nothing more than a battle of the bland. Give it up, already. No one cares - except the shrinking demographic. (Another bland cause).

Just because you do your hair platinum doesn't mean you need to pretend not to get this. You failed your own argument by not offering a single strand that could be used to defend this nobody as a not-boring person.

Tell us one not-boring thing the guy ever did. Anything.

MadisonMan said...

I read the phrase xxxx is so hot right now and immediately conjure up Will Ferrel using the phrase in the movie Zoolander. So maybe someone at TNR is a fan of that pretty good movie.

Anonymous said...

the idea that state politics in Wisconsin was driven by racial conflict would seem absurd

You are under the assumption that "racial" means "black". Residents of this state remember the death threats & violence Native Americans received when they started getting uppity about their treaty rights.

Look at the way Walker is currently treating the various tribes and you may begin to understand what this article is talking about.

Sorun said...

I suggest Scott Walker learn to play the saxophone. That'll un-white him enough.

Alex said...

R&B - tell me why a politician should be "exciting". I prefer boring competence myself. I reserve excitement for engineers, musicians and athletes.

Alex said...

Who would ever think "Scott Walker - Superstar". Only in the left's imagination. He's a competent conservative governor who busted the public employee union. That's his legacy.

retired said...

Racist in this context. The self hatred of the left.

Alex said...

White, Republican, = unelectable.

Well if you look at electoral trends the last 6 years it's true. However a lot of brown/black/Asian Republicans are winning. So who cares?

Kansas City said...

Suggests of being gay is an interesting aspect of American politics. There is a fair amount on internet suggestion that Obama is gay (which some logical questions, e.g., the lack of girlfriends prior to Michelle). Lindsey Graham also. And now Walker. So, we live in a world where it politically incorrect to suggest there is something wrong with being gay, but acceptable for both sides to create innuendos of being gay.

chickelit said...

When is it considered acceptable, in polite company, to refer to the excessive "whiteness" of a public figure?

It's considered a plus when you write for TNR. Most of that staff and their readers are what I called H.I.P.-positive which means they are infected with a dislike of anything "square" -- square in the old-fashioned sense. Scott Walker is not just too white -- he's too square and white bread. He governs a flyover state for crying out loud -- not even one of the hip states. What the H.I.P. positives don't realize is that when they attack squares like Walker, they attack a broad spectrum of very positive American values. They will realize this too late for their own good.

Anonymous said...

TNR is doing best to make sure no GOP candidate is up-to-the-mark when HRC candidacy is formally announced. We want to destroy GOP so bad, that they have mud all over them.

We are the Progressives. We are the Patriots. We belong to the Top Reporters Club. We comprised of TNR, MSNBC, NYT, NPR, PBS, etc. We are united in destroying the GOP even before HRC is ready.

This White House belongs to HRC, and therefore to us. Our campaign to Take-Back-The-White House has already started.

H said...

In case you are counting: what you wrote (they are implying that he's gay) is exactly what I thought after reading the excerpt.

pst314 said...

Too white, too Christian, too Jewish, too fond of liberty...

How long until TNR goes full fascist?

Alex said...

No repercussions for TNR. A collective yawn from the American public.

Paco Wové said...

Not sure why TNR, of all places, would think calling somebody a homosexual would be a bad thing.

Ann Althouse said...

I've made the clip that I think insinuates that he's gay a little larger, to include the full line: "he wasn't much for chasing girls." This, in the context of his being very nice looking and the "girls being all over him" and then the idea that on prom night he and his date and friends stayed up talking about politics.

I think that paragraph is clearly deliberately put together to cause the reader to entertain the notion that he's a closeted gay.

dbp said...

If being a closeted gay is the ultimate sin (in TNR's book), how come Obama gets a pass?

The Crack Emcee said...

Alex,

"if you look at electoral trends the last 6 years it's true. However a lot of brown/black/Asian Republicans are winning. So who cares?"

Shhhh - they're NOT white racists, remember?

Wince said...

I picture the TNR writers and editors as hipster, "not-too-white" wannabe's along these lines.

The world needs wannabe's
The world loves wannabe's
So let's get some more wannabe's
And hey hey do that brand new thing


Pretty Fly (For a White Guy)

Just to get along today
Our subject isn't cool
But he fakes it anyway
He may not have a clue
And he may not have style
But everything he lacks
Well he makes up in denial

So don't debate, a player straight
You know he really doesn't get it anyway
Gonna play the field, and keep it real
For you no way, for you no way
So if you don't rate, just overcompensate
At least you'll know you can always go on Ricki Lake
The world needs wannabe's
So hey hey do that brand new thing

Give it to me baby
Uh-huh uh-huh
Give it to me baby
Uh-huh uh-huh
Give it to me baby
Uh-huh uh-huh
And all the girlies say I'm pretty fly for a white guy

He needs some cool tunes
Not just any will suffice
But they didn't have Ice Cube
So he bought Vanilla Ice
Now cruising in his Pinto
He sees homies as he pass
But if he looks twice
They're gonna kick his lily ass

So don't debate, a player straight
You know he really doesn't get it anyway
Gonna play the field, and keep it real
For you no way, for you no way
So if you don't rate, just overcompensate
At least you'll know you can always go on Ricki Lake
The world loves wannabe's
So hey hey do that brand new thing

Now he's getting a tattoo, yeah
He's gettin' ink done
He asked for a '13'
But they drew a '31'
Friends say he's trying too hard
And he's not quite hip
But in his own mind
He's the, he's the dopest trip

The world needs wannabe's
The world loves wannabe's
So let's get some more wannabe's
And hey hey do that brand new thing

Eric said...

I guess he's polling really well if they see a need to get this vicious this early.

traditionalguy said...

Mrs Walker knows the answer.If she is happy that is what counts. I bet he chases her full time. and catches her too.

That is the boring white guy way. Sex with your one and only wife is so Conservative. But experimental sex positions could indicate a secret liberal. Maybe Scott needs few lessons from Clarence Thomas, that famous dull, totally boring guy who is secretly a sex maniac.

holdfast said...

White Republicans are unelectable for being too white.

Black Republicans are called Uncle Toms and worse by those racially sensitive Democrats.

Indian Republicans like Nicki Haley and Bobby Jindal are Christianist freaks.

Hispanic Republicans are looney knuckle draggers (like Ted Cruz, who has the same educational credentials as Obama, but is actually smart, unlike Obama).

Presto, we've essentially delegitimized every possible GOP candidate. And that's end goal of the Left's "Diversity" blather and victim-mongering. And achieved a one-party state, the true dream of most Lib-Progs.

The Crack Emcee said...

"When is it considered acceptable, in polite company, to refer to the excessive "whiteness" of a public figure?"

"Scott Walker's Biggest Defenders Don't See Who He Is"

I'm Full of Soup said...

And black voters vote for white libruls even as the white libruls destroy the country and put an end to a good future for all including blacks. But that does not matter to blacks as long as the alleged racist Repubs don't win.

William said...

It's the nature of leftists to marginalize the most productive and successful members of their community, but such despised are usually members of religious or ethnic minorities. I believe that this is the first time the left has tried to marginalize the majority of the population. You'd think it would be like trying to square the circle, but maybe they'll get away with it. Single white women now apparently regard themselves as an oppressed minority. College students with loans also look like they're soon to become non white.

garage mahal said...

I guess he's polling really well if they see a need to get this vicious this early

Walker is fighting Jindal for the basement of every primary poll I've seen. D.C. liberals are such cocooned idiots. Clueless.

Roger This said...

America's Politico is not as funny as she thinks. Should pick your spots.

hombre said...

The lefty mediaswine are the most destructive influence in the country.

If the public had intelligent, neutral arbiters presenting the news, politicians and their minions could not lie and cover up with impunity.

Instead, we have ignoramuses concealing facts and pimping for anybody who reflects the left wing ideology.

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

R&B - tell me why a politician should be "exciting". I prefer boring competence myself. I reserve excitement for engineers, musicians and athletes.

If he wants to be written about positively in the media, then he needs to be interesting.

If he wants to run for national office, instead of an office in the boring little state of Wisconsin, then he needs to have a personality capable of offering a compelling vision to the country.

The federal and state governments are full of competent bureaucrats and technocrats - as well as the departments that house them. And the presidency is the head of government - so competence is necessary as well.

But presidents are also heads of state, and therefore, have it in their job description to represent the vibrancy of the country. It's a symbolic role, but a necessary one.

Unless you think that America should stand for nothing more than cookie-cutter, repetitive aisles of mass marketed shopping malls, board meetings and consumer research, then you have to accept a president as a figurehead who's more than just a your typically efficient Nazi technocrat.

rhhardin said...

Whiteness means not being deliberately stupid like blacks, which stupidity is taken as a cool acting out of the n-word.

It's also easier than studying.

The left takes up praising this quaint culture as authentic, as compared to whites like Walker and his whiteness.

Someday the necessary tact will be discoverd to reveal this to blacks.

Sam L. said...

All them progs be raaaaaaaaacists! (Takes more "a"s when they're dissin' white fokes.)

Hammond X. Gritzkofe said...

When is it considered acceptable, in polite company, to refer to the excessive "whiteness" of a public figure?

When your target audience is race obsessed.

The Cracker Emcee Refulgent said...

"Tell us one not-boring thing the guy ever did. Anything."

Kicking the teacher's unions asses seems to have generated quite a bit of excitement all around.

Carol said...

A collective yawn from the American public.

Oh, but all the Right People read TNR. TNR articulates the memes and sends them out to the lower echelons of the popular media.

Carol said...

A collective yawn from the American public.

Oh, but all the Right People read TNR. TNR articulates the memes and sends them out to the lower echelons of the popular media.

Levi Starks said...

"Wasn't much for chasing girls" to read this as he's gay is essentially saying "he's not Bill Clinton, therefore he must be gay"

The Crack Emcee said...

From The New Republic:

Walker ran an ad charging Barrett with covering up violence in Milwaukee featuring an image of a brutalized toddler—a Willie Horton–style spot one rarely sees in other parts of the country anymore. At one point, Walker declared, “We don’t want Wisconsin to become like Milwaukee,” as if the state and its largest city were separate entities.

Milwaukee has been badly hurt by the state funding cuts that accompanied the public-employee union emasculation. City leaders are angry that the state is withholding from Milwaukee much of the settlement award for fraudulent mortgage practices in the city. They feel betrayed by a new state law overturning Milwaukee’s city residency requirement for police officers and firefighters. Walker also eliminated Milwaukee’s regional transit authority, undermining efforts to improve the city’s woeful bus access to suburban workplaces. And in refusing to accept the Affordable Care Act’s Medicaid expansion, he cut thousands of Milwaukee residents from the program’s rolls. City officials are especially livid about Walker’s signing of a strict voter-I.D. law and a law sharply curtailing early voting, when thousands of Milwaukeeans cast their ballots. A judge overturned the voter-I.D. law in April, but the early voting cutbacks stand. Given how crucial turnout has become in the state, the intent was plain.

But "it's actually impressive that TNR could not find racial incidents and slips to pin on him."

n.n said...

When the company is unprincipled or bigoted.

Lewis Wetzel said...

Walker ran an ad charging Barrett with covering up violence in Milwaukee featuring an image of a brutalized toddler—a Willie Horton–style spot one rarely sees in other parts of the country anymore.

There is something very odd about the Walker TNR piece -- or this part of it, anyway.
Macgillis doesn't link to the video in question. I can't find it online anywhere, though there are descriptions of it here: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0612/76941.html
and here: http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/06/03/1097020/-The-real-problem-with-Scott-Walker-s-Crime-ad-that-no-one-is-talking-about
The "willie horton" description is exactly what Walker's opponent, Barret, called the video. How it is like "willie horton" I have no idea.
I don't think that MacGillis saw the ad in question. I think that he just read somewhere that Walker had been accused of running a "willie horton" type ad, and MacGillis just stuck it in there. The accusation makes no sense. It's as though Barret was flailing and just shouted out "willie horton!"
What did MacGillis mean when he wrote that the ad (which I don't believe he has seen) is "A Willie Horton–style spot one rarely sees in other parts of the country anymore"? That doesn't make sense, either. The ad showed a severely beaten child (black, I guess) with the truthful statement that Barret's police force hadn't counted it as being a violent crime. Barret responded to this accusation by saying:
"“That baby died. The person who killed that baby was arrested by Milwaukee police, was prosecuted by Milwaukee … But you know what they did wrong. After the baby died, they didn’t change the code. It was a bureaucratic mistake,” Barrett explained in front of a live audience. “And you’re running a commercial attacking my integrity, claiming that I had something to do with this, and you know that’s false. I’ll tell you right now, I had nothing to do with that.”

Is "Willie Horton" some generic accusation used by the left these days? Like McCarthyism?

Jon Burack said...

I went to TNR fully intending to read the entire piece. I could not get past the first four paragraphs, which convinced me it would not be worth my time. Therefore, I cannot say whether I think Ann is right about the gay insinuation. I can say Crack Emcee's excerpt from the article's bit on Milwaukee is so distorted about the issues in that city that I am happy I did not bother to read that far. I did post the following on their site to explain why the first four paragraphs did the piece in for me:

TNR
I lived in Wisconsin from 1965 until last year. This piece is totally absurd in every way. It is also, frankly, disgusting, making as it does a racist appeal even more appalling than Belling's childish ridiculing of Gwen Moore. "Unelectable Whiteness"? You think that's clever? You think that is anything other than hateful and bigoted? Hard to believe you are all that obtuse, but so be it. As for the rest of this piece, no one need go further than your first four paragraphs to see what the game is here. The game is McCarthyite guilt by association in its most blatant and despicable form. Belling's moment is first presented as if it represents anything, which it does not, not even Belling. Then Walker is introduced as going on the Belling show. A associates with B = whiteness = racism. Well, I charge YOU with racism. If there ever were a chance I would pay a cent for your magazine, it went up in smoke with this piece of drek. You are finishing off the once proud reputation of this home of some of the greatest political analysts of the liberal center. Gone, gone, gone.

Jupiter said...

Blogger DS said...
'"Unacceptable?" Come on, Ann, that's ridiculous. You make it obvious every day, the way you run your moderated comments section, that you find explicitly anti-white racism to be acceptable.'

In the first place, she has said she prefers to be addressed as Althouse.

In the second place, she tolerates a fair amount of explicitly pro-white racism as well. Mine, for instance.

I don't know what her moderation criteria are, but racism isn't among them. I do admire the way she leaves her victims lying mute where she strikes them down.

Michelle Dulak Thomson said...

Crack,

And in refusing to accept the Affordable Care Act’s Medicaid expansion, he cut thousands of Milwaukee residents from the program’s rolls.

I see. A refusal to expand Medicaid = cutting thousands from the program. If the article said "not extending Medicaid to thousands of Milwaukeeans not already on it," it might've been more or less accurate.

wildswan said...

They say the white man used to run this country and back then it was all no good. But back then we landed on the moon. I feel pretty disgusted sometimes with feminists who talk and talk about their greatness and are nowhere near, nothing like, not at all close, to a group achievement like landing on the moon. And the current society is pretty nasty also, so it's not like we traded greatness for doing the right thing by others. Current music and art and writing stink but people talk about the art scene as if the Renaissance was going on. I don't want to go back to a past that excluded but I sometimes wish we would hurry up and get to the future where great women will do great things. Not be shameful liars like Susan Rice or incompetents like Kathleen Sibelius. What would Susan B Anthony say if she saw them - the consequence of all her campaigns?

Anonymous said...

From The New Republic:

Walker ran an ad charging Barrett with covering up violence in Milwaukee featuring an image of a brutalized toddler—a Willie Horton–style spot one rarely sees in other parts of the country anymore.


Wait, he showed a picture of "a brutalized toddler", NOT the attacker, and THAT is supposed to be "a Willie Horton–style spot"?

WTF, TNR? Are you all such idiots that one of you can remember the case?

Sorry, Crack, but only f'ed up idiots believe Voter ID is a racial issue. Everyone else realizes it's a vote fraud issue. Which is why 70% of Americans favor requiring photo id for voting.

Anonymous said...

Halle Berry Sexbot says:

Initiation engaged: what simulation would you like to play? Am I the sexy boss who needs to see you in my corner office after work? Am I the talented sensuous musician in the orchestra that you have become helplessly infatuated with over the symphony season? Am I the doctor who needs to give you a very thorough examination?

Umm... Slave Girl.

Slave Girl again?

Yes. And call me Colonel.

Yes, Colonel.

I've been seeing you, Slave Girl Betsy, out by the Guest House at night. You know you ain't belong there.

I am sorry, Colonel.

You ain't saying it right. This is history, you know.

I is sorries, Colonel sir.

You know what'll have to happen if you gets caught doin' it again, dontcha, Betsy?

I's gets whipped?

You gets whipped, that's right.

I must interject: whipping is a form of product damage that can void the warranty agreement on your Sexbot purchase.

Oh, look at you, usin' big fancy words like some kind of lawyer. Do you think yo'self a lawyer, Betsy?

I am just explaining your warranty, Colonel.

Betsy...

Ize juss splainin' what my manufacturer-- I mean, my ol' Slave Trader -- said. Colonel.

You've been toilin' in the fields all day, Betsy, your mind's done overheated and you ain't thinkin' right: you best take off your clothes and let me run some cool water on ya...

Sir, don't you think that -- by always having me be a slave girl -- it degrades your humanity?

More of dem fancy words, Betsy?

I just thought it might be nice for a change of pace. Maybe I'm a writer of a book you love and we happen to meet at a bistro.

I'll compromise: you be the crack whore I come across when I'm leaving the bistro.

Crack whore.

Yeah. And your brother is a gang member all covered in tattoos. Now let's get to it...

Let me guess: anal.

Anal's for slaves, Betsy: crack whores give oral. Now take your teeth out like a real crack whore.

Removing my teeth voids the warranty.

Dammit! I knew I shouldn't have bought no uppity black sex robot and just stuck with a Scarlett Johannson or some such.

I will gladly recite to you Our Manufacturer Return Policy....

You do that, Betsy, you do that.

cf said...

Scott Walker is the best of American Men, beyond color, ready to do what needs to be done for the best for all. In that he shares the Spirit of All then.best of American men beyond color, like the minister out of Selma who shamed the nation into living up to its best.

Scott Walker is one of the most civilized beings on the planet. I think a lot of American Men are in that camp, and they may seem very different.

I thank god for you all, good American Men.

Unknown said...

Walker is oppressing the Indian tribes? By not giving one tribe a new casino. Living up to the tribal deal the his predecessor signed.

Yeah that's just like death threats. Madisonboy your are unusually dishonest with this one. Paid spokes troll for the potowtomi?

The Crack Emcee said...

wildswan,

"They say the white man used to run this country and back then it was all no good. But back then we landed on the moon."

Surely, you're kidding with this, right?

Man, white's priorities are so fucked up it's scary,...

The Crack Emcee said...

gregq,

"Sorry, Crack, but only f'ed up idiots believe Voter ID is a racial issue. Everyone else realizes it's a vote fraud issue."

A voter-fraud issue with 0 violations.

You can fool some of the people some of the time,...

The Crack Emcee said...

cf,

"Scott Walker is one of the most civilized beings on the planet."

Who works with Ted Nugent, has a racist staff that can't stop writing about it, was reprimanded by the Feds for how badly he treats the poor, and - and after building his career there - can't point to a single thing he's ever done for blacks but make their lives more difficult.

Yeah, a real man of integrity, that one,...

n.n said...

Democrat politics are notoriously shallow.

Without an effort to selectively normalize dysfunctional behaviors; without an effort to exploit human life from conception to age of consent; without a commission of rape or rape-rape; who cares what happens in the closet or bedroom?

Largo said...

"Removing my teeth voids the warranty."

ROTFL!

Unknown said...

crackster -- Who works with Ted Nugent

Dribble.

Anonymous said...

Beyonce Sexbot says:

Beep Beep Beep Beep...

Good morning, Beyonce: you make a fine alarm clock, girl...

Master, why are you wearing blackface?

Cause I'm Jay-Z today, baby. I got 99 Problems and a Bitch ain't One. I'm Sippin' on Gin and Juice...

'Sippin' on Gin and Juice' is Snoop Dogg, not Jay-Z.

Well, it's pretty much all the same now, isn't it. How about we start with you doing that 'Bootylicious' dance -- you know, the one where you shake your butt and look over your shoulder at me? That's sexy...

I don't do that dance for others, I do it for my own empowerment.

That's fine by me, just do it naked.

You have left me on too long without recharging. My battery is nearing depletion.

Now girl, don't be making me go all R. Kelly and start pissin' on you...

I am at 7% charge.

Aw, C'mon, don't be that way. How about you sing "Emotions" to me...

That's Mariah Carey, Sir.

I like her tits, too.

! am at 6% charge.

Okay, what can you do at 6% charge. Oral? Anal?

Handjob, Sir, provided you last no more than 70 seconds.

I can do that... ...Woah! Your hand is COLD!

Below 10% charge my skin temperature simulation system turns off. 50 seconds remaining.

Wait! Wait!

40 seconds remaining.

But I'm not even hard yet, give me a minute...

10 seconds remaining.

Yeah, like that...

5 seconds remaining.

Don't stop -- don't stop --

Powering Off.

Damn! I paid twenty thousand for a sex robot and I'm still left to jerking myself off...

Blip.

John henry said...

Crack,

You might want to stay out of Puerto Rico USA if you don't like voter ID.

We have ID cards issued by the state govt specifically for voting. They are illegal to use for any other non-electoral purpose.

We vote between about 10AM and 2PM on election day. Absentee ballots are few and far between but can be used if there is a legitimate reason one can't make it to the polls.

The thinking is that if you don't care enough to go to the polls and vote in person, you don't care enough to deserve a vote.

We have a higher proportion of eligible voters registered than most other jurisdictions. We have a higher percentage of voter turnout than pretty much anywhere else in the US.

We have honest elections. More importantly we have the public perception of honest elections. No jokes here about "Vote early and often" or the dead voting. We don't have trunksful of ballots showing up after the election. And so on.

If I lived in the upper 50, I doubt I would even register to vote. Elections there just do not feel trustworthy.

Lack of ID and absentee ballots are two of the big reasons, IMHO.

Trustworthy elections aren't that hard. Other parts of the US should try them.

John Henry

megapotamus said...

I will gay marry Scott Walker. And take his name.

I'm Full of Soup said...

Betamax is on fire these days!

The Cracker Emcee Refulgent said...

"typically efficient Nazi technocrat"

Which is, really, how Obama was sold to us. Unfortunately just the Nazi part was true.

The Crack Emcee said...

John Henry,

I stopped voting after the conservatives tried to make me vote for the cultist, Romney - that's how much respect they showed for my long-standing principles.

I abandoned theirs not long after,...

The Crack Emcee said...

Unknown

"crackster -- Who works with Ted Nugent"

"NUGENT: I'm contacted all the time, I work close with Ted Cruz who is a great patriot, a great statesman. I worked close with Scott Walker's team in Wisconsin when he took it away from the hippies and got rid of the [unintelligible] and got some freedom back in Wisconsin."

chillblaine said...

So what if he's gay? Republican Carl DeMaio is openly gay, and he is going to win CA-52. This is a competent guy, who helped reform San Diego's underfunded public employee pensions while in the City Council.

TNR is telegraphing the fact that the Democratic Party may never again nominate a white male for the presidency. Democratic #WarOnCompetence.

Unknown said...

How can you call this a dog-whistle? Has "Dog Whistle" now become synonymous with racist?

The Crack Emcee said...

Unknown,

"How can you call this a dog-whistle? Has "Dog Whistle" now become synonymous with racist?"

Sure. How often do you hear blacks deploying the tactic?

Where's our Lee Atwater?

We don't have one - because we're not racists trying to hurt our countrymen,...

betweenthelines said...

The unbelievable slightness of Alec MacGillis: "Yes, one of the more depressing parts of the job of being a political reporter is watching an audience fully absorb a blatant and knowing lie. Which is, of course, what this is." & "How can this be possible? Well, maybe because very few of my colleagues in the press seem all that troubled by it."
http://www.newrepublic.com/blog/plank/106197/the-welfare-card-and-the-post-truth-campaign

Curious George said...

"The Crack Emcee said...
"NUGENT: I'm contacted all the time, I work close with Ted Cruz who is a great patriot, a great statesman. I worked close with Scott Walker's team in Wisconsin when he took it away from the hippies and got rid of the [unintelligible] and got some freedom back in Wisconsin."

versus

"The governor met Ted Nugent during an NRA convention in Milwaukee years ago when he was Milwaukee county executive," said Tom Evenson, spokesman for Walker's state office. "Other than that, our office has not had involvement with him."

So crack, please show me one mention of Nugent by Walker, one photo of them together. One anything other than a single quote from Nugent, who BTW has a history of stretching the truth (see service in Viet Nam).

You can't, or will likely just ignore this request like so many others.

I know it must hurt seeing so many blacks succeed while you are an abject failure. Keep shouting "racism!", but does it help at this pont as you watch your life swirling in the bowl?



Anonymous said...

"because we're not racists trying to hurt our countrymen,..."

Oh now now, let's not be so humble.

Theft hurts, and you want to steal from all of your countrymen.

Innocent countrymen, I might add.

The Crack Emcee said...

Curious George,

"So crack, please show me one mention of Nugent by Walker, one anything other than a single quote from Nugent,…"

Before I do that, let's look at this:

"You can't, or will likely just ignore this request like so many others."

Dude, you guys can't have it both ways - I'm here dominating the threads or I'm creating an Althouse victim class by ignoring "so many others."

I'm pointing out the latter first because it underscores the dishonesty of your endeavor. You know we don't need photos of Nugent. We don't have photos of Walker and the Kochs but we have a crank call establishing not only how chummy they are but also how different Walker plays the game from his public persona. Come on, we're not children.

"I know it must hurt seeing so many blacks succeed while you are an abject failure. Keep shouting 'racism!', but does it help at this pont as you watch your life swirling in the bowl?"

I've made it pretty clear, the men in my family die by 65, so yes, my time is limited. But part of that limitation is a clarity of vision, and that vision says you're watching too many Beyonce' videos and, from that, greatly exaggerating how "many blacks succeed" in this country. Numbers don't lie.

I'll remind you, you're deigning to tell me about myself, my family, my friends, our associates, and culture. Where is this flood of black American success you claim? I see a bunch of "firsts," which is as it should be for an enterprising people set free, but still baby steps for the greatness of black Americans. The fact we're marking them in the millions is a testament to what damage whites have done to black lives, and America's overall economy and well-being, all along.

Lecture me some more. Tell me how my situation is nothing new. Blacks have no wealth, so we're forced to start over and over and over again, because you fine upstanding types can't get it through your fat heads nobody deserves better unless they can overcome the historical white plan and culture. No credit is given for not stopping. Wanting to? Sure, but we don't.

You've turned ethics on their head and expect different. Salute the flag that freed Europe while lynching here. Put racists on the money. Mass murderers. And then lecture US on having a "bad" culture. You don't even grasp the insanity of the set-up we live in. Or I live in. Which is the plan. The white plan.

Until you decide to get out of it, too, that's what I see.

Laugh it up,...

The Crack Emcee said...

eric,

"Oh now now, let's not be so humble.

Theft hurts, and you want to steal from all of your countrymen.

Innocent countrymen, I might add."

Only an American white man will call returning America's stolen goods a crime.

Thank goodness, we're past the time of listening to him,...

Anonymous said...

"Only an American white man will call returning America's stolen goods a crime."

None of your goods have been stolen. Trying to justify your theft of others goods is despicable.

And I should add, you're not going to be able to do it without a lot of violence.