Joe Klein: Yes, It's Racism...but it's Complicated (Condescending Elitism at it's best)

Time Magazine ^ | September 16, 2009 | Joe Klein

[2ndDivisionVet]

Jimmy Carter's intervention in the winguts v. Obama controversy has raised the expected amount of dust--and I suppose the standard reaction is that "it's a good thing we're having this conversation," but I'm not so sure that it is. Since I was one of the early racism-shouters here on Swampland, and on the Chris Matthews show last Sunday, I probably should explain why "this conversation" is heading in the wrong direction.

First of all, I tried to make it clear that I wasn't talking about classic white-black racism, though elements of that are present, to be sure. My sense of the teabaggers is more complicated: they are primarily working-class, largely rural and elderly white people. They are freaked by the economy. They are also freaked by the government spending--TARP, the stimulus package etc.--that was necessary to avoid a financial collapse. (I'm not sure Keynes is taught in very many American high schools.) But most of all, they are freaked by an amorphous feeling that they America they imagined they were living in--Sarah Palin's fantasy America--is a different place now, changing for the worse, overrun by furriners of all sorts: Latinos, South Asians, East Asians, homosexuals...to say nothing of liberated, uppity blacks.

In that sense, Barack Obama is the apotheosis of all they fear. He is a child of what used to be called miscegenation--a mixed marriage. His father was a Muslim, his mother was sort of a hippy. She raised him in Hawaii, which is just barely American and in Indonesia (which is very suspicious). He is a liberal (even if a prohibitively moderate one).(continued)

[2ndDivisionVet]

So the Democratic leadership and media should play the race card just enough to shut us up, but not enough to get us up on our hind legs? Is that what I'm hearing, Joe? Too late, you've already passed that point.

[Frantzie]

Time is so pathetic. They have had Obama on the cover like every other week. What a joke.

[Finalapproach29er]

Thank G*d we have smart,noble people like Joe Klein to put us flawed sinners in our place.

anonymous.

[9YearLurker]

“Prohibitively moderate one”? Ha ha ha!

[SandRat]

The only folks who think in the terms that Joe accuses us of thinking is Joe and the psuedo-intelligencia LIBTARDS.

[TXBlair]

Joe Klein...Joke Lyin’.

Hmmmmm........

[Post Toasties]

Joe Klein is either a disgraceful liar or whacked in the head since he says 0bama is a moderate Democrat. What Klein and committed Leftists like him refuse to admit is that people don’t like 0bama and the ‘Rats leading the US down the Socialist craphole against the majority’s wishes.

[Yardstick]

What’s funny is that liberals have no clue that they have no clue about conservatives.

[Billthedrill]

Since I was one of the early racism-shouters here on Swampland...

We know that, Joe, and there's a price to pay - your credibility. Now go shut up and try to earn it back.

[Nosterrex]

Joe Klein is not only a liberal commentator, but he now claims to be a psychologist that can analyze the deepest thoughts and actions of white conservatives. Socrates described a wise person as someone that knows what he doesn't know. If that is true, Klein is a fool. He pretends to know things that he can't possibly know. Of course, liberal elites act and write as if they are omniscient. They can discern everyone’s motives, except their own.

[right way right]

Carter should learn to shut up.

http://gatewaypundit.blogspot.com/2009/09/jimmy-carter-calls-barack-obama-this.html

[lentulusgracchus]

[Article] My sense of the teabaggers is more complicated.....

Okay, we're done.

Dismissing the best people in America, with a reference to a homosexual act. You're done, Joe. You have nothing further to say to us.

[kcvl]

Keep it up Joe Klein. You are just pissing off people even more.

Did you know that you can get a year's subscription of Time magazine for $5 with a free watch (or clock radio) thrown in?

[lentulusgracchus]

Joe Klein is not only a liberal commentator, but he now claims to be a psychologist that can analyze the deepest thoughts and actions of white conservatives.

Not only that, he falsifies the sociology of the conservative movement in order to caricature and defame us as a bunch of goofy old whack jobs who can't cut it.

Why is this guy working?

Come to think of it, why is he eating without straws?

[pissant]

F****n A. Jimmuh Carter made more sense than this moron

[right way right]

This is what it has become today.

If someone said, I wish Obama was white because then he would not be playing the race card every time some one shows opposition to his agenda.

They would be called a racist.

I just wish Obama was not a racist.

[csense]

"...to say nothing of liberated, uppity blacks."

Another one. It's like the entire Liberal establishment has unlocked, and opened the door to their secret chambers, displaying their vileness for all the world to see. The only people I see using words like "boy," and "uppity" are Liberals.

[SandRat]

True Un-Edited Image of Joe Klein < / sarc >

[Still Thinking]

I'm not sure Keynes is taught in very many American high schools.

Since it's wrong and pro-big-government, I'll bet it is!

[lentulusgracchus]

lol, looks like a photo of his brain.