Angry Black Columnist Leonard Pitts Hated 'Take Our Country Back'...Until Trump

NewsBusters.org ^ | November 19, 2016 | Tim Graham

[Kaslin]

For decades, liberal journalists have smelled racist or xenophobic airs whenever a conservative politician says "let's take our country back." James Taranto of The Wall Street Journal posted Miami Herald columnist Leonard Pitts flip-flopping with the phrase over just 11 days of the newspaper. He was "Two Columnists in One!"

The white guy who preceded the black guy spent a $128 billion surplus into an over $400 billion deficit, presided over a cratering stock market and anemic job creation.Yet for all the grief he was given, nobody ever called him a “subhuman mongrel.” Lawmakers from the other party did not declare their refusal to work with him on even the most routine matters of governance. People did not take to showing up at his events carrying rifles. Nobody shouted, ‘I want my country back!’ ”—Leonard Pitts, Miami Herald, November 4.

It’s time the majority that believes in a progressive, inclusive and compassionate America did more than just tweet about it. Nothing wrong with tweeting, but forces of exclusion, hatred and rage have overtaken the highest office in the land, so it’s also time for some old school activism. Time to march. Time to assail lawmakers. Time to boycott. Time to stand and be counted. Enough is enough. Let’s take our country back.”—Pitts warning of "the coming reich", November 15.

Pitts won the Pulitzer Prize for Commentary in 2004 and in 2015 published the "Obama novel" Grant Park, dissed as didactic in a review by The New York Times: "Despite too many wince-worthy lines, the novel’s plot — jump-started by Toussaint’s unwilling inclusion in a white supremacist scheme to ruin Obama’s election night — is nicely wrought, and sometimes manages to surprise."

On the 4th, Pitts unloaded the natural black leftist conspiracy theory. Republicans didn't oppose Obama because he was liberal, only because he was black, like Hillary would have faced Republican Snuggle bears:

A black man was elected president, and white people lost their minds.

Not all of them, no. Not even most of them. But not a piddling few, either.

That, in a nutshell, is the story of America’s hateful and obstructionist politics over the last eight years

On the 15th, he complained:

I am similarly impatient with those who say we must give the new president a chance to lead and hope for his success.

Is that what Republicans did for Barack Obama when they gathered on the night of his inauguration and plotted a conspiracy of obstructionism to cripple his presidency? Is it what Donald Trump did when he spent years questioning the veracity of an ordinary birth certificate? (Italics his.)

Being mad at the birthers is natural for Obama fans. But Obama fans never admit Obama lied about his own birth and fatherhood narrative (among many other things) in his best-selling memoir Dreams of My Father. Obama never sat down with Oprah Winfrey like James Frey to apologize for the fictional elements he added.

[GregoTX]

America is about liberty.... not race. Get over it.

[Bob434]

can not stand leonard pitts- thankfully our local paper dropped him after he became so radical with his lefty agenda- the things he would say were completely out of touch with reality- someone should take his keyboard away to save the planet from such idiotic liberal drivel- but alas- I suppose he’s good for a laugh to some- I just can’t stand when people can’t seem to ever tell the truth about anything really-

[IronJack]

What would you expect from Leonard “The” Pitts?

[Bob434]

He can’t get over it- He’s a race peddler like the man he voted for is-

[bjc]

I am totally confused with this melange.

[Doogle]

Two words...Mark Penn, Hilda’s own,started the birther thing with Hilda’s blessing

[Wisconsinlady]

Thye can stick their race card where the sun doesn’t shine. Americans are not falling for it anymore.

[nightmarewhileawake]

... well we yelled take our country back so that one day you, Leonard, won’t have to yell I want my country back -— we’re taking it back for all citizens.

[loveliberty2]

Perhaps some words of Thomas Jefferson on the "press" may be refreshing for those who have witnessed its attempts at controlling the political process during this most recent election process:

[A despotic] government always [keeps] a kind of standing army of newswriters who, without any regard to truth or to what should be like truth, [invent] and put into the papers whatever might serve the ministers. This suffices with the mass of the people who have no means of distinguishing the false from the true paragraphs of a newspaper." --Thomas Jefferson to G. K. van Hogendorp, Oct. 13, 1785. (*) ME 5:181, Papers 8:632

"I am... for freedom of the press, and against all violations of the Constitution to silence by force and not by reason the complaints or criticisms, just or unjust, of our citizens against the conduct of their agents." --Thomas Jefferson to Elbridge Gerry, 1799. ME 10:78

"No experiment can be more interesting than that we are now trying, and which we trust will end in establishing the fact, that man may be governed by reason and truth. Our first object should therefore be, to leave open to him all the avenues to truth. The most effectual hitherto found, is the freedom of the press. It is, therefore, the first shut up by those who fear the investigation of their actions." --Thomas Jefferson to John Tyler, 1804. ME 11:33

"[I have seen] repeated instances of the publication of what has not been intended for the public eye, and the malignity with which political enemies torture every sentence from me into meanings imagined by their own wickedness only... Not fearing these political bull-dogs, I yet avoid putting myself in the way of being baited by them, and do not wish to volunteer away that portion of tranquillity, which a firm execution of my duties will permit me to enjoy." --Thomas Jefferson to John Norvell, 1807. ME 11:226

"Conscious that there was not a truth on earth which I feared should be known, I have lent myself willingly as the subject of a great experiment, which was to prove that an administration, conducting itself with integrity and common understanding, cannot be battered down even by the falsehoods of a licentious press, and consequently still less by the press as restrained within the legal and wholesome limits of truth. This experiment was wanting for the world to demonstrate the falsehood of the pretext that freedom of the press is incompatible with orderly government. I have never, therefore, even contradicted the thousands of calumnies so industriously propagated against myself. But the fact being once established, that the press is impotent when it abandons itself to falsehood, I leave to others to restore it to its strength by recalling it within the pale of truth. Within that, it is a noble institution, equally the friend of science and of civil liberty." --Thomas Jefferson to Thomas Seymour, 1807. ME 11:155

[Inyo-Mono]

Bookmarked.

[Hodar]

I think blacks suffer from a deeply held inferiority complex. Everything in their life is seen not through a filter of right/wrong; but as a matter of Blacks vs White. No matter what a black man does (criminal, irresponsible act, stealing, etc) it is seen as a matter of victimhood.

Blacks can never progress, let alone get even with anyone else; if they view themselves as inferior at the very beginning. Every action on their part seems to reaffirm their inferiority.

[SuperLuminal]

A classic example of why this race war is going to end badly.

[therut]

First time I heard the phase ‘we need to take our Country back” was on the Chris Matthews show during President Bush’s time. A Liberal comedian Gorlock (sp) or something like that was whinning.

[Sivad]

Obama campaigned on a platform of fundamentally
changing the US from the start of his original presidential
campaign. Only an imbecile would be shocked that the
push back against his presidency started even before he
assumed office. In addition, his outreach to the
opposition party consisted of inviting them to help him
and his party implement his policies without input.

[MAGA2017]

Pitts is a race-baiting moron.

[cpdiii]

Pitts unloaded the natural black leftist conspiracy theory. Republicans didn't oppose Obama because he was liberal, only because he was black

I am white, I like Allen West and many other conservative blacks. I think the author has a problem and not me.

Based on the authors logic, he is the racist and not me. I will consult with my Mexican wife about my racism. : )

[trebb]

Pitts has the occasional tone of sanity but he never steps completely into the light.

He's one that may be salvageable....

[jughandle]

Ok, it’s not just me then...

[Elsie]

...our local paper dropped him...

Mine is the Indianapolis Star. Part of the vast, worldwide GANNETT openly bragging about "forward" statements...

http://www.gannett.com/forward-looking-statements/

I fully expect Pitts (and his bias) to be around a LONG time...