Rand Paul addresses the students of Howard University. As brilliant as he is, he confesses he can’t figure out why the GOP has a certain reputation regarding race.

What gets lost is that the Republican Party has always been the party of civil rights and voting rights. Because Republicans believe that the federal government is limited in its function-some have concluded that Republicans are somehow inherently insensitive to minority rights. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Perhaps Rand is on to something. Maybe there’s been a misunderstanding over philosophy. The drive to limit the scope of government makes it look as if conservatives don’t care, as if they don’t want to extend a hand to the unfortunate. Victims of racism, for example. The perception has made for some bad public relations.

My father was a die-hard conservative actually. Back in the 80′s, when he learned there would be a Martin Luther King day in January, he asked, “Why did they give that n*gger a holiday?” Meaning, “Another federal mandate that will encumber business and squander taxes.” To the untrained ear, rhetorical flourishes like these are easily misconstrued.

Ronald Reagan once made a similar argument. He’d been asked to veto the MLK holiday legislation by limited-state activist and good friend Governor Meldrim Thomson:

Mr. Thomson called Dr. King “a man of immoral character whose frequent association with leading agents of communism is well established.”

Reagan was similarly daunted by the implications for government. Employing a familiar Libertarian argument, he replied:

“I have the same reservations you have, but here the perception of too many people is based on image, not reality.”

That the want to check federalism looked exactly like racism was a tragedy. Reagan apologized to Dr. King’s widow, then he played a round of golf at whites-only Augusta National. Which was misunderstood as well.

Unfortunately, the beat goes on. Only today I read a piece by Larry Elder, the self-proclaimed “Sage of South Central.” In it, he goes to great length to reacquaint the misty minded with Richard Nixon’s civil rights resume:

In the Nixon Presidential Library in Yorba Linda, Calif., records show considerable handwritten notes and correspondence between Nixon and King. This includes a 1957 letter from King acknowledging their previous meetings, which thanked Nixon for his “assiduous labor and dauntless courage in seeking to make the Civil Rights Bill a reality,” and praised him for his “devotion to the highest mandates of the moral law.”

But what’s your race-impression of Nixon? Probably nothing good.

Never mind that in 1956 Nixon revealed he was an honorary member of the NAACP. Or that Nixon pushed for passage of the ’57 civil rights bill in the Senate. Or that Time magazine wrote that Nixon’s support for civil rights incurred the wrath of one of his segregationist opponents, Sen. Richard Russell, D-Ga., who sarcastically called Nixon the NAACP’s “most distinguished member.”

Who knew? Not you. And the upshot?

But the GOP-is-racist meme can be heard nightly on MSNB-Hee Haw and in political science and history classes all over the country.

Very sad, oh my. But permit me? Perhaps this tragedy of historic perception arises from something like disbelief. A well-earned unease. A suspicion among African Americans that Republicans are rarely what they pretend to be. Example.

In earlier tapes released by the National Archives, Nixon told Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, “Henry, let’s leave the niggers to Bill and we’ll take care of the rest of the world” while working on his first presidential address to Congress. Nixon repeatedly referred to blacks as “niggers” and “jigaboos” in other conversations with Kissinger. Nixon later complained to Erlichman that Great Society programs were a waste “because blacks were genetically inferior to whites.”

The Nixon tapes bore the suspicion out. With Donald Rumsfeld:

“The second point is that coming out — coming back and saying that black Americans aren’t as good as black Africans . . most of them, basically, are just out of the trees. Now, let’s face it, they are.”

That Elder would try to lionize Nixon reaffirms the need for skepticism. That he would do it while the internet is still up and running speaks to stupidity, or disrespect. Perhaps we should say, regarding matters of race, that Republicans would prefer to be philosophically awkward or misunderstood. But they’re worse than that. To be kind.

The Catholic Church would like to have a word with you. Pass on a little constructive advice. Only take a minute of your time. Have a little chat, the two of you. It’s really no big deal. It’s just that voting for Barack Obama “places the eternal salvation of your own soul in serious jeopardy.”

Bishop Thomas John Paprocki called out the Democratic Party for temporarily removing God from their platform, supporting abortion and recognizing that ‘gay rights are human rights.’

“There are many positive and beneficial planks in the Democratic Party Platform, but I am pointing out those that explicitly endorse intrinsic evils,” the bishop explained.

Gay rights are human rights. Unless Paprocki’s saying their wildebeests, or something. Sorry, Bishop, go on:

“My job is not to tell you for whom you should vote. But I do have a duty to speak out on moral issues. I would be abdicating this duty if I remained silent out of fear of sounding ‘political’ and didn’t say anything about the morality of these issues. People of faith object to these platform positions that promote serious sins.”

“So what about the Republicans? I have read the Republican Party Platform and there is nothing in it that supports or promotes an intrinsic evil or a serious sin,” Paprocki added.

Politics? Where? That’s not political at all. A bishop holding a spiritual gun to the heads of Catholics, telling them one party promotes “intrinsic evils.” You’re not telling anybody how to vote, no. You’re telling them how to avoid being broiled forever like a steak in the fires of Hades. What politics?

I’m no fan of Buzzfeed’s writing. Or much of anything else they do. But if they’re accurately reporting Republican reaction to Mitt Romney’s criticism of Obama after the death of our Libyan ambassador, Mitt better do something. He might shamble his way back to a microphone pretty quick.

Mitt Romney’s sharply-worded attack on President Obama over a pair of deadly riots in Muslim countries last night has backfired badly among foreign policy hands of both parties, who cast it as hasty and off-key, released before the facts were clear at what has become a moment of tragedy.

This was Romney last night: “I’m outraged by the attacks on American diplomatic missions in Libya and Egypt and by the death of an American consulate worker in Benghazi,” he said. “It’s disgraceful that the Obama administration’s first response was not to condemn attacks on our diplomatic missions, but to sympathize with those who waged the attacks.”

Romney keyed his statement to the American Embassy in Cairo’s condemnation of an anti-Muslim video that served as the trigger for the latest in a series of regional riots over obscure perceived slights to the faith. But his statement — initially embargoed to avoid release on September 11, then released yesterday evening anyway — came just before news that the American Ambassador to Libya had been killed and broke with a tradition of unity around national tragedies, and of avoiding hasty statements on foreign policy. . .

“They were just trying to score a cheap news cycle hit based on the embassy statement and now it’s just completely blown up,” said a very senior Republican foreign policy hand, who called the statement an “utter disaster” and a “Lehman moment” — a parallel to the moment when John McCain, amid the 2008 financial crisis, failed to come across as a steady leader.

That one’s anonymous. But maybe you’d like a name. How about Bill Kristol?

“I guess we see now that it is because they’re incompetent at talking effectively about foreign policy,” said the Republican. “This is just unbelievable — when they decide to play on it they completely bungle it.”

More and more:

“It’s deeply unfortunate when the circumstance of the statement becomes the story,” said Rick Perry’s former foreign policy adviser, Victoria Coates, who is now an adjunct fellow at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, and who suggested that Romney should simply have “gone earlier rather than save it for midnight” to avoid appearing to play politics on September 11. “It’s unfortunate that it’s playing out this way, and hopefully they can get back on message, because their point is sound,” she said.

Other conservatives were less sympathetic.

“It’s bad,” said a former aide to Senator John McCain’s 2008 presidential campaign. “Just on a factual level that the statement was not a response but preceding, or one could make the case precipitating. And just calling it a ‘disgrace’ doesn’t really cut it. Not ready for prime time.”

A third Republican, a former Bush State Department official, told BuzzFeed, “It wasn’t presidential of Romney to go political immediately — a tragedy of this magnitude should be something the nation collectively grieves before politics enters the conversation.”

The third Republican did support Romney’s essential message after disparaging the timing and politics of it. Romney however isn’t interested in whatever these foreign policy experts have to say. He’s lagging in his campaign for the presidency with only eight weeks to go. So this morning he doubled up on the attack:

“I also believe the administration was wrong to stand by a statement sympathizing with those who had breached our embassy in Egypt instead of condemning their actions,” Romney said, echoing a provocative statement the campaign released late Tuesday night. “It’s never too early for the United States government to condemn attacks on Americans and to defend our values.”

Before violence broke out, the Egyptian consulate commented on the growing controversy by denouncing anti-Muslim rhetoric [see here]. After the deaths, the consulate re-posted the comment, but the administration disavowed it. Instead, both the President and the Secretary of State issued statements strongly denouncing the killing. Romney knows this but chooses to ignore it. Because he’s desperate. What a sad campaign.

Incidentally, did you see Vladimir Putin yesterday thank Mitt Romney for calling Russia “our number one geopolitical foe”? He said Mittens made Russia’s case for opposing the missile defense shield. Well played, foreign policy expert.

An internet film made by an Israeli American real estate developer from California and promoted by Koran-burning pastor Terry Jones of Florida has sparked violent protests in Egypt and Libya. An attack on the Libyan embassy in Benghazi yesterday killed the US ambassador and three others.

Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens was killed Tuesday night when he and a group of embassy employees went to the consulate to try to evacuate staff. The protesters, angry over a film that ridiculed Islam’s Prophet Muhammad, were firing gunshots and rocket propelled grenades. All of the officials — three in all — hold senior security positions in Benghazi.

The President condemned the violence.

“I strongly condemn the outrageous attack on our diplomatic facility in Benghazi, which took the lives of four Americans, including Ambassador Chris Stevens,” President Obama said in a statement Tuesday morning. “Right now, the American people have the families of those we lost in our thoughts and prayers. They exemplified America’s commitment to freedom, justice, and partnership with nations and people around the globe, and stand in stark contrast to those who callously took their lives.”

In Egypt, protestors climbed the embassy walls in Cairo and tore down the American flag. It was replaced with one exalting Muhammad. Mitt Romney seized upon the mayhem and death to criticize the Obama administration.

“I’m outraged by the attacks on American diplomatic missions in Libya and Egypt and by the death of an American consulate worker in Benghazi,” he said. “It’s disgraceful that the Obama administration’s first response was not to condemn attacks on our diplomatic missions, but to sympathize with those who waged the attacks.”

Romney was referring to the Egyptian consulate’s response to the growing controversy before the violence broke out. They “condemn[ed] the continuing efforts by misguided individuals to hurt the religious feelings of Muslims.” GOP chairman Reince Priebus similarly attacked the president, albeit personally. Priebus charged that Obama “symapathize[d]“ with the Egyptian rioters.

The Obama campaign shot back, calling the Republican criticism ugly politics:

“We are shocked that, at a time when the United States of America is confronting the tragic death of one of our diplomatic officers in Libya, Governor Romney would choose to launch a political attack,” Obama’s campaign press secretary Ben LaBolt said in a statement.

The “movie” that started this mess is essentially anti-Muslim trash. It’s a low-budget green-screen affair that portrays Muhammad as an idiot and his followers as homicidal child-molesting pagans.

The movie, “Innocence of Muslims,” was directed and produced by an Israeli-American real-estate developer who characterized it as a political effort to call attention to the hypocrisies of Islam.

At least some of the movie, when it’s not calling Muslims gay donkeys, is sympathetic to Egyptian Coptics. After clips of it were dubbed into Arabic and redistributed online, the protests began.

Though a thing doesn’t exist, you can’t stop Karl from beating Democrats’ brains with it:

“There is no plan to regulate farm dust anymore than there is to regulate fairy dust,” [Rep. Ed] Markey said in his opening statement. “There is no attempt to accomplish that goal,” he said, comparing the proposed measure to a bill written in the 1990s to combat the phony problem spread in a then-rampant urban myth that the Post Office intended to tax email messages.

“Since I am sure that many little girls all over America care about this deeply, can you commit to me that EPA will never try to regulate fairy dust, or pixie dust, because, if not, we may just want to amend the legislation in order to protect us against the threat which could be posed by EPA or other regulatory agencies seeking to move into other fictional areas . . “

People love a litmus test. They love the idea of taking in everything they need to know about someone by means of a single examination. It is a tempting thought. What do you think about the color pink? I favor it in candy but oppose it in textiles. Well, it’s settled — you are a sensible person. Would make life simple, wouldn’t it?

No, of course not. Nonetheless, politics is loaded with litmus tests. Would you raise taxes, ever? Would you do it to save your mother’s life? Would you consider it if it killed Hitler before World War Two? If not, you are a run-of-the-mill right-wing patriot. Or ‘idiot.’

Would you trade Medicare entitlements for tanks, bullets and bombs? To pay down the debt George W. Bush ran up by giving tax breaks to millionaires? For the opportunity to send young men and women to their deaths in Iran? If not, you are a treasonous, poisonous psychotic. But perhaps you are fit to kill Persians. Perhaps we’ll even send you overseas to do it, our Persians being wary of ‘patriotism.’

Well, here’s a brand new litmus test, and this one’s for you. What sort of person are you? Where do your politics lie? Take a look at the video/audio I cobbled together, and take note of your reaction.

The clip shows the town hall meeting that President Obama held last night. Towards the end of it, a woman named Henrietta Hughes gets up and speaks to him. She and her family have fallen on dismal times and are living in a car. She asks the President for help — can he find them somewhere to live? Can they have a place with a bathroom and a kitchen? The President tells her that he’ll help, he’ll put his staff on the request right away. OK, end clip one.

Clip two: Rush Limbaugh’s reaction. He caught video of a crying lady talking to the President, and, friends, you just won’t believe it. Henrietta has the nerve to demand Obama get her a new car and a house. Talk about your grabby, liberal greed. And the President — he says he’ll get his staff on it. Unbelievable. The crowd actually applauded this.

Now the clips, back to back. Watch them and grade your response:

Okay — what was your reaction to Henrietta? Did you feel like the President, or like Rush? Did you want to help, or did you feel like punching a wall?

Yeah, yeah, I know you liberals. You’re thinking . . ‘How can anyone act like Rush Limbaugh?’ But — guess what? That’s exactly what Conservatives are thinking about you. ‘What the hell is wrong with these people?’ Totally different people, but the identical reaction. And there’s your political divide, in a tidy little nutshell. *sigh.*

Incidentally, if you reacted like Rush Limbaugh, get the fuck off my blog.

Rep. Allen West:

You are the most vile, unprofessional, and despicable member of the US House of Representatives. If you have something to say to me, stop being a coward and say it to my face, otherwise, shut the heck up . .

You have proven repeatedly that you are not a Lady, therefore, shall not be afforded due respect from me!

Don’t Republicans know what a “lady” is all about? Why yes. A “lady” like Debbie Wasserman-Schultz wouldn’t dare criticize an idiot like West.

In the manner of perfectly professional, familiar political discourse, she may not call out one of the most unhinged, hypercritical lunatics in D.C.

Debbie Wasserman Schultz’s recent accusation reeked of feminism when she announced that Republicans were “anti-women.” This claim was also absurd and completely false.

In fact, her statement is almost laughable in face of the fact that the Republicans have at least one, and possibly two, female presidential candidates.

It’s Debbie, who reeked of feminism, that’s likely a woman hater. Right. The two candidates, especially the husband-obeyer, Bachmann, aren’t self-hating appeasers. Yup.

Frankly, their popularity makes a pretty good case for Republicans being uncomfortable with women. But this is easier. Number of women serving in the two caucuses:

Democratic representatives: 51
Republican representatives: 24

Democratic senators: 12
Republican senators: 5

Five women out of forty-seven senators? Five? Twelve is absolutely nothing to brag about, but five? You’re dangerously close to zero, you woman-loving freaks.

Don’t let the liberals tell you it’s alright. Don’t buy the Supreme Court saying some doctor can flip an innocent bun out of his mother’s oven. Jesus didn’t mean for babies to be undercooked.

Just ask Angela Michael, she’ll tell you.

Mother of 13 kids, dedicated pro-life activist, proprietor of a cured meat and smoked jerky distributorship, Angela Michael is running for congress. Her plan: run a fake campaign to dodge FCC rules against airing objectionable material. If she’s ‘running for office,’ the rules on offensive images are less stringent. So she plans to show you TV pictures of raw, mangled fetuses. Something to look forward to.

So, custard lolly anybody? With a Tootsie Roll center?

I bet Angela knows what’s healthy for tots. What’s right for America. What’s best for cube steak: seared on both sides. Pot roast? Check it by pulling the lid occasionally. Allow time for a long catnap by the above ground pool, while the cook ignores the Jesus gifts.

By the way, from the site of Angela’s ministry, this sucks:

But this is worse:

BREAKING: Bachmann pledges to ban pornography
Think Progress | July 7 2011

Tonight, Michele Bachmann became the first presidential candidate to sign a pledge created by THE FAMiLY LEADER, an influential social-conservative group in Iowa. By signing the pledge Bachmann “vows” to “uphold the institution of marriage as only between one man and one woman” by committing herself to 14 specifics steps. The ninth step calls for the banning of “all forms” of pornography.

See THE FAMiLY LEADER’s ridiculous 14 point retro-pledge here, Think Progress’ coverage here:

– PORNOGRAPHY SHOULD BE BANNED: Vow 9 stipulates that the candidate must “support human protection of women and the innocent fruit of conjugal intimacy” and protect them from “seduction into promiscuity and all forms of pornography…and other types of coercion or stolen innocence.”

Is this really a good idea? For the Bachmann campaign, I mean? Sure, it seems like a slam-dunk pander to the social conservatives. But Michele Bachmann already knocks them off like fish in a barrel.

I’m talking about another reality here. The reality of reality. As most of you probably already know, America’s repressed, right-wing Bible thumpers are our champion porn consumers. Bachmann may be playing with fire by pretending her base is as simple and predictable as she is.

A 2009 study by Harvard Business School Professor Benjamin Edelman titled “Red Light States: Who Buys Online Adult Entertainment?” found that Bible Belters and Conservatives were the most avid consumers of internet porn. The study used a large porn provider’s database to look at the variance in subscriptions normalized for broadband internet usage (a slow internet probably precludes frequent viewing). Here’s a graphic of the state-by-state differences in subscriptions:

The highest porn consumers: Florida, Mississippi, Louisiana, Arkansas, Oklahoma, North Dakota, and — the king of online porn — Utah. Edelman noticed the trend and drew further parallels.

As shown in Table 4, subscriptions are also more prevalent in states where surveys indicate conservative positions on religion, gender roles, and sexuality. In states where more people agree that “Even today miracles are performed by the power of God” and “I never doubt the existence of God,” there are more subscriptions to this service. Subscriptions are also more prevalent in states where more people agree that “I have old-fashioned values about family and marriage” and “AIDS might be God’s punishment for immoral sexual behavior.”

Notice for “I have old-fashioned values about family and marriage,” a statement which could serve as Bachmann’s campaign motto, the increase in potential online porn subscriptions more than doubles. Similarly, for people who’d affirm “AIDS might be God’s punishment for immoral sexual behavior,” the bias for porn subscriptions is strong. The pledge Bachmann signed is virulently homophobic.

If the study is accurate, Bachmann’s ‘ban porn’ gambit attacks the lives of her own people. Will it backfire on her? Depends upon how vigorously she and FAMiLY LEADER trumpet the Iowa stance and perhaps carry it forward. It might be the sort of hollow pandering Conservatives quickly see past.

It’s also possible that shame eventually works in the candidate’s favor. What people do in the privacy of their homes may be a reaction to how they feel pressured to behave in public. If voting for Bachmann is a public act, she may win out.

News of the Loon. Breaking trends among the mentally ill currently running for president. Let’s take a look at what they’re up to, shall we? It’s always psychedelic.

Today, we have a tale of two candidates. One is on the rise, and one has hit the skids. On the up: Crazy Herman Cain. Herman’s poll numbers are rising because he’s been killing it on the campaign trail. His fiery rhetoric’s been convincing wingnuts of his gravitas the way Sterno convinces hobos to brawl with sunflowers.

Mexicans! Get ‘em, Herman!

I just got back from China. Ever heard of the Great Wall of China? It looks pretty sturdy. And that sucker is real high. I think we can build one if we want to! We have put a man on the moon, we can build a fence!

It’s been done before! Took twenty centuries . . ready, go!

. . and on this side of the fence, I’ll have that moat that President Obama talked about. And I would put those alligators in that moat!

And with Darren’s help, we’ll get that chicken.

Meanwhile, for contrast: The Most Transplendent Gosh-a-Loon on the Planet, Newt Gingrich. Remember this? Newt warning everybody his campaign was so ground-breaking that no one could yet fathom its brilliance? “I expect it to take a while for it to sink in.” Well, the sinking is ‘in’ — way in — and sunken:

The entire top echelon of New Gingrich’s presidential campaign resigned on Thursday, a stunning mass exodus that left his bid for the Republican nomination in tatters.

Rick Tyler, the former U.S. House speaker’s spokesman, said that he, campaign manager Rob Johnson and senior strategists had all quit, along with aides in the early primary and caucus states of Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina.

His entire campaign leadership, lock, stock and barrel? Rib-crackingly funny news, an historic tank. It’s unprecedented for a major, veteran Republican figure to have his presidential (!) campaign quit on him absent a murder or molestation. The most brilliant guy in GOP history, they say, and Newt’s bid lasted all of 29 days.

It took less than a month for the people who knew him best, the people who most believed in him, to resign and walk away? I’ve never heard of anything like it. There is something very seriously wrong with the ‘great’ Newt Gingrich . . ( ssshhhh, that’s not news . . )

Now comes word of at least one reason why California’s perhaps most famous ‘power couple,’ Arnold Schwarzenegger and Maria Shriver, are divorcing after 25 years:

Schwarzenegger fathered a child with longtime member of household staff
By Mark Z. Barabak and Victoria Kim, Los Angeles Times

Former California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and his wife, Maria Shriver, separated after she learned he had fathered a child more than a decade ago — before his first run for office — with a longtime member of their household staff.

Shriver moved out of the family’s Brentwood mansion earlier this year, after Schwarzenegger acknowledged the paternity. The staff member worked for the family for 20 years, retiring in January.

“After leaving the governor’s office I told my wife about this event, which occurred over a decade ago,” Schwarzenegger said Monday night in a statement issued to The Times in response to questions. “I understand and deserve the feelings of anger and disappointment among my friends and family. There are no excuses and I take full responsibility for the hurt I have caused. I have apologized to Maria, my children and my family. I am truly sorry.

The political and entertainment news bombshell was probably a long time coming. The love/tryst child may have been a household secret for 10 years, but the action star’s predatory and irresponsible sexual behavior toward anonymous women certainly wasn’t.

[Stuntwoman Rhonda] Miller, who also is represented by Gloria Allred, claims in the lawsuit that while working with the superstar in January 1991 on the set of “Terminator 2,” Schwarzenegger engaged in “improper and unlawful” conduct.

Miller says Schwarzenegger pulled up her T-shirt and photographed her breasts and touched them even as she fought with him and yelled at him to stop.

In the October news conference, Miller said she later found the photo on the ceiling of the set’s makeup trailer, according to the Los Angeles Times . .

In the lawsuit, Miller also claims that while filming “True Lies” in 1994, Schwarzenegger “grabbed me, put me on his lap and started feeling my breasts, so I hit him in the head again. He got mad and pushed me away.”

At least 11 other women made claims of sexual harassment against Schwarzenegger in the lead-up to the 2003 California recall election, which he won. The household staff member who gave birth to Schwarzenegger’s child a decade ago was reportedly married at the time.

I had been privy to several first-hand accounts of Arnold’s sexual harassment because my then long-time housemate was a member of director James Cameron’s crew during the filming of Terminator II and True Lies. Schwarzenegger famously made no attempt to conceal his neanderthal attitude and criminal behavior toward women on his movie sets, preferring to think it entertaining. Why Californians refused to believe the victims’ accounts, or refused to care, remains a mystery.

And if we have Osama bin Laden in our sights and the Pakistani government is unable or unwilling to take them out, then I think that we have to act, and we will take them out.

We will kill bin Laden. We will crush al Qaeda. That has to be our biggest national security priority.

Candidate Barack Obama said it more than once in 2007 and 2008 on the campaign trail. Couple years later, he kept his promise. Good stuff. For some details, and for the hysterical reactions of conservatives, who couldn’t have scoffed back then any more loudly at the liberal joke candidate, see my earlier posts at Liberaland today, here and here.

And, for breaking news on Osama bin Laden, enjoy the video below. And ouch.