GOP Nutz Watch Nutz Newz of the Week: Week Ending 07/17/2009 (The Post Post Racial Edition)

Well, it’s that time again. Time for me to expose deez nutz to the world.

Thankfully, our like H.N.I.C. (Head Nut in Charge), Sarah Palin, fell out of the news this week. I was getting tired of her anyway. She gets way too much press. But her compatriots have given us more than enough material.

The word of the week is post post-racial. Anyone who still believes that we are living in a post-racialist America must have missed last week’s confirmation hearings for Judge Sonia Sotomayer, because racism was alive and in full effect.

Perhaps, the racist highlight of the week was MSNBC Political Commentator Pat Buchannan’s racist rant on the Rachel Maddow show. Now, dear Uncle Pat is an old school racist left over from yesteryear. I am not sure why MSNBC even still keeps him around. But he is good for comic relief from time to time.

Many people complained that Rachel did not press him enough. But I like Rachel’s approach. She just sat back and gave ol’ Uncle Pat enough rope to hang himself. His main complaints are that Sotomayer is not qualified even though her credentials far surpass any other judge nominated for the Supreme Court thus far, and that she is nothing more than an affirmative action baby. But halfway during his rant, the racist truth reared its ugly head. Uncle Pat fell back on one of the oldest racist arguments of all time: White men built this country, and now white men are getting discriminated against. Check out ol’ Uncle Pat in action:

Can you believe that? Ol’ Uncle Pat is nutz right along with the rest of his buddies.

But the ironic indignation award of the week belongs to Alabama GOP Senator Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III, otherwise known as Jeff Sessions. Remember him? He was President Ronald Reagan’s choice for the U.S. District Court in Alabama in the early spring of 1986. However, Sessions’ nomination was derailed when it came to light that he had labeled the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) "un-American" and "Communist-inspired". In addition, he also referred to a white lawyer as a disgrace to his race for his representation of voting rights defendants. And as if that was not enough, Sessions joked to several colleagues the he "used to think they [the Klan] were OK" until he found out some of them were "pot smokers" [Source].

Sessions didn’t deny any of it. But he did say that these remarks were all made in jest. He and his cronies are perhaps the only people that find his remarks funny, though. But during the confirmation hearings, Sessions took it upon himself to lecture Sotomayer on race relations and racism in this country as if that is not the most absolutely absurd thing anyone with good sense has ever heard.

And in lesser nutz newz, our favorite token, Michael Steele told a number of bloggers at the Young Republican Convention that he would lure blacks to the Republican Party using fried chicken and potato salad. I don’t think his remarks would have been that controversial had he been talking to a room full of African Americans, but the fact that he made these remarks to a mostly white, conservative audience gave them added significance. You be the judge:

And also Zell Miller, former Georgia governor and senator and frequent Fox contributor, whose claim to fame is inviting MSNBC commentator Chris Matthews to a duel during the 2004 elections, stated that President Obama's chief of staff should use "Gorilla Glue" to keep him in his seat in the Oval Office. Of course, he and the rest of his party feigned surprise when the remark was taken as racist. [Click her for story] [Click here for poll.]

But I have saved the best for last. Some crazy, nutz minister out of California actually went on record stating the he was actively praying for the demise of President Obama. People, you just can’t get any nuttier than this. ANd that Fox News gave him a platform to espouse this foolishness is even nuttier. You’ve got to hear this to believe it:

I wonder what God thinks about being caught up in this madness?

And now it’s time for my commentary. I keep hearing commentators excuse the actions of the GOP as “playing to its base.” In other words, they are performing for the benefit of the people back home, their constituents. But what does it say about their constituents that to impress them, that to guarantee their votes, you have to resort to racist language and innuendo?

The GOP missed a great opportunity to both reconnect with Hispanics and possibly other minorities by simply recognizing the many qualifications of Judge Sotomayer and working to facilitate her confirmation which they even admit was practically inevitable. In addition, they could have used the occasion to improve race relations, to ameliorate the racist fears of many who are simply frightened by all the changes of late.

However, instead they squandered this opportunity by pandering to the racists back home. I don’t see what they gained this week except to further underline the racism seemingly inherent in the party.

Somewhere not too long ago I read that any organization is only strong as and cannot rise any higher than the abilities of its leadership and the quality of the leadership’s ideas. But if the GOP leadership cannot do any better than this, if the GOP leadership thinks their best hope is to foment racial fears and posit already disproven racial arguments, they have already lost. They are, in a word, completely nutz.

And that’s all the GOP Nutz Watch Nutz Newz for this week, at least all I have room for. And remember Max Reddick is watching deez nutz so you don’t have the discomfort of watching them yourself.