Tommy Christopher: Don’t Say Obama Is Not Working, Or You Are a Racist
Ah, good old Tommy Christopher. Don’t criticize the black president, you damn racists!
Presumptive Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney rolled out a new accessory at a speech in Ohio today, delivering his remarks in front of a black banner that said “Obama Isn’t Working,” which is also the name of a website his campaign set up several months ago (in case you didn’t get the message from the banner, it was also on the front of Romney’s podium).
The slogan is a multiple entendre, but one of those entendres, intentionally or not, is evocative of a nasty racial stereotype about black men.
Here is the racist slogan:
This is excellent, because this way, Obama gets to play all the golf he wants while running up a $5 trillion dollar debt. And you had better not call him on it, because otherwise?
Racist.
Reminder: this incisive analysis comes from the Journalistic Genius who assured you that Nikki, Patricia, and John Reid were all for real. Why, he staked his journalistic reputation on it!
You know, I have a theory. People who are super duper quick on the trigger to call everyone else a racist for a legitimate criticism?
They’re the actual racists. They’re patronizing and condescending. They think Obama can’t be forced to undergo actual hard-hitting criticism.
That’s my theory.
I can’t prove it in Tommy Christopher’s case, of course. The only thing I can prove with him, beyond the shadow of a doubt, is that he is an incompetent and laughable partisan hack. But racist? That’s just my theory.
It’s important to keep the two separate, dontcha know.
This will be one of the main themes all the way to the election. The other will be Romney is Mr. Moneybags and cannot relate to the American people. Sigh… it’s going to be a long 6 months.
NJRob (fe68e7) — 4/19/2012 @ 9:19 pmOne of the people I called was cable news fixture Goldie Taylor, who, upon hearing my description of the banner, said “Are you kidding me? You have got to be kidding me.”
She also noted the multiple meanings, and the unmistakable stereotype it evokes, but didn’t think it was intentional. “That’s what happens when you don’t surround yourself with a diverse array of people,” she said. “Maybe if Mitt Romney’s experience was more diverse, or the people he surrounds himself with, somebody would have looked at that banner and realized how it could be offensive to some people.”
OMG, these people don’t even get their own irony.
(Maybe it was the black banner that set them off…)
Dana (4eca6e) — 4/19/2012 @ 9:20 pmWHo uses the word shiftless?!
JD (3fc54b) — 4/19/2012 @ 9:24 pmYou just did, JD. Racist!
Dana (4eca6e) — 4/19/2012 @ 9:26 pmTommy can’t be racist, he got to the bottom of the Racist Rape Barn episode. Vetted the whole thing, he did.
Noodles (3681c4) — 4/19/2012 @ 9:28 pmI don’t think this “nasty racial stereotype” meme is going to be very successful for Tommy cuz I think most people (like me) are going to read it say “huh?” or “WTF?” or something profound like that.
elissa (85e826) — 4/19/2012 @ 9:31 pmWhat ever happened to RapeBarn3?
Busted, Dana. The only time I ever see that word used is when some leftist is accusing someone of codeword dog whistle racisms.
Another day has gone by where I have not eaten dog.
JD (89e14d) — 4/19/2012 @ 9:31 pmPatterico, we are back to projection again. When folks accuse other folks of doing something dastardly, it is important to look at the accuser very, very carefully.
Remember that BHO campaigned on how awful GWB’s deficits were.
Simon Jester (28e21a) — 4/19/2012 @ 9:38 pmI wonder if Tommy thinks that African Americans are fully capable of getting a driver’s license or state ID and are able to present it when asked at a polling station?
If not, Patterico’s theory is probably right.
Noodles (3681c4) — 4/19/2012 @ 9:47 pmSo, I’m still trying to understand this. If you want to dump somebody who is ruining your life and you say to them, “you know, this relationship isn’t working” — that’s racist? Or is it only racist when you say it to the President of the United States who is ruining your life and needs to get dumped? Maybe someone can ask Tommy to clarify that.
elissa (85e826) — 4/19/2012 @ 9:49 pmthis relationship isn’t working
Your question becomes a more loaded accusation when leveled at our first black president. Do you know the rates of failed relationships in the African American community?
/sarc off
Noodles (3681c4) — 4/19/2012 @ 10:03 pmIt takes a racist mind to equate “black people” and “not working.” Therefore, Mitt Romney is not racist, because he isn’t thinking about race, but Tommy Christopher is because he thinks only black people don’t work.
There’s a word for people who only view things through the prism of skin color: racists.
The only reason they say “you only hate him because he’s black!” is because they only LIKE him because he’s black. They could give a shlt about his policies; they voted for the first black president, and if you didn’t, you hate him because he’s black.
For instance, I heard a joke and passed it on to my friend who immediately called me a racist: They put Lincoln on the $5, Washington on the $1, I bet they put Obama on the food stamp. See, I’m racist because the joke is hilarious to me because of his policies and because I didn’t even take into his race. It’s an amazing mindphuck (with a ph, not that nasty kind) to get around. You hear food stamps and think “black people” and I’m the racist.
Ghost (6f9de7) — 4/19/2012 @ 10:15 pmTommy Xtopher is a dog eater of the highest order.
daleyrocks (bf33e9) — 4/19/2012 @ 10:17 pmHopefully he really won’t be working in his current job in January. If not, a lot more people also won’t be working. It doesn’t bear thinking about…
Gazzer (37f7e7) — 4/19/2012 @ 10:25 pmI don’t think this “nasty racial stereotype” meme is going to be very successful for Tommy cuz I think most people (like me) are going to read it say “huh?” or “WTF?” or something profound like that.
I hope you’re right, elissa. Sometimes I do think that the Dems are coming perilously close to making people say, “OK, this is low-rent race-hustling,” but it is pretty clear that they are going to not-too-subtly promote the idea to white moderates that if they abandon Obama in 2012 after having voted for him in 2008, then they might as well be wearing hoods and burning crosses.
JVW (afde5e) — 4/19/2012 @ 11:00 pmWhite hoods, that is. Apparently some hoods are really cool to wear.
JVW (afde5e) — 4/19/2012 @ 11:00 pmI think also that a lot of these journo monkeys fling poo on Barry’s behalf just to see what sticks. The war on womyn backfired so they move on. Eventually, if you fling enough something’s gonna stick.
Gazzer (37f7e7) — 4/19/2012 @ 11:07 pmBut Obama doesn’t work very hard. Apparently he comes in at 10 and leaves at 4 and watches sports all evening in his quarters. This between vacations and golf games.
Is it because he’s black? Only a racist would think there’s a genetic component to sheer laziness.
Claire (9c059a) — 4/19/2012 @ 11:45 pmOne thing I can say for sure Obama is working hard on is excuses for why he is not working as president. Sure it’s a tough job, but he’s blamed just about everybody and everything for things not not working but himself and the excuses just keep coming. That’s hard work right there.
daleyrocks (bf33e9) — 4/20/2012 @ 12:34 amWhat no h/t, btw ,zany mad cap humor;
http://www.mediaite.com/online/keith-olbermann-on-abcs-this-week-roundtable-this-weekend/
narciso (8d0f34) — 4/20/2012 @ 4:50 amI’ve gone 23938 days without any dog meat, unfortunately, I have to listen to all the doggerel from the Democrats.
GM Roper (8ce54d) — 4/20/2012 @ 4:55 amMy daughter will be touring the White House, today. Yes. She will be wearing a black hoodie depending on the weather. Racist.
nk (875f57) — 4/20/2012 @ 5:05 amTommy Xtopher is a parody of a JournoList
JD (89e14d) — 4/20/2012 @ 5:47 amBut he’s a White House correspondent, facepalm!
narciso (8d0f34) — 4/20/2012 @ 5:51 amI’ll be wearing a light brown work jacket, with a corduroy collar, that I bought at Goodwill for $5.00. Typical racist white man outfit.
nk (875f57) — 4/20/2012 @ 6:08 amTommy is pathetic on so many levels here:
1. Neither he nor “cable news fixture Goldie Taylor” can actually bring themselves to call this racist, perhaps because Googling “Obama Isn’t Working” instantly tells you where the phrase comes from. And so Tommy had to do an “update” that essentially guts the piece. But it leaves the question of whether Tommy knew this in the first place and didn’t care, or whether he’s really that lame of a reporter to not know the reference or Google it.
2. So what’s left? Goldie complains:
Meanwhile, Obama HQ looks almost as white as the Allman Brothers’ financial planners.
3. So what’s left? Tommy claims “there have been some uncomfortable hints at a race-based shadow campaign recently, uncomfortable enough to keep one eye open.” But he links to stories — of his, natch — criticizing Sean Hannity and, er, Buzzfeed, which he assumes came from a “GOP operative.” But he has no proof of that, let alone that Romney should get smeared with it as Tommy does in this piece.
4. So what’s left? Tommy writes he has “never seen a political candidate give a speech in front of a black campaign banner.” He still hasn’t. It’s grey, matching the grim setting of the abandoned factory used for the speech.
5. So what’s left? Tommy writes he has never seen a banner which “featured a direct slam on a rival candidate.” Even I’m not going to Google that one, as it has nothing to do with race. It has to do with negativity. And Tommy apparently hasn’t noticed negativity is about all Obama is running on these days, in hopes of distracting people from the economy — which is what most people, including Mitt Romney — care about.
Karl (6f7ecd) — 4/20/2012 @ 6:16 amWho is Goldie Taylor?
Karl – he thinks the update is consistent with his hacktacular article.
JD (89e14d) — 4/20/2012 @ 6:25 amWhisper campaign, codeword, dog whistle, etc. are shorthand for “I am about to make something up”
BOLD AND CAPS ASSHATTERY ROCKS!
JD (89e14d) — 4/20/2012 @ 6:28 amOT: They may have found Etan Patz’s body, where might Al Sharpton be seeing as it may have been a black dude who did it?
Bill (af584e) — 4/20/2012 @ 7:05 amgotta try Dad’s Dogs!
Colonel Haiku (1878e8) — 4/20/2012 @ 7:14 amtell ’em put whole damn works on
more snap to teh skin
egads it’s a whole racist website chock full of racsisms!… obamaisntworking.com
happyfeet (3c92a1) — 4/20/2012 @ 7:15 am12.It takes a racist mind to equate “black people” and “not working.”
Reminds me of a line from the 1988 campaign (I think it was Bill Buckley):
Conservatives look at Willie Horton and see a rapist. Liberals look at him and see a black man.
Bored Lawyer (c8f13b) — 4/20/2012 @ 7:16 amworks so hard sometimes
Colonel Haiku (1878e8) — 4/20/2012 @ 7:18 amhe feels like he been tied to
teh damn whipping post
the blog there suggests this whole racist enterprise began in June of 11 – almost a year ago
now all of a sudden former MSNBC propaganda whore Dan Abram’s flunky Tommy Christopher thinks it’s racist?
I think he has an agenda.
happyfeet (3c92a1) — 4/20/2012 @ 7:20 am==I think he has an agenda.==
May I say that you seem to be exceptionally cynical this fine morning, Mr. Feets. Rather suspiciousy too.
elissa (b4175e) — 4/20/2012 @ 7:25 amall play and no work
Colonel Haiku (1878e8) — 4/20/2012 @ 7:31 amwould be better in his case
just think on that one
I think Tommy is a nasty race-baiting moron what would pimp a dead Trayvon even more readily than president fruitless
happyfeet (3c92a1) — 4/20/2012 @ 7:31 amThe first comment nailed it. Gonna be a lot of this stuff, some of it is gonna work too. Gonna be a long and nasty election cycle. Ima go get a whopper. Oh, wait: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U7ggB02lsdU
Alex (31c567) — 4/20/2012 @ 7:33 amI never get tired of saying this: it’s almost as if the leftist media will lie in order to further their agenda.
Ghost (6f9de7) — 4/20/2012 @ 7:47 amIt’s almost like liberals only see skin color.
Ghost (6f9de7) — 4/20/2012 @ 7:51 amHe’s working…he’s just working on his golf game.
Elephant Stone (0ae97d) — 4/20/2012 @ 7:51 amAnd I think there’s a word for that… Rapist! No, that’s not right… Braces! Crap, I’ll remember it, give me a sec…
Ghost (6f9de7) — 4/20/2012 @ 7:53 amDoes this mean that the Labor Department is “racist” if they insist on a definition of unemployed people as “people who are not working” ?
Elephant Stone (0ae97d) — 4/20/2012 @ 7:56 amSorry, but his Republican predecessors have taken more vacation time than Obama to date.
http://www.cbsnews.com/2100-18563_162-20093801.html
tadcf (6f3ab1) — 4/20/2012 @ 8:12 amwhen Bush was taking vacation unemployment was under 5%
Obama is prancing around Martha’s Vinyard while people who actually want to work can’t find a job in America’s obama-raped economy
very different thing
happyfeet (3c92a1) — 4/20/2012 @ 8:25 amThe term “Vacation time” is meaningless. Whether a president is working has little to do with his physical location.
For example, is fundraising considered a vacation? It certainly isn’t doing the country’s business.
MayBee (e3ac46) — 4/20/2012 @ 8:26 amHow many places have you Spammed your comment, tadcf?
JD (89e14d) — 4/20/2012 @ 8:35 amNovember 7, 2008. Weekly “All Conservatives In The USA” phone conference.
“Ok everyone, listen up. The most liberal president in US history takes office in January. His policies are horrible, he believes in the theft and slavery of socialism and he pals around with radicals and terrorists. But he’s black which means NO CRITICIZING HIM! That would be racist. We should all just like whatever he does. Alright, talk to everyone next week.”
CrustyB (69f730) — 4/20/2012 @ 8:38 amSpeaking of golf, my 13 year old grandson could clean Obama’s clock. After only a year playing the sport, he is the top under 13 in the State of Alabama. Yesterday he made a hole in one with the course director looking on.
I used to have trouble hitting the fairway in one!
Arch (0baa7b) — 4/20/2012 @ 9:07 amRomney is sooooo negative.
Karl (f07e38) — 4/20/2012 @ 9:09 am___________________________________________
Conservatives look at Willie Horton and see a rapist. Liberals look at him and see a black man.
Not much better, many liberals didn’t think that casting light on a policy that allowed for the release of convicted killers was a crucial matter.
As for race and racism, after doing a quick review of 3 very prominent Democrat/liberal presidents of the 20th century — Woodrow Wilson, Harry Truman and Bill Clinton — I was really surprised to learn just how bigoted and racist they truly were behind closed doors. BTW, I’m not the type who nonchalantly directs the words “racist” or “bigot” at people. So when I use those nouns, I mean them.
Based on letters written to his wife and daughter, Truman was the worst in terms of private sentiment. Wilson, who supported the enactment Jim Crow laws, was the worst in terms of actual policymaking. Clinton, who used the “n” word against people he didn’t like, was the worst in terms of casual crudeness.
Mark (411533) — 4/20/2012 @ 9:24 amclassic narcissist
Colonel Haiku (1878e8) — 4/20/2012 @ 9:30 amguy expects a Mulligan
what pisses me off
OMG! Obama’s black???
Bayowolf (b692e7) — 4/20/2012 @ 10:57 amOnly someone who has thought to himself “black men don’t work” would look at Romney’s slogan and think that it was a slam on black men not working.
Personally, I would have preferred “Obama’s policies haven’t done sh*t for this country”, but Romney is a much nicer person than I.
Book (609d34) — 4/20/2012 @ 11:22 amIt never goes away with the race-baiting left wing loonies. Here we have a racist president, a racist AG, and racists running amok in the press, and if one expresses the view that Obama has neglected his working duties, the charge of racism is leveled. I say Obama is the laziest bum ever. He’s never worked and he never will. His charges of racism (through his no-mind minions) no longer has any meaning.
David Christensen (3e2f9d) — 4/20/2012 @ 11:31 amWhen I saw it, I thought it meant that Obama wasn’t working out as President–is that racist too?
rochf (f3fbb0) — 4/20/2012 @ 11:51 amRacist: we elected a black president, and now no one has a job, the country lost its credit, and everyone is on food stamps.
Not racist: this guy sucks at his job.
See the difference, Tommy?
Ghost (6f9de7) — 4/20/2012 @ 12:07 pmNext on Tommy Boy’s agenda: “discovering” that Mr. Obama is actually 1/64th (fill in an Asian ethnicity), thus making all the dog eating jokes retroactively racist.
MSE (f5e881) — 4/20/2012 @ 12:09 pmTruman came from a family that sided with the Confederacy in the Civil War.
Not only did Woodrow Wilson not come from New Jersey, he didn’t even really come from Virginia. He grew up in Georgia and was there when Sherman was marching through it.
Sammy Finkelman (d22d64) — 4/20/2012 @ 12:17 pmdog whistle for Dems
Colonel Haiku (1878e8) — 4/20/2012 @ 12:33 pmtriggers racist thoughts within
shiftless and lazy
hats off to Breitbart
Colonel Haiku (1878e8) — 4/20/2012 @ 12:46 pmthe Revolutionary
of New Media
http://instagr.am/p/JpqQMsL5Jh/
Colonel Haiku (1878e8) — 4/20/2012 @ 12:49 pmThe only time I ever see that word used is when some leftist is accusing someone of codeword dog whistle racisms.
— Better not blow a dog whistle anywhere near the president!
It might cause his dinner to come back up.
Icy (a71555) — 4/20/2012 @ 1:05 pmtadcf just dropped in to miss the point completely . . . again.
Icy (a71555) — 4/20/2012 @ 1:16 pmhttp://www.therightsphere.com/2012/04/an-open-letter-to-mediaites-tommy-christopher-the-racist/
narciso (8d0f34) — 4/20/2012 @ 4:46 pmThank you for the link, narciso. Well worth reading.
nk (875f57) — 4/20/2012 @ 4:56 pmthat was a good read, narciso.
Colonel Haiku (1878e8) — 4/20/2012 @ 5:14 pmHere’s another one…
http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/296584/tommy-christopher-thinks-ugly-thoughts-blames-mitt-romney-charles-c-w-cooke
Colonel Haiku (1878e8) — 4/20/2012 @ 5:18 pmYou’re welcome, as with most everything, Christopher proved himself a hack with Palin,
narciso (8d0f34) — 4/20/2012 @ 5:21 pmJohn Sexton can show some of the gruesome details,
and most everything over the last three years, hasn’t changed my view of him.
Wait this one goes even farther down the rabbit hole.
http://hotair.com/archives/2012/04/20/richard-wolffe-this-dog-eating-thing-is-about-treating-obama-as-the-other/
narciso (8d0f34) — 4/20/2012 @ 5:42 pmWhat if someone cried Racist and nobody cared?
They use it because it works, if they continue to use it when it is not warranted it may cease to work.
They will shout out Racist! and folks will quote Reagan
There they go again.
Dan Kauffman (2ee9ce) — 4/20/2012 @ 7:37 pmI disagree with the claim that “Obama isn’t working.”
He works very hard to put dog on his family’s table.
gwjd (032bef) — 4/20/2012 @ 9:09 pmCould you imagine the stir over a headline “Obama Shuffles Cabinet”?
the friendly grizzly (00eb02) — 4/21/2012 @ 6:52 pmOlbergasm is on ABC Sunday talker tomorrow. The Left has less than no standards.
JD (318f81) — 4/21/2012 @ 7:28 pmWhat is the logic of putting Olbermann on the air,
narciso (8d0f34) — 4/21/2012 @ 7:33 pmwould be the question the consultants on ‘Office
Space’ would ask?