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Conservative Blog Commenters Target Malia Obama With Racial Slurs

by Tommy Christopher | 1:21 pm, July 12th, 2009

» 16 comments

Photo by Remo Casilli of Reuters via Vancouver Sun

Photo by Remo Casilli, Reuters (via Vancouver Sun)

Two high-profile stories about the intersection of racism and the Republican Party are exploding all over the internet. The flap over comments at Free Republic and the Young Republicans’ election of a new president make for a sour cocktail this weekend.

Most of the heat is being generated by this Vancouver Sun story about the comments on a Free Republic article featuring 11 year-old Malia Obama:

“A typical street whore.” “A bunch of ghetto thugs.” “Ghetto street trash.” “Wonder when she will get her first abortion.”

These are a small selection of some of the racially-charged comments posted to the conservative ‘Free Republic’ blog Thursday, aimed at U.S. President Barack Obama’s 11-year-old daughter Malia after she was photographed wearing a t-shirt with a peace sign on the front.

You might think that this is the same as the lame attacks that Bill O’Reilly levels at commenters on DailyKos and/or Hot Air. There are key differences. The Sun report says that the offensive comments overwhelmingly outnumbered those critical of the vitriol, but the real problem is this:

After attention from other blogs, the thread was suppressed and placed under review, but before long it was returned to the site intact, and attracted a new series of racial slurs when the original complaint email was posted publicly to the site, with the sender’s email address intact.

So, they knew about the comments, put them back up, and apparently made the complainer a target for harassment. Very ugly. Eventually, they took it down again.

As disgusting as this story is, it didn’t stand to hurt Republicans that much on its own. Freepers are not exactly considered the bellwether of mainstream conservative thought.

Then, even after an impassioned plea by very young Republican Meghan McCain, the Young Republicans elected a new president with serious racism problems.

The Young Republicans faced a stark choice at their convention in Indianapolis yesterday as they chose their next leader: a center-right twentysomething interested in greater outreach, or a self-described “true conservative” who is almost 40 and spent last week dealing with Daily Beast reports about her beliefs, which are, at best, often hateful, and at worst, downright racist. The delegates, in a vote of 470 – 415, chose the latter.

Fair or not, the effect of these two stories is devastating. Already on Twitter, I’ve seen comparisons of the Freeper story to the Letterman/Palin feud, with liberals asking where the conservative denunciation is. The Young Republicans story serves to neutralize the “few bad apples” rationale on the Freeper story.

As a liberal with a lot of conservative friends, I hate to see conservatives get painted, en masse, with this brush. While this makes them understandably defensive on the subject, that defensiveness can lead to tone-deaf handling of these situations. While some liberals’ idea of the GOP as the Ivory Soap of racism is way off the mark, many conservatives are also in denial about their party’s race problems. The truth, as they say, lies somewhere in the middle.

On the issue of racism, the truth can be elusive. I think there’s always more racism, in general, than white people think there is. On the other hand, I think there’s a lot less of it in the Republican Party than most liberals think. Part of the perception problem that the GOP has today is that the Democrats have a black President. Where else are the racists supposed to go? Just because most of the racists belong to one party doesn’t mean that that party is mostly racists.

Still, when your party stands in opposition to policies that are seen as benefiting minorities, this kind of thing can really be damaging.

I’ll tell my liberal friends exactly what I told conservatives who asked me where the liberal outrage was on the Playboy story: Give it a minute. This story broke on a Saturday afternoon. Two of my conservative friends who write for very influential blogs just heard about it this morning, from me.

To my conservative friends, I hope their reactions, and those of the Republican leadership, veer away from the kind of persecution complex stuff that Newsbusters’ treatment portends, and closer to this. This story is already drawing attention from media heavy-hitters like Jake Tapper, Major Garrett, and David Shuster. The conservative response can be a big win.

As for the Young Republicans, I think Meghan McCain’s got their number.

Update: The plot thickens. Gawker reports that Chris Parry, the Vancouver Sun reporter who broke this story, was also a blogger for Daily Kos, and has suggested, in the past, posting hate speech and blaming it on conservatives (Gawker repeats this claim by the freepers, but I haven’t found anything in Parry’s DailyKos posts to back this up). This does little to change the facts in this story, as Parry could hardly have pulled, then reinstated, the offensive thread. It might mean a rough week for Parry, though. Parry responds here.

ADAY

This is unbelievable
jryanlaw

Thanks for writing this Tommy, although I will point out that my reading of the playboy debacle wasn’t conservative women asking for outrage from women on the left but instead saying there was no outrage from women on the left and that there would not be except the article you had already written. It was a false meme because at the same time there were at least 10-15 women on the left who were actually on the phones to playboy (after a bit of research as to how to contact them) demanding that the article be removed. You didn’t have to tell them give it a minute… we expressed outrage from the minute @amandacarpenter posted the article on twitter.

I would love to see some people on the right chastize freepers for these kinds of comments. I will say that I did see both allahpundit and Mary Katherine Ham express disappointment at the vote for Shay as the new leader of the young republicans which was heartening, though I expect them to disavow crap like that. I also won’t make the assumption that the 400 people that didn’t vote for Shay will now support her. I do have to expect that the 450 plus who voted for her do though….and they happen to be the majority of the Young Republicans
CatM

I would like to correct a few things in this article. The Vancouver Sun was reporting on a post that I made over at Daily Kos. I am the author of the e-mail sent to the media contact at Free Republic.

There is at least one factual inaccuracy in the Vancouver Sun article. At no time did I see Free Republic post my e-mail address at their Website or encourage anyone to harass me. In my post at Daily Kos, I mentioned the e-mail address for the media contact of Free Republic, which could be found on the front page of the Free Republic Website.

When Jim Robinson posted my Daily Kos post, he included his own media contact’s e-mail; I do not believe he included mine (not that I used my permanent e-mail address anyway), and I have not received any e-mail from posters at Free Republic.

I hope you will correct your article accordingly.

Thank you,
CatM
johnny_nyc

Two things right off the top of my head:

1) “As disgusting as this story is, it didn’t stand to hurt Republicans that much on its own. Freepers are not exactly considered the bellwether of mainstream conservative thought.”

Don’t you remember the smear campaign launched by Mitch McConnell’s staff against Graeme Frost during the SCHIP broohaha? Free Republic as well as others were used as as sources for the smears. That’s right, in the corridors of power they’re taken seriously!

http://thinkprogress.org/2007/10/11/mcconnell-staffer-smear-graeme/

Drudge is taken seriously; Malkin is taken seriously. For crying out loud the Republicans made Rush Limbaugh an honorary member of Congress 15 years ago! WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN?

2) “Where else are the racists supposed to go?”

Are you really serious about this?

Just because there’s a black Democratic president doesn’t mean the Republican party has to condone and accept racism.

There is no place for it in our society.

Like I said, those two thoughts are off the top of my head.

I really don’t feel I need to devote more time to rebut this nonsense.

Hopefully somebody here will do a thorough analysis showing how though you may be well meaning enough you really are misguided.
Sir Real

The racism is coming to the surface for republicans.I knew they could not conceal it for long,if at all.Sarah Quitacuda was blatent about it at the rallies as were many of the attendees.Look at Jeff Sessions,Mitch McConnell,John Boehner and a host of others in government when they talk about the President of the United States.Their racist hatred cannot be concealed.It shows on their faces and in their words.Now the racist reich have zeroed in their attacks on little Malia Obama,an 11 year old child.Sad, but true to their nature, they just can’t help themselves.This may be the deal breaker for the President and his Mr. Nice Guy attitude,at least I hope so.These thugs respect nothing but brute power.
Xyxox

Chris PArry isn’t in any trouble at all. I’ve poured through his DailyKos postings, starting with the links the Freepers themselves posted. HE never suggested anything of the kind. Freepers are making it up as they go.
ChrisNH

Oh, so NOW the Libs get all ‘outraged.’ This is pretty hilarious. Typical. Can dish out but can’t take it.
Witness4

With the likes of Audra Shay leading the way, what else can we expect but the same old lame visceral slime slings. This is much of why the election went to Obama, because he set a better standard of positive vibes. America has a truly moral majority who want freedom and justice for all, not hypocritical posturing like the Bushites provided.
cirdog

Visited the Daily Kos lately? Comments from those “Liberal bloggers” would balance out your take.
tbv1977

While NOTHING excuses hateful comments like those directed towards Malia Obama, hateful comments are a bipartisan exercise. Comments at liberal counterparts of Free Republic such as Daily Kos, Democratic Underground, etc. can be equally as egregious and inappropriate — but from the opposite end of the political spectrum.

To insinuate that the crazy comments allegedly posted on a right-of-right wing blog represent the views of the Republican Party is disingenuous. Both parties have their haters and their crazies and while neither are remotely acceptable, even the wingnuts have the right to voice their (insane) opinions.
jryanlaw

can someone please tell me what the opposite of “A typical street whore.” “A bunch of ghetto thugs.” “Ghetto street trash.” “Wonder when she will get her first abortion” is….. and how those opposites that apparently dems say or have said about the children of Republicans are bad

I don’t think stuck-up is the opposite of typical street whore nor do I find it “equally as egregious and inappropriate”
sasha2010

Good- will keep them distracted while we get work done.

C- Street and the ilk

Former Reps. Mickey Edwards (R-Okla.) and Chris Shays (R-Conn.) made the argument that if the Republican-controlled Congress had exhibited greater oversight during former President George W. Bush’s time in office, they could have prevented some of the most calamitous results of that administration and even saved thousands of lives.

… Shays argued that had more members of Congress, including Republicans, gone to Iraq and visited Abu Ghraib, prisoner abuses would have come to light sooner.

“That would have alerted the administration to what was happening, the command authority to what was happening and it probably would have saved a 1,000 lives,” Shays said.

Shays said the Bush White House abused its powers in a way that resulted in many of the domestic and international problems that have unfolded recently.

“This past Republican Congress hurt this administration by not having some hearings,” said the Connecticut Republican. “Had we had hearings it would have nipped those problems in the bud.”

Mickey Edwards (R-Okla.) was even more critical. He mocked members of Congress when it came to flexing their constitutional oversight authority. In particular, he lamented the House Republican lawmakers’ unified opposition to holding hearings to investigate the firing of U.S. Attorneys by the Bush White House.

“One of the most shocking things was when the House voted to hold [Counsel Harriet] Miers and [Chief of Staff Josh] Bolten in contempt because they refused to obey a congressional subpoena,” said Edwards.

“Every single member of my party, except for three, walked out. Members of Congress walked out of the chamber rather than stand up as members of Congress so that congressional subpoena (would) be obeyed. Party trumped Constitution.”
sasha2010

Another pitiful milestone for the last 8 years!

The man with five deferments is the best to advise our military and security.

Spain is coming Dick �.keep talking!

In the 2009 interview – Cheney would not agree to testify ‘UNDER OATH’ during his recent appearance on Face the Nation.

9-11 happened on Mr. Cheney’s watch.

Tom Kean, the Republican co-chair of the 9-11 Commission, has said the attacks could have been prevented.

Before they took office, senior Bush administration officials were briefed repeatedly about the al Qaeda threat.

Clinton National Security Adviser Sandy Berger told incoming National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice,

“I believe that the Bush administration will spend more time on terrorism in general, and on al Qaeda specifically, than any other subject.”

All the Republicans were screaming about Sandy Berger stealing papers and Clinton’s BJ.

Yet Cheney ‘knew relatively nothing’

When Dick went on the faux clown show stating Al Qaida was “relatively” unknown on September 11, 2001 ” one must wonder- where the hell he was?

I guess he really was too busy with the country’s ENERGY policy- BEHIND a closed door!

John McCain claimed that he “believes” no other POTUS would ever do this. This is absurd- what happened to trust but verify Reagan mantra?

Surely- a country that has declined in educating themselves- Worldwide Americans do not even rank in the top 25 for education ” will now re-define what torture is and rely on John McCain’s belief?

And now- they can go after Obama’s children.

What else- do nothing country first folks?

We are paying attention.

Maybe you might try the same thing.
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