The RNC Puts Its Shoe In Its Mouth...Again

President Obama has nominated Elena Kagan to the U.S. Supreme Court.  And the RNC and its chairman, Michael Steele, have pulled another minority endearing statement out of their bag of faulty tricks by condemning Kagan for having praised the late U.S. Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall in 1993.  Kagan quoted Marshall in his 1987 Constitutional Bicentennial speech.  Kagan quoted Marshall for saying that "The Constitution as origninally conceived and drafted was "defective" and that the Supreme Court's mission was to "show a special solicitude for the despised and the disadvantaged."

Marshall went on to say,

"the government they (the Framers of the Constitution) devised was defective from the start, requiring several amendments, a civil war and momentous social transformation to attain the system of constitutional government, and its respect for the individual freedoms and human rights, we hold as fundamental today.  When contemporary Americans cite "The Constitution," they invoke a concept that is vastly different from what the Framers barely began to construct two centuries ago.

For a sense of the evolving nature of the Constitution we need look no further than the first three words of the document's preamble: 'We the People." When the Founding Fathers used this phrase in 1787, they did not have in mind the majority of America's citizens. "We the People" included, in the words of the Framers, "the whole Number of free Persons." United States Constitution, Art. 1, 52 (Sept. 17, 1787). On a matter so basic as the right to vote, for example, Negro slaves were excluded, although they were counted for representational purposes at threefifths each. Women did not gain the right to vote for over a hundred and thirty years. The 19th Amendment (ratified in 1920).  These omissions were intentional. The record of the Framers' debates on the slave question is especially clear: The Southern States acceded to the demands of the New England States for giving Congress broad power to regulate commerce, in exchange for the right to continue the slave trade. The economic interests of the regions coalesced: New Englanders engaged in the "carrying trade" would profit from transporting slaves from Africa as well as goods produced in America by slave labor. The perpetuation of slavery ensured the primary source of wealth in the Southern States."

When Michael Steele stated recently that the GOP has not "done a very good job" giving African-Americans a reason to vote Republican, did he intend then to adjust course and start doing a good job?  If so, he must have forgotten, or changed his mind, or decided to place a higher priority on attacking President Obama nomination.  Considering Steele's habit of sticking his foot in his mouth, I can only guess why he did it again.  My guess is he and the RNC wanted to attack President Obama above all else and, as usual, suspended his mental capacity while doing it.

Great job!  These blunders and kowtowing to the GOP's radical base may carry their Teabagger candidates in the Fall primaries but other than a few possible exceptions like Arizona, Oklahoma, Texas and Minnesota, they will surely get whipped in the general election.

No Honor In The GOP

Barack Obama's citizenship was first challenged when he decided to run for the presidency. The accusation that he was born in Kenya rather than in Hawaii is still being made by a group of nuts referred to as Birthers. The Birther's campaign to unseat Obama because he is not a citizen has actually intensified recently. Several congressional Republicans have publicly supported the Birther's challenge. In spite of clear and legal evidence that Obama was born in the United States, these Republicans claim that they have not seen the proof of citizenship that the Birthers are demanding. The rest of the elected Republicans as well as the Republican National Committee remained completely silent on the matter until this week when an RNC spokesperson released this statement, "Chairman Steele believes that this is an unnecessary distraction and believes that the president is a U.S. citizen." Steele waited until Obama had been president for 6 months before finally coming out against the outrageous Birther accusation. The McCain campaign team never acknowledged Obama's U.S. citizenship and John McCain only did so when one of his supporters asked him if Obama was a Muslim and not an American.

You may be saying that it's politics as usual and the Democrats would do the same thing if the situation was reversed but that is not true. McCain was actually born in a foreign country - Panama - where McCain's father was serving in the U.S. Navy. When McCain opponents started challenging McCain's citizenship and right to run for the presidency, Democratic Senators Claire McCaskill of Missouri and Patrick Leahy of Vermont introduced a resolution in the Senate proclaiming that John McCain was a U.S. Citizen. The resolution was co-sponsored by Democrats Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and Jim Webb and Republican Tom Coburn. The resolution was proposed only two months after the accusations about McCain became public.

While there is no less evidence that Barack Obama is a U.S. citizen, several congressional Republicans and many Republican spokespersons, including Liz Cheney aka "Little Dick," continue to challenge Obama's U.S. citizenship. One statement released by an RNC spokesperson, rather than a public statement from Chairman Steele and/or congressional Republican leaders, is not enough and has come way too late.

The RNC and elected Republicans have not come out against the accusation in support of their president for political reasons; not because they are so stupid or so uninformed that they believe the accusation. In spite of their claim to be the moral leadership of the U.S., the RNC and elected Republicans have proven again to be anything but.

If you happen to be one of the Birthers, be ashamed of your utter stupidity and should I say racial bigotry. If you are a Republican and you believe that Obama is a U.S. citizen, then I suggest that you write your party leadership and your elected Republican representatives, if you have any, and demand that they publicly oppose the Birthers and strongly proclaim that Obama is a U.S. citizen.

If you happen to be undecided about Obama's citizenship, I suggest that you wake up and start using your brain.