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Bob Herbert: Bigotry in black
2008-08-02 23:26:00 Bob Herbert, New York Times, attempts to slime John McCain, only to show his true and bigoted colors: The racial fantasy factor in this presidential campaign is out of control. It was at work in that New Yorker cover that caused such a stir. (Mr. Obama in Muslim garb with the American flag burning in the fireplace.) It’s driving the idea that Barack Obama is somehow presumptuous, too arrogant, too big for his britches — a man who obviously does not know his place. Mr. Obama has to endure these grotesque insults with a smile and heroic levels of equanimity. The reason he has to do this — the sole reason — is that he is black. Well Herbert is right, half right. The race card is bieng played but its being played by Barack Obama. From a recent BO campaign rally in Florida, as attributed by Ed Morrissey, Hot Air Protester: So my question is: In the face of the numerous attacks that are made against the African community or the black community, by the same US government that y...
By: BitsBlog
Saturday Night Live: Bob Herbert article: worth repeating
2008-05-12 03:16:00 Saturday Night Live said what a lot of people have been thinking - that Hillary Clinton is dividing America along racial lines with her ill advised comments. Behind the satire of the Amy Poehler skit there is more than a grain of truth.In an interview with USA Today, Clinton said:" ... Sen. Obama's support among hard-working Americans, white Americans, is weakening again ... whites in both states (Indiana and N.Carolina) who had not completed college were supporting me."Clinton supporter Rep Charles Rangel described it as "the dumbest thing she could have said."On SNL Amy Poehler did a good Clinton impersonation. In giving reasons why she would make the better president, Poehler's Clinton said "I am a sore loser ... I would probably refuse to campaign for him." Another reason ... "my supporters are racist."Check out the video clip at this link.A Bob Herbert article in the New York Times - "Seeds of Destruction" - is a must read.Herbert quotes Clinton's 'white American' comment...
By: Aidan Maconachy
Jeremiah Shaft
2008-04-29 13:36:00 They say this cat Shaft is a bad mother-- SHUT YOUR MOUTH! I'm talkin' 'bout Shaft. THEN WE CAN DIG IT!"It turns out that Mr. Wright doesn?t hate America, he loves the sound of his own voice." NYT's Alessandra Stanley on Rev. Jeremiah Wright's vengeful attempts to derail Obama. MSNBC's "Morning Joe" Scarborough this a.m.: "He [Wright] needs Valium." "Pastor Disaster" NYP"Feeling dissed by Senator Obama, Mr. Wright gets revenge on his former follower while bathed in a spotlight brighter than any he could ever have imagined. He?s living a narcissist?s dream." Bob Herbert NYT Related (sort of): Blaxploitation movies. Obama's got to cut this guy's nuts off... Wash Post
By: Chickaboomer
Hillary on the High Road? By BOB HERBERT
2008-02-24 06:39:00 (reprinted from the New York Times February 23, 2008)A referee would stop the fight. Hillary Clinton is exhausted, and her supporters are becoming increasingly demoralized. The candidate who tried to present herself as inevitable has been out-maneuvered nearly every step of the way by a prodigy with a warm and brilliant smile who still seems as energetic as an athlete doing calisthenics before a big game.Texas and Ohio and several other states still have to vote. But there was a wistful quality and a strong hint of resignation in Senator Clinton’s voice at the end of the debate Thursday night when, after saying she was “honored to be here with Barack Obama,” she added:“Whatever happens, we’re going to be fine. We have strong support from our families and our friends. I just hope that we’ll be able to say the same thing about the American people.”Mrs. Clinton said later that she had not become pessimistic about her chances to win the democratic presidential nomination. ...
Bob Herbert Explains It All
2007-11-11 01:28:00 The CPI clarification from Atrios notwithstanding, this is still perhaps the best column I've read about what is truly going on in a long time...If it looks like a recession and feels like a recession ...?Quite frankly,? said Senator Charles Schumer, peering over his glasses at the Fed chairman, Ben Bernanke, ?I think we are at a moment of economic crisis, stemming from four key areas: falling housing prices, lack of confidence in creditworthiness, the weak dollar and high oil prices.?He asked Mr. Bernanke, at a Congressional hearing Thursday, if we were headed toward a recession.An aide handed the chairman his dancing shoes, and Mr. Bernanke executed a flawless version of the Washington waffle. He said: ?Our forecast is for moderate, but positive, growth going forward.? He said: ?Economists are extremely bad at predicting turning points, and we don?t pretend to be any better.? He said: ?We have not calculated the probability of recession, and I wouldn?t want to offer that today.?W...
Obama on School Violence
2007-07-17 06:02:00 A Voice Raised in ChicagoBy Bob HerbertThe New York TimesSenator Barack Obama took his presidential campaign to Chicago Sunday, where he addressed an agonizing issue that has been largely overlooked by the national media ? the murder of dozens of the city?s public school students since last September.Speaking to an overflow crowd of worshipers at the Vernon Park Church of God, Mr. Obama, a resident of Chicago, said:?I asked to come here because I wanted to talk with you about the spate of violence that?s been robbing the city?s children of their future. In this last school year, 32 Chicago public school students were killed, and even more since the school year ended. This past week alone, two teens were shot in a South Side schoolyard.?You?ve probably heard more than you wanted to about David Beckham and Posh Spice in recent days, but not a lot about the deaths of these children and teenagers in Chicago. Black, Latino and poor, they are America?s invisible children.?In one Chicago p...
War: Crime Against Humanity
2007-07-10 04:26:00 Abusing Iraqi CiviliansBy Bob HerbertThe New York TimesWith no end yet in sight for the long dark night of the Iraq war, The Nation magazine is coming out this week with an article that goes into great and disturbing detail about the brutal treatment of Iraqi civilians by some U.S. soldiers and marines.The article does not focus on the handful of atrocities that have gotten substantial press coverage, like the massacre in Haditha in November 2005. Instead, based on interviews conducted on the record with dozens of American combat veterans of the war, the authors address what they describe as frequent acts of violence in which U.S. forces have abused or killed Iraqi civilians ? men, women and children ? with impunity.The combination of recklessness, wantonly destructive behavior born of panic and deliberate acts of cold-blooded violence by G.I.?s are believed to have cost the lives of thousands of innocent Iraqis, the article says. The soldiers interviewed said they believed that onl...
Bob Herbert Column
2007-07-05 22:51:00 Blogger, The Unknown Candidate posted a June 16th Bob Herbert column from The New York Times. A great piece about the Northeastern University labor study that found, "the national teen employment rate averaged only 33.1 percent, tying for the lowest employment rate in the past 60 years." Herbert writes, A steady job could make all the difference. Along with the paycheck comes a sense of the possibilities. Kids develop a clearer understanding of the value of education and are more likely to stay in school. The heightened sense of self-worth that comes from gainful employment can be a bulwark against negative peer pressure. Contacts are made and a work history established. "The more you work today, the more you're going to work tomorrow," said Andrew Sum, director of the Center for Labor Market Studies. "And the more you work while you're in school, the easier it is to transition to the labor market when you graduate." It seems obvious that we sho...
Bob Herbert Column
2007-07-05 22:51:00 Blogger, The Unknown Candidate posted a June 16th Bob Herbert column from The New York Times. A great piece about the Northeastern University labor study that found, "the national teen employment rate averaged only 33.1 percent, tying for the lowest employment rate in the past 60 years." Herbert writes, A steady job could make all the difference. Along with the paycheck comes a sense of the possibilities. Kids develop a clearer understanding of the value of education and are more likely to stay in school. The heightened sense of self-worth that comes from gainful employment can be a bulwark against negative peer pressure. Contacts are made and a work history established. "The more you work today, the more you're going to work tomorrow," said Andrew Sum, director of the Center for Labor Market Studies. "And the more you work while you're in school, the easier it is to transition to the labor market when you graduate." It seems obvious that we sho...
Arrested Development
2007-07-03 07:05:00 This is America. This is American freedom. This is Bush World:Harassed in the ClassroomBy Bob HerbertThe New York TimesMichael Soguero was a first-rate principal at Bronx Guild High School. He loved his job, and he loved teaching in New York. He has not blamed the New York City Police Department for his departure to a school in Estes Park, Colo. Nevertheless, the facts are the facts.Back on Feb. 3, 2005, a student came running into Mr. Soguero?s office at Bronx Guild to say that a police officer was in a classroom. ?I jumped up and ran to the classroom,? Mr. Soguero told me in an interview last week. ?I found this officer, Gonzalez, exchanging words with a female student.?Everyone is sitting down except for the teacher and these two. The girl was saying, ?What did I do? What are you talking to me about?? ?What was about to unfold was another episode of bizarrely excessive police activity inside a New York City public school.The girl, who was 16, had apparently uttered a curse word...
The Black Vote
2007-06-30 07:10:00 While I agree with Bob Herbert in today's Times column (see below), it will take more than voting to change things for Blacks in this country. The evidence is clear in the last three elections that vote fraud and the intentional disenfranchisement of voters, particularly students and blacks, was rampant. Until we -- all Americans of all colors -- demand secure elections and votes that can be counted and recounted accurately (a paper trail for every vote and every voter) and prosecute those who maliciously attempt to disenfranchise voters -- nothing will change. Further, Blacks and others who have been intentionally marginalized in our society rightfully must question the importance of their vote -- even if counted. Although the Democrats have a better record on Black issues, when in power they haven't done nearly enough. Both sides of the aisle pay lip service to Black causes in political debates -- and then forget all about their promises once elected. The resulting voter cy...
When Dollars Trump Compassion
2007-06-19 06:14:00 By Bob HerbertThe New York TimesYou won?t see these stories on television, but Marian Wright Edelman and Dr. Irwin Redlener could talk to you all day and all night about children whose lives have been lost or ruined because they didn?t have health insurance.This is not a situation one associates with a so-called advanced country. That you can have sick children wasting away in the United States, the wealthiest nation on the planet, because medical treatment that could relieve their suffering is withheld by men and women with dollar signs instead of compassion in their eyes is beyond unconscionable.Ms. Edelman is the president of the Children?s Defense Fund, and Dr. Redlener is president of the Children?s Health Fund.Both are appalled at the embarrassing fact that nine million American children have no health coverage at all. Among them are children with diabetes, chronic asthma, heart conditions, life-threatening allergies and so on. In many instances they are left untreated until i...
The Millions Left Out
2007-05-12 10:13:00 By Bob HerbertThe New York TimesThe United States may be the richest country in the world, but there are many millions ? tens of millions ? who are not sharing in that prosperity.According to the most recent government figures, 37 million Americans are living below the official poverty threshold, which is $19,971 a year for a family of four. That?s one out of every eight Americans, and many of them are children.More than 90 million Americans, close to a third of the entire population, are struggling to make ends meet on incomes that are less than twice the official poverty line. In my book, they?re poor.We don?t see poor people on television or in the advertising that surrounds us like a second atmosphere. We don?t pay much attention to the millions of men and women who are changing bedpans, or flipping burgers for the minimum wage, or vacuuming the halls of office buildings at all hours of the night. But they?re there, working hard and getting very little in return.The number of po...
More Than Just Talk
2007-05-08 06:11:00 By Bob HerbertThe New York Times New OrleansIt was a nice moment. The sky was filled with thick, dark clouds and a monsoonlike storm was on its way, but there was the presidential candidate, John Edwards, in work boots, jeans and a navy blue shirt, talking with a handful of neighborhood people gathered outside a house that was being built in the Ninth Ward.The former senator was there for a photo-op and the chat wouldn?t last long. But the people, most of them young, were excited to see him. They listened thoughtfully and asked a number of questions.The scene was immensely more appealing than the overly scripted televised ?debates? that feature sleep-inducing nonanswers from an army of candidates browbeaten by moderators wielding stopwatches.New Orleans has not been a hot topic at those upscale gatherings. Much of the city is still in ruins, still in ?terrible shape,? as Mr. Edwards noted. During a lengthy interview that followed his talk with the local residents, he told me that wh...
America Disconnected
2007-05-03 05:23:00 ?The president can say we?re a country at war all he wants. We?re not. The military is at war. And the military families are at war. Everybody else is shopping.? -- Paul RieckhoffAn Invisible WarBy Bob HerbertThe New York TimesPaul Rieckhoff looked across the crowded restaurant, which was not far from Times Square.?During World War II,? he said, ?we could be in this place and there would be a guy sitting at that table who was in the war, or the bartender had been in the war. Everybody you saw would have had a stake in the war. But right now you could walk around New York for blocks and not find anybody who has been in Iraq.?The president can say we?re a country at war all he wants. We?re not. The military is at war. And the military families are at war. Everybody else is shopping.?Mr. Rieckhoff is an imposing six-foot-two-inch, 245-pound former infantry officer who joined the military after graduating from Amherst College. When he came home from a harrowing tour in Iraq in 2004, he...
Working the Truth Beat
2007-04-30 05:38:00 By Bob HerbertThe New York TimesThe initial feeling is shock, and then comes anger, the anger bursting through even before the inevitable sadness sets in.Two people whom I respected a great deal were killed ? one of them insanely and the other absurdly ? in the past three weeks.Julia Campbell was a friend from several years back who had worked as a freelancer at The Times and a number of other media outlets before joining the Peace Corps and going off to the Philippines. I was watching the news on television about a week and a half ago when her photo came on the screen. The story said that she had been reported missing.A couple of days later the news came that she had been murdered. The authorities have arrested a man who said he bludgeoned her to death with a rock after she accidentally bumped into him.I remember once when we were hanging out, shooting the breeze about some horror in the news, Julia said to me, ?Why is the world the way it is?? She added quickly, as though embarras...
Paying the Price
2007-04-12 05:33:00 Paying the PriceBy Bob HerbertThe New York TimesYou knew something was up early in the day. As soon as I told executives at MSNBC that I was going to write about the ?60 Minutes? piece, which was already in pretty wide circulation, they began acting very weird. We?ll get back to you, they said.In a ?60 Minutes? interview with Don Imus broadcast in July 1998, Mike Wallace said of the ?Imus in the Morning? program, ?It?s dirty and sometimes racist.?Mr. Imus then said: ?Give me an example. Give me one example of one racist incident.? To which Mr. Wallace replied, ?You told Tom Anderson, the producer, in your car, coming home, that Bernard McGuirk is there to do nigger jokes.?Mr. Imus said, ?Well, I?ve nev ? I never use that word.?Mr. Wallace then turned to Mr. Anderson, his producer. ?Tom,? he said.?I?m right here,? said Mr. Anderson.Mr. Imus then said to Mr. Anderson, ?Did I use that word??Mr. Anderson said, ?I recall you using that word.??Oh, O.K.,? said Mr. Imus. ?Well, then I used ...
Descending to New DepthsBy Bob HerbertThe New York TimesNew
2007-01-15 16:15:01 Descending to New DepthsBy Bob HerbertThe New York TimesNew OrleansI was surprised recently by a sudden shift in the tone of a veteran cabdriver, Stanley Taylor, who had been kind enough to take me on a nearly four-hour tour of the flood-wrecked regions of the city.For most of the afternoon, Mr. Taylor had been wonderfully informative and polite, and his comments had been filled with sympathy for those who had lost so much to Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath.But as we headed back to my hotel, and darkness began to fall over the eerily still neighborhoods, his tone became unmistakably bitter. We had been talking casually about the thousands of extremely poor evacuees, most of them black, who were still stranded outside New Orleans, some of them scattered to the far reaches of the United States.Mr. Taylor, who is black, snapped that maybe it would be better if some of them didn?t come back. ?The poor people that?s gone,? he said, ?they?re gonna have to stay gone. That?s where all t... |
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