connecting*the*dots

Apologize and move on, Felix — you’re just digging yourself a deeper hole with this kind of a stunt.

Check out this stop, at the 1996 Conservative Political Action Conference, an annual gathering of conservative movement organizations, where he asked the founders of the CCC to pose for a photo-op:

What does the CCC stand for, you ask?

“We also oppose all efforts to mix the races of mankind, to promote non-white races over the European-American people through so-called “affirmative action” and similar measures, to destroy or denigrate the European-American heritage, including the heritage of the Southern people, and to force the integration of the races.”

– Council of Conservative Citizens, Statement of Principles

(via The Nation)

Vernon’s made a new buddy-in-hate, good ol’ boy Rush Limbaugh… and he’s bubbling over with joy. Hmm.. let me try to recreate the vibe of Vern’s email newsletter for you:

RUSH: You’ve gotta hear this campaign commercial. There’s a man running for office as a Republican, running for Congress in … North Carolina. His name is Vernon Robinson. The audio is what we have here, obviously. The video to his commercial is … on his website. (Laughing.) I don’t even want to characterize it. Just listen to this commercial.

RUSH: Goes out with Leave It To Beaver music. I should point out Vernon Robinson is black, and when he mentions Sharpton and Jackson — have you seen the spot? When he gets to Jackson, he found a mug shot of Jesse Jackson and that’s what he runs and he found a picture of Sharpton with an Afro from years and years ago. (Laughing.) This is a national campaign. I mean, he’s talking about national issues. They all have impact locally, but I thought it was the Democrats that were going to nationalize the election this year! I thought Democrats were going to do that. That is Vernon Robinson who is running for Congress … He’s getting grief like you can’t believe. This is one of the best political ads in a long, long time, and can I ask you: When you heard that, folks, when you heard that, weren’t you going, “Yeah! Okay, yeah, yeah,” and, “Why don’t more Republicans talk like this? Why don’t more of them say these are the problems that we face?” And here’s Vernon Robinson in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, saying: I’m a pioneer, and I will take the arrows.
…

RUSH: Myrtle Beach, South Carolina - this is Jean. Welcome to the program.

JEAN: Well hello, mega dittos. … I wanted to say Vernon is a man.

RUSH: Do you know Vernon Robinson?

JEAN: No. I don’t know him personally. I just love his ah what can you say. He stands for something, regardless.

RUSH: Yes he does.

JEAN: I love a man. That’s my man.

RUSH: He stands for a lot of things.

JEAN: Yes. Besides yourself, that’s one I wouldn’t mind marrying.

RUSH: (Laughing) … I’ll tell you what’s do. She’s calling about an ad. Vernon Robinson is running for Congress as a Republican in … North Carolina. He has one of the best television ads out there in a long time. We have the audio to it. We are going to link to this at rushlimbaugh.com, link to his website because the video of this ad will start playing automatically once you log on to his website. … We mention Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton in this ad. And the picture of the Reverend Jackson in this ad is his mugshot. … The picture of the Reverend Sharpton is back in the big jewelry, big hair, heavier days. I think he’s got a medallion on. He’s wearing a cleric’s collar …

RUSH: And of course it concludes with Leave it to Beaver type music. That is just a great, great ad. And by the way, again we were told the Democrats are going to be running a national campaign in their House races this year. Sounds to me like Vernon Robinson, who is black by the way, and he is a target now, they are targeting this guy like - he’s going to be targeted not to the extent Clarence Thomas was — but maybe Michael Steele, Ken Blackwell, Lynn Swann. This is, I mean pardon the French here, this is off the plantation. He has escaped and wandered off the liberal Democrat plantation. This is not allowed. This is not permitted. If they could, they’d grab this guy and send him to One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest and let Hillary as Nurse Ratchet try to get his mind right. Either that or send him to the warden in Cool Hand Luke and put him in the box. I can’t tell you folks. This wouldn’t have happened 20 years ago. You wouldn’t have had a black … congressional candidate in North Carolina running a spot like this. And mocking the Reverend Jackson and Al Sharpton. But it’s a new day out there. Vernon Robinson, Winston-Salem, North Carolina.
…

RUSH: Folks, don’t panic out there. Vernon Robinson’s website is not broken. The link is not broken. We’ve just shut down their server. We’ve overloaded the server at the Vernon Robinson campaign site where we’ve got the link posted to see his great TV ad. Just be patient. And as people get in and get out of there, the traffic will subside and you will be able to get in. But the site’s working fine. We’ve sent more people than their server can handle and this happens, we shut down servers routinely on this program.

Without your immediate financial support, Vernon cannot create new ads and put them on TV and radio! Please help Vernon make more ads that Rush Limbaugh says every Republican should be using.

Limbaugh played the Robinson ad twice. It was almost as if he was thinking, “Yeehaw! Someone else can hate more than me!” Remember kids, free speech is a beautiful thing, as it can help us find the bigots amongst us!

(illustration by Chris Fahey at graphpaper)

Maria Newman, The New York Times
Bush Backs Gay Marriage Ban as Senate Debates

[…]

Some critics of the marriage amendment contend that it conflicts with the Republican Party’s avowed opposition to big government interference.

Senator Arlen Specter, Republican of Pennsylvania, said that while he believed marriage should be between a man and a woman, he said he would vote against the amendment to ban gay marriage because the matter was already being addressed by the states. He quoted the late Sen. Barry Goldwater as saying that government “ought to be kept off our backs, out of our pocketbooks and out of our bedrooms.”

“This is a matter which ought to be left to the states, and the states are taking care of it,” he said. “It’s a matter of privacy, it’s a matter of tolerance, two very, very highly placed values in our society.”

Another Republican, Senator Sam Brownback of Kansas, said that he would support the amendment, and that he was disturbed that some critics of it said the measure amounted to bigotry against one group in society.

“What people are trying to do here is make fundamental policy for the country on a fundamental issue, and that’s marriage,” he said. “It is not bigotry to define marriage as between a man and a woman.”

If that were the case, Mr. Brownback said, then people would have to conclude that people in the states that have banned gay marriage, as well as the many religious leaders who backed them, were bigots.

[…]

Bigots… yeah, that pretty much sums it up for me. In 40 years, we’re all going to look back at these discussions and think, “wow, those were some seriously unenlightened bigots making a big deal out of nothing.”

Because it isn’t a big deal.

People need to put down their crosses, start worrying about their own relationships and their own bodies and quit leaning on big government to set a “moral compass.”

The world is confronting issues of genocide, hunger and terrorism while this administration panders to the pet issues of a far-right constituency. It’s obvious and pathetic… and bigoted.

(h/t O Danny)