The 'Bubba' vote

Kathleen Parker's love letter to simple, unenlightened values is more than just a reminder to white voters that McCain is the best choice because he’s a regular American (an unabashedly racist ploy likely to become basic Republican strategy). The subtext here goes much further, suggesting that decent, God-fearing Americans should come together, round up all the damn foreigners, and send ‘em back where they came from.

My ancestors have been in this country long enough to make me “full-blooded” according to your standard, but I sure don’t get it — I don’t get any part of it. I not only dispute that this world view represents a way forward for this country, I think it smacks of the kind of Nazi-Klan fear mongering that will do nothing but drag us all into a black hole of hatred and despair.

Shame on you Kathleen Parker. I believe we can do better.

speaking of being able to spot phoniness, when Ms. Parker says "it isn't necessarily racist or nativist to...," well, we know what's coming next, don't we?

"heritage, core values, and made-in-America"

"someone who is a full-blooded American as president."

Kathleen,

Please explain how Barack Obama does not have core values, heritage or is not made in america. You know with him being a self-made, religious and family man Are you a joke? Or did you just get your education in a small minded college? These are the exact types of articles that are indicative of the ignorance that has become ubiquitous in so many parts of our country. The most disparaging thing here is you don't see the ignorance in this statement. My family has all sorts of heritage in this country going back generations; from my Norwegian relatives who fought in the civil war to my Irish relatives that came at the turn of the century because of the potato famine. These are the people that you would now consider one's that are "full-blooded" Americans who have "core values, heritage and are made in America." You know what else they have in common? They were all considered "foreigners, un-American, and lacked serious 'core values'' when they got to our country. But I gues you wouldn't consider that because that would take acutal academic and intellectual thought-something you decided takes to much consideration when you can just be a bigot and ignore how your fear dictates your politics. Pathetic...

Made in America and wishing ignorant people would stay out of the political process,

Pat

Some people like to think that America has been the same for 200 years. Well guess what, it's not. Our culture is not even remotely the same as it was 200 years ago. People like Parker are pining away for a time that is already long gone.

Hans wrote:

Obama core values are to surround himself with Marxists since his mentor in high school. Obama's religion is a blame whitey black liberation philosophy and his self-made status is compliments of affirmative action.
Most Americans are not bitter bible thumping gun nuts but Obama has no problem calling them racists. Americans are a pretty tolerant group but it is unAmerican to be a whiner and you, Obama and the other Obamabots are experts at whining. Obama sits through 20 years of blame whitey and Afro centric preaching and now he expects people to believe he shares their core values?

I'm sorry Hans but can you please show me where Obama has blamed white people and preached afro-centric rhetoric? You can't, and you know you can't but that does not matter to you because you refuse to look at the truth. Obama was a product of affirmative action? How is that? Were you part of the admissions process? Do you know what his scores or grades were? You have no idea. You simply blame somebody like Barack Obama because you probably have issues in your life that you can't get over. Obama has never called anybody racist, for goodness sake Hans, he is half white. Did you hear that? Did you know that? I don't care that people want to own guns and presevere the right to do so. That is a legiteamate concern. However, what I am against is people such as yourself that are so easily turned to hate, blame and assumptions with no grounding in fact. Was Obama's pastor a racist? Yes, but he is also the product of growing up in an era where his people were hung, beatin, firehosed, considered less than equal to whites and various other atrocious and undeserving acts. You need to understand both sides of him. Calling me an Obamabot only underscores my point of ignorant Americans such as yourself as being bigots who use uneducated, flawed logical blanketed in remedial, hateful hyperboles in order to foster a divide that furthers your own pholosophies. Those philosophies is to blame everyone, hate everything and displace the unfortunate events in their own lives to easy targets which are people who are different than you. YOU ARE IGNORANT.
Pat

I think any American who says they are not racist is a liar. Americans are raised on racism no matter what their color or ethnic background. American history is rife with racsim. Blacks and whites are tied by racism even today.It is what it is. If we acknowlede that openly and honestly we can move forward positively

As far as a full-blooded American vote *or* embracing multiculturalism - there is no such thing. This country isn't this or that, this country is this *and* that. Whites can still find areas where only they are allowed - neighborhoods, schools and churches and there are neighborhoods, schools and churches that are multi-cultural. It is still a choice in this country.

How can American heritage be swept under the carpet when it is based in blood of the people who were originally here? And still are here.

I don't find the plight of "hard working whites" any different to the plight of hard working people everywhere in this country. And to disclude other groups who are in the same boat (more so, due the fact that minorities are more likely to be economic disenfranchised than whites) is a disservice and an embarrassment to this country.

Why is the values that "Bubba" embraces so different to anyone else? This commentary shows that while we've come some distance we have a long way to go.

Tom wrote:

Some people like to think that America has been the same for 200 years. Well guess what, it's not. Our culture is not even remotely the same as it was 200 years ago. People like Parker are pining away for a time that is already long gone.

I totally agree. And to deny that is to deny the progress we've made.

Please see the result of Mississippi vote yesterday. The people ARE getting it, Kathleen.

Correction: that should be "their admissions standards", not "there". Just thought I'd point it out before someone else gets the chance.

White on, Hillary!

Lucky,

My mother got into Harvard medical school with a B average in undergraduate school. What she did have, however, were high test scores, a good cover letter and great letter of recommendations. You do not know what else Obama submitted so it is not fair to say he got in because of affirmative action. Grades, especially for graduate school, are not as heavily weighted as test scores, experience and letters of recommendation. I think its also fair to say that you seriously lack knowledge in the admissions process.

Pat

Paul,

Calling Barack by only his middle name of "Hussein" clearly indicates a low-information signaling of ignorance. You would never call Hillary by only "Rodham", you are exactly the person that should not be involved in politics as you are not intellegent nor mature enough. Grow up...

Pat

Memo to Kathleen Parker:
Barack Obama is just as much American as John McCain. Also how did McCain get into the Naval Academy?

I guess i am "full blooded" too, my ancestors have been here since 1800 and we have copies of the bills of sales to prove it. Now imagine a "not so nice" ironic laugh.

Pat Morris wrote:

<quoted text>
I'm sorry Hans but can you please show me where Obama has blamed white people and preached afro-centric rhetoric? You can't, and you know you can't but that does not matter to you because you refuse to look at the truth. Obama was a product of affirmative action? How is that? Were you part of the admissions process? Do you know what his scores or grades were? You have no idea. You simply blame somebody like Barack Obama because you probably have issues in your life that you can't get over. Obama has never called anybody racist, for goodness sake Hans, he is half white. Did you hear that? Did you know that? I don't care that people want to own guns and presevere the right to do so. That is a legiteamate concern. However, what I am against is people such as yourself that are so easily turned to hate, blame and assumptions with no grounding in fact. Was Obama's pastor a racist? Yes, but he is also the product of growing up in an era where his people were hung, beatin, firehosed, considered less than equal to whites and various other atrocious and undeserving acts. You need to understand both sides of him. Calling me an Obamabot only underscores my point of ignorant Americans such as yourself as being bigots who use uneducated, flawed logical blanketed in remedial, hateful hyperboles in order to foster a divide that furthers your own pholosophies. Those philosophies is to blame everyone, hate everything and displace the unfortunate events in their own lives to easy targets which are people who are different than you. YOU ARE IGNORANT.
Pat

I didn't say Obama preached anything, I said his religion is a blame whitey afro centric religion as laid out on the church's own website. And yes Wright is a racist and Obama chose him to be his mentor and created a post for Wright on his campaign. Wright, who ought to know, has said that Obama agrees with the teachings of the church and is denying it now out of political expediency. I can see why Wright might be racist even though he lived a comfortable upper middle class urban lifestyle just as I can see white people being racist after seeing their neighborhood turn into a ghetto.

You have a very short memory as just last month Obama called people in small towns racist xenophobic bible thumping gun nuts. Obama by his own admission has spent virtually his entire life trying to be black and a militant one at that.

Your so called self made man had virtually no record in Springfield until Emil Jones decided to make himself a Senator by putting Obama's name on a slew of bills. Bills that had been championed by others for many years. I call that affirmative action of the worst kind.

You have taken the only refuge supporters of Obama can use and that is to call people racists and divisive. That is rich coming from a supporter of someone that is more liberal than Hillary and proud to be associated with Marxists. I don't blame people for the situation I am in unlike the whiners and Obama himself. This country is horrible and only St. Barak can bring hope and change. I am very happy with my life but I point fingers at those that could help themselves but instead expect government to bail them out. I hate people that confuse equal opportunity with equal outcome. I call people Obamabots when they cheerfully accept Obamas lies as if they are "understanding both sides of the story."

CIVICS 101 wrote:

<quoted text>
MOST OF BLACK AMERICAS CURRENT PROBLEMS HAVE NO SOLUTION THAT CAN BE ELIMINATED BY GOVERNMENT OR WHITES FOR THAT MATTER.
IT TOOK TWO HUNDRED YEARS TO BRING ABOUT THE ACCEPTANCE OF CIVIL RIGHTS IN THE COUNTRY VERY TOLERANT RIGHT.
WAS THERE AN UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER OF Japan PRIOR TO THE SECOND ATOM BOMB YES, DID WE CARE NO.
FURTHER TO THAT END DID THE TUSKEGEE EXPERIMENT NOT OCCUR.
WAS JESUS NOT CRUCIFIED BY THE PAGAN LOVING ROMANS.
YOU DONT HAVE TO AGREE WITH THE MAN BUT YOU CANT CHANGE HISTORY EITHER.
EVERYONE IS ENTITLED TO THEIR OPINOIN IN THIS WORLD JUST AS RICHARD QUINN "What better way to reject politics as usual than to elect a maverick like David Duke? What better way to tweak the nose of the establishment?"
AND OTHER RACISTS IN THE MCCAIN CAMP ARE ENTITLED TO THEIRS

Wright can make up any history he wants, just as you have. And no, I don't agree with him but Obama apparently does, or did or maybe he's just lying as usual.

24-year-old Josh Fry of West Virginia described his preference for John McCain over Barack Obama by saying that he would be more comfortable with someone who is "a full-blooded American” as President. In her editorial yesterday, Kathleen Parker admits that Josh Fry might have been talking about Obama's Kenyan father. Nevertheless, she says that he has hit on something essential in this Presidential race. Throughout the rest of her editorial, Parker uses the words "heritage" and "roots." She also talks about "commitment to American values." However, this last issue is a red herring, since a first-generation immigrant can be just as committed to American values as anyone else. The issue here is not one of values, but, as Parker rightly says, one of "heritage" and "roots." I agree with Parker that this has emerged as something essential in this Presidential election, and there is a word for it. The word is xenophobia: hatred or fear of strangers or foreigners. No one could have articulated this xenophobia better than Parker. It is "us" versus "them," and we are those who were "made-in-America." We are those who "trace our bloodlines back through generations of sacrifice." Well, let's be honest for a moment about those past generations of Americans. If you can trace your roots back very far, then your ancestors were among those who benefited from the enslavement of millions of innocent human beings.(Even in the north, the textile mills made most of their profits from cotton that was harvested by slave labor in the south.) And if you can trace your roots back even one century, then your ancestors were among those who denied women the right to vote, just because they were women. So, in a sense, Parker is exactly right. She is part of a heritage in America. Unfortunately, that heritage isn't all good, and she is continuing one of its worst aspects, because she is continuing the heritage of prejudice. Maybe it isn't racism, but with xenophobia like hers, who needs racism? Xenophobia will do just as well.

What is with all this "Marxist" this and "Marxist" that? I love how that is used as an insult. First of all Marxism does not equate Communism, and second, stop with the witch hunt. It's not 1953 anymore. Calling someone a Marxist or a Commie or a Red doesn't really hold sway anymore. Grow up.

I feel sick. This is a perfect example of the biggest problem in our country. As a person of mixed race, this offends me. Does this article mean that I am not a full blooded American? I have never even visited outside this country, and I speak no other language besides English. In my opinion, Obama is more American than any of the other candidates. Because of his backround, he sees the same future that I do. A future where there will be no need to trace bloodlines because the world will realize that we are all of one race. Human. Unfortunately, our country seems to be full of ignorant people, just like the young man in this story. This truly saddens me, but it doesn't surprise me at all.

Your 2nd to last paragraph says it all, "It is not necessary to repair antipathy appropriately directed toward people who disregard the laws of the land and who dismiss the struggles that resulted in their creation."
I couldn't agree more, which is why I'm supporting any and all efforts to investigate and prosecute G.W. Bush and company, whose blatant disregard for the laws of this land deserve the stiffest sentences that this nation can provide. Likewise, as a full-blooded American (white, middle-age, Catholic, and middle-class--but sinking daily thanks to this corrupt White House), I will be voting for Obama and NEVER again for a Republican in any race at any level. Though I agree with the line quoted above, the rest of your article was absolute tripe. Next time you might try addressing a genuine issue that actually affects us "full-blooded" Americans.