What’s Typical?

So, while flipping through the channels this morning, looking for something on that wouldn’t cause me to be pissed off for the rest of the day, I ran across Obama on Fox News. He was justifying throwing his granny under the bus while  justifying his involvement with Wright’s church.

Because I can’t find the video or a link to an article about the snip I caught on Fox while flipping this morning, I’ll paraphrase his justification: His point wasn’t that she was racist; His point was that she is a typical white person.

[I’ll get a link up to the actual quote as soon as I can find one.]

I’m unclear exactly what he meant. Did he mean that his granny was a typical white person in that she was racist? Because that’s what it sounded like to me. I question this only because there were a slue of white people clapping madly behind him when he said this. Surely, they wouldn’t clap so enthusiastically if he was calling them racist; would they?  

The only reason I’m not hopping mad is that I didn’t catch the entire interview. Like I said, I was flipping channels when I caught the tail end. So I could be mistaken about his meaning. But I don’t think so. I’ll find a link and post it here as soon as it becomes available.

LATER: OK. I found two links: One is from Philly.com and the other is from NRO. Obama’s exact words: The point I was making was not that my grandmother harbors any racial animosity, but that she is a typical white person.

I have two thoughts on this.

1) So white people aren’t typically racist, but they do go around using racial and ethnic slurs. Because that’s what he accused his grandmother of doing. Lovely. What a wonderful picture he has of the white half of his heritage. And what a wonderful view he has of, you know, most of the people in the US. Also, racial and ethnic slurs are racist. I thought that was the rule: if you use the n-word, you’re a racist. I thought that was understood by everybody. No? Have the rules changed now that Obama has to contrive an explanation for throwing his granny under the bus?

2) Racial and ethnic stereotyping is as racist as racial and ethnic slurs. Just because Obama’s stereotyping is aimed at a race that comprises the majority of Americans doesn’t make it any less wrong. You know, I thought that was a rule, too: you stereotype an entire race, then you’re a racist. Again, have the rules changed now for Obama?

Obama’s Little Controversy: What Does Five Days Mean?

Controversy? A tad. Perhaps even a smidgen.

I’ll tell you how I feel about it: numb.

Really, I am completely numb from the plain out old fashioned rage boiling inside me. Now, at any old time, saying that 9/11 is (to paraphrase) America’s chickens coming home to roost is nasty. Saying it with such unfetered glee, with such schadenfreude, is abominable. So when I hear that such putridity is coming from the spiritual adviser of a presidential candidate, well, it makes me fucking angry.

And then I find out that such things were said on 9/16/01, only 5 days after 9/11. Well, that is quite a different matter. Ace puts it best (I linked to the whole thing above, but here’s a quote that boils the timing down for me):

Firemen were still digging through skin-blistering ash in a futile effort to find more survivors of the 9/11 attacks. And putting their health at risk breathing heavily in air heavily tainted with asbestos and toxins.

This is when Wright felt all that schadenfreude about the 9/11 attacks. We hadn’t even finished cleaning up. Hell, we hadn’t even finished finding the remains of everyone who died just five days earlier. For crying out loud, even the most hardened America-hating leftist waited a year or so before making these kinds of statements. But Wright? Five days.

That takes some kind of hate, right there. Ace had something to say about that, too:

[I]t represents a vindication of his sickening worldview and a well-deserved comeupppance for the nation he so deeply hates.

Like I said: schadenfreude. That video just oozes it.

You know, everyone was going to church like crazy immediately following 9/11. The churches were packed; that was all over the news. I find it hard to believe that Obama didn’t to the same thing and go to church following 9/11. So it’s likely that he heard this. Perhaps not at this specific time, but at another. (If there’s one thing I know about preachers, it’s that they reuse material from one sermon to the next.) And Obama never thought this was controversial?

 But it’s such a small thing, pay it no mind. Nothing to see here. Move along.