Is it a surprise the first president to be openly disrespected was an African American ?

[DemocratSinceBirth]

Is it a surprise the first president to be openly disrespected was an African American and the first person to do the disrespecting was from a former slave state?


Joe Wilson should be ashamed of himself and his constituents should be ashamed too but I doubt neither him or them are.

The fact that a person of color holds the highest office in the land sticks in too many people's craws...

Just sad...

[Kahuna]

1. Not at all. Why didn't he just declare another civil way? nt

[DemocratSinceBirth]

19. you mean civil war (SMILE)

If he advocated a civil way of disagreeing I wouldn't have started the thread.

[Kahuna]

28. Right!

:D

[EmilyAnne]

2. Nope. And its no surprise that his birth certificate/ legitimacy is such an obsession with these

people.

[robcon]

3. Wtf does race have to do with it?????

out of left field, IMO.

[EmilyAnne]

5. Joe Wilson of South Carolina was an aide to Strom Thurmond.

I think there are all sorts of pathologies at work in this man's head.
One of them is probably Obama's race.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

6. Left field as opposed to right field

~

[Solomon]

27. LOL Made it to three posts before the racism deniers

come running in. LOL

Yeah, "what does race have to do with it" with 5, count 'em 5 bold question marks.

LOL You guys kill me. On a mission from God to always prove there's no such thing as racist white people.

I'm almost willing to bet that you think Obama is racist right?

[robcon]

31. False dilemma... also known as the fallacy of the excluded middle.

In other words, your post is illogical.

There is no connection with my statement that 'wtf does it have to do with race?'

and your statement that 'there's no such thing as racist white people.'

"The False Dilemma fallacy occurs when an argument offers a false range of choices and requires that you pick one of them. The range is false because there may be other, unstated choices which would only serve to undermine the original argument. If you concede to pick one of those choices, you accept the premise that those choices are indeed the only ones possible. "

In other words, both statements can be true...

There was no connection to race in the boorish statement, and racist white people exist.

[ecstatic]

32. Just a strange coincidence. Move along...Nothing to see here....

:eyes:

[Hannah Bell]

4. are you sure he is?

[EmilyAnne]

7. Is DemocratSinceBirth sure that President Obama is African American? Is that what you are asking?nt

[DemocratSinceBirth]

9. Maybe She Thinks I Am Not Sure SC Was A Former Slave State

BTW- I have actually been to Fort Sumter.

[Hannah Bell]

36. see post 34. & just for the record, obama's the descendant of slave-owners,

not slaves. right up to the civil war.

he could be in this society:

http://www.duvallsociety.org/

[Hannah Bell]

34. is s/he sure obama is the first prez to be disrespected, is my meaning.

[Orsino]

39. Open disrespect of presidents is a couple of centuries old...

...but Wilson's seizure is unprecedented in recent decades, at least.

[Hannah Bell]

40. you might want to review clinton-era film.

[Orsino]

43. Are we talking Congresscritters shouting down a presidential address on the Senate floor? n/t

[Hannah Bell]

44. "disrespecting" the president.

[Orsino]

46. Yeah. An old tradition. n/t

[armyowalgreens]

8. You are drawing some really ridiculous conclusions on this entire situation.

Unrec. The OP is basically complete bullshit.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

10. Hmmm

The elements

First African American president

First president to be interrupted during an address to Congress

The person doing the interrupting is a conservative from a former state of the Confederacy; actually the state where the Civil War began.

[EmilyAnne]

11. Wilson was an aide to Strom Thurmond. It was the mention of illegal immigrants that brought out his

outburst.

Come on.
The guy is probably a bit racist.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

12. I Can't Imagine Calling The President A Liar In An Address To Congress

Can you imagine the outbusrt if a Democratic congressperson did that to Bush*?

[armyowalgreens]

14. Well, I do think it would have been justified to call Bush a liar.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

17. Probably

But if a Democrat had acted like Joe Wilson he would have been pilloried. He os she also probably would have been sanctioned.

[armyowalgreens]

18. Okay, but that doesn't mean that the act of yelling at the president is wrong...

Wilson isn't wrong for yelling at the president. He's wrong because he had no valid reason to do so.

[tekisui]

30. He is wrong for doing it as a sitting Congressman.

It throws gas on the fire of hate that the rabid-racist-right already has for Obama. He legitimized their hate last night.

[armyowalgreens]

16. I don't know his history at all. I also don't know if he simply hit a boiling point...

and ran his mouth when he shouldn't have.

I have no clue. But the whole slave state reference is completely ridiculous.

[TankLV]

25. And YOU don't have a CLUE of what you're talking about...

[DemocratSinceBirth]

35. That Congressperson Must Have A Lot Of Seething Hostility

~

[tekisui]

29. The lack of respect and hate for all things Obama is rooted in racism.

You may deny it, but it is true. Clinton was hated as a Democrat, but not disrespected like this. Obama has a 400% increase in death threats. Parents keeping kids out of school because he is addressing them, all these things are tied to his race.

[ProudToBeBlueInRhody]

42. Clinton wasn't disrespected?

They tried to impeach him for no valid reason whatsoever.

Clinton never gave them the chance to pull their kids from class by making a speech. Trust me, I've met parents who thought even the mention of Clinton in a classroom was grounds for termination of the teacher unless it was negative.

[NoPasaran]

13. Several of them have been shot

I think that's pretty disrespectful.

[TorchTheWitch]

33. and beaten near to death with a cane

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Sumner
Two days later, on the afternoon of May 22, 1856, Preston Brooks, a congressman from South Carolina and Butler's nephew, confronted Sumner as he sat writing at his desk in the almost empty Senate chamber. Brooks was accompanied by Laurence M. Keitt also of South Carolina and Henry A. Edmundson of Virginia, who took no part in the assault. Brooks said, "Mr. Sumner, I have read your speech twice over carefully. It is a libel on South Carolina, and Mr. Butler, who is a relative of mine." As Sumner, who was six feet four inches tall, began to stand up, Brooks began beating Sumner severely on the head with a thick gutta-percha cane with a gold head. Sumner was trapped under the heavy desk (which was bolted to the floor), but Brooks continued to bash Sumner until he ripped the desk from the floor. By this time, Sumner was blinded by his own blood, and he staggered up the aisle and collapsed, lapsing into unconsciousness. Brooks continued to beat Sumner until he broke his cane, then quietly left the chamber. Several other senators attempted to help Sumner, but were blocked by Keitt who was holding a pistol and shouting, "Let them be!" (Brooks died in 1857; Keitt was censured for his actions and was later killed in 1864 during the Civil War as a Confederate officer).

Sumner did not attend the Senate for the next three years while recovering from the attack. In addition to the head trauma, he suffered from nightmares, severe headaches and (what is now understood to be) post-traumatic stress disorder. During that period, his enemies subjected him to ridicule and accused him of cowardice for not resuming his duties in the Senate. Nevertheless, the Massachusetts General Court reelected him in November 1856, believing that his vacant chair in the Senate chamber served as a powerful symbol of free speech and resistance to slavery.<6>

[sufrommich]

15. No, I'm not surprised at all. The GOP has jumped the shark. nt

[WeDidIt]

20. Seems to me that Jackie Robinson had to listen to a lot of shit, too.

Like Jackie, Obama doesn't ahve the luxury of pushing back like those who came before him would have.

[fishnfla]

21. Hypothetical: what if were a woman that got hollered at?

GOP or Dem?

[DemocratSinceBirth]

22. The Act Would Be Disrespectful Regardless Of The Gender Or Race Of The Target

I strongly believe that there is a sizeable minority of Americans to whom having a non-white president is anathema.

[dugaresa]

23. it doesn't surprise me at all that a republican would shout at the president

they are disrespectful and I do believe some of it is racially motivated.

[dbt]

24. White Wingers Are Scared Shitless Of Obama

He's a Democrat, he's a good-looking, highly intelligent Black man with a "furren" name. In short, he's everything that the Wingers have been taught to fear since at least 1988--that being the year that Rust Limpballs first opened his poisonous piehole.

The chances of the disrespect coming from somebody from a former slave state were fifty-fifty. "Fear Of A Black Planet" is not confined to the South.

The larger issue here is the mental unbalance that Talk Radio has brought upon this country. The format should have been strangled in its crib.

[rbrnmw]

26. I am one of his constituents

and I am appalled I have been trying to call his office all morning al circuits are busy

[DemocratSinceBirth]

47. Keep Trying Bro

~

[kiranon]

37. Bingo. You hit the nail on the head. n/t

[DemocratSinceBirth]

38. Thank you

~

[Generator]

41. No not surprised

But we need to stop picking on the South doncha know. It's jsut a coicendence the reps from there are agaisnt black presidents (where is this Obama guy REALLY from?) and health care (the government wants to kill old people) and love war.(we must kill Iraqi's to avenge 9/11) Such a shame the people the represent get such horrible representation.

[cali]

45. He wasn't the first president to be openly disrespected while addressing Congress.

bushco was loudly booed by dems during his 2005 SotU address.