Washington Post columnist Dana Milbank (3/18/10) returns from his excursion into mocking right-wingers to return to his natural role of ridiculing single-payer advocates. His target today is Rep. Dennis Kucinich. You know what’s funny about him? He’s short! Or, in Milbank’s words, he’s a “little man,” a “little guy,” a “diminutive figure” and–because he announced his support for the healthcare bill on St. Patrick’s Day–a “leprechaun.”
Actually, Kucinich is the exact same height–5 foot 7–as John McCain, whom Milbank can somehow write about without any elf jokes.
Milbank also includes a sneering reference to how Kucinich “led the city into default” when he was mayor of Cleveland. Yes, that’s true–he stopped the plan to privatize the city’s power system, which caused some banks to play hardball with the city’s credit. He didn’t blink, Cleveland still has municipal power and it saved the city and its residents tens of millions of dollars. It’s hard to find many people in Cleveland who think Kucinich did the wrong thing.
But also… he’s short! Like a leprechaun!
What most struck me as most strange, though, about Milbank’s column was this line:
Our Kenyan Hawaiian commander in chief evidently has the luck of the Irish.
First of all, it’s weird to refer to a president’s state of birth as though it were an ethnicity. Who would anyone describe Bill Clinton as an Anglo Arkansan? Ronald Reagan as an Irish Illinoisan? It’s as if, like Cokie Roberts, Milbank doesn’t really consider Hawaii to be part of the United States.
Secondly, Obama is part Irish on his mother’s side–he’s got Kearneys and McCurrys in his family tree. But Milbank was apparently too struck by the hilarity of being “Kenyan Hawaiian” to look that up.
Jim, I think you can give him a pass on the Irish roots slip, but the main point is that Milbank wouldn’t have thought to make that kind of remark about an white Anglo-Saxon person without any Irish heritage, would he?
Now, had it been someone of Asian, Arab or Jewish descent …
The election of Barak Obama did not illustrate how far we have come in dealing with racism – rather it has demonstrated how far we have to go. The invective and hatred directed at his policies are obviously racial in nature. If his programs were created and presented by a white politician such as Biden, the debate might be strenuous – but the invective and the hatred would not be what it is. Everyone knows that American health care is in such shambles that to call it a system is absurd. The problem for most – especially those who maintain that they are not prejudiced – is that it is a black man who is pointing out the obvious and he is the one who is seeking to correct what white society created. (If it is of any importance to anyone, I am a white who grew up in very white areas.)
George E Mills said it much better than I could. Right on. Since the beginning of his national presence Obama has been an obvious target of racism. I must be very naive to expect civil discourse amongst the parties. I must be naive to be astounded at the behavior of the Republicans. Fucking unreal.
The Don Rickles of journalism…. when you can’t find fault with someone’s character or policies, there’s always the racist, ethnic, stature knock. Perhaps DANA, DANA, DANA feels inadequate with his unisex name?
Dana Milbank is a Jew. Does anyone refer to him as such when mentioning him?. I bet he will be screaming “anti-semitism”.
dana milbank the lesser; DENNIS KUCINICH THE GREAT!
I condemn racism aimed at Obama.
I also condemn the acts of the man himself.
He is, after all, a mass murderer and a servant of the powerful – as all presidents have been. You might ask the Pakistani or Afghan mother whose child was blown apart by a missile fired from one of his drones.
Or the folks in Appalachia who are dying from coal mining pollution because his EPA won’t do shit about it.
Or the inner-city kid in Oakland for whom “The Audacity of Hope” ™ is a cruel joke.
Or the undocumented worker languishing in some hellhole of a prison for the crime of crossing a border to feed his family – which he wouldn’t have had to do if the US didn’t have a bipartisan policy of “free trade” that’s destroyed the lives of untold numbers of folks south of that border.
Or, hell, you could ask me. I’m going to be forced to buy something laughingly called “health insurance” that I can’t afford because Dear Misleader and his party have lined their fashionable pockets with insurance corp jack.
But will I condemn “nigger jokes” – overt and covert – directed at him by the likes of Limbaugh and company?
Goddamn straight – just as I would those who’d call Netanyahu a “kike”, or Mugabe a “jungle bunny”, or Ahmadinejad a “sand nigger”, or Kim a “gook”.
Although I despise them all.
But for what they do.
And only that.
And anyone who says I’m giving aid and comfort to the rabid right racists by standing by my principles – by staring unblinkingly at the bottom line of who lives and dies – can go choke on their 32-ounce Big Gulp of Obamade.
Hey! Short people got no reason to live!
I just sent Dana Milbank an email and called him a “douche”! Tee hee hee HEE!
After Kucinich…supposedly a good Catholic, flip-flopped and is now voting yes on the despicable ObamaCare bill…I have lost all respect for him. I don’t care about anything about any negative remarks anyone says about him anymore. I thought he was one of the very few honest persons in Congress. I was wrong.
Actually, Hawaii is NOT a part of the USA. It is an illegally-occupied, sovereign nation.
Hawaii was stolen unfair and unsquare!
Over a million people in the Phillipines were killed “to pacify it as a result of phoney “Spanish-American War.”
The list of the dead goes, on, and on, and on, and is still going on today!