That line probably gets lots of laughs at Tea Parties, but over Denver airwaves, Congressman Doug Lamborn’s likening President Obama to a “Tar Baby” got, I’ll say it, sticky. Yeah, the expression meant “intractable quagmire” when Mitt Romney used it to describe an cost-prohibitive subway project, but Tar Baby’s primary allusion to a negative African-American stereotype got Romney in trouble. Now like a banana peel gag irresistible to Republicans, “Tar Baby” is how Doug Lamborn chose to describe, not a hole in the ground into which you pour money, not a trap set by a clever fox to lure the Uncle Remus progenitor of Bugs Bunny, but to describe his Teabag constituents’ poster child usurper, risen from America’s untouchable class, our first black president.
You dopey Tea Party Klan jester, you won’t shake Barack Obama’s hand because it’s black. You’re a racist sneak, unfortunately egged on by the bigots endemic to your backwater district. I hope you find that the rest of Colorado will make your “Tar Baby” remark a real tar baby for you.
Lamborn says he meant “quagmire” and a supportive media is referencing the dictionary to assert his usage was correct. But the instances for which Romney and John McCain apologized were quagmires, not personifications, least of all OF Obama. A physicist can say he’s got a problem that’s real bitch, but not if he’s talking about his wife.
I think it’s fairly disingenuous to say the primary definition of Tar Baby is a quagmire. That’s like concluding Fag is a cigarette. Yes, but that’s when neither are used to describe a person.
Curiously the local media helpfully mention that “Tar Baby” was a plot device in Uncle Remus, popularized by Disney in Song of the South. No mention that it’s the only animation that has not been reissued, because it’s widely regarded as offensive on racist grounds.
Lamborn has apologized to President Obama and assures interviewers that he’s confident his apology will be accepted. Isn’t it ironic that he won’t touch Obama with a ten foot pole, yet can count on the man’s magnanimity? Of course he’s right, the president opposes nothing, why take issue with racism?
But I believe Lamborn will have lost his value to even his Tea Party Klan associates. Having his apology accepted, it’s going to be impossible for Lamborn to belittle Obama with even a pea-brain pretense of credibility.
I find it so amusing that lefty wack jobs take offense at the slightest perceived remark they consider “racist”. I could find lots of racist remarks to describe Obama but “Tar baby”, one of my beloved Uncle Remus tales, is not one of them. Obama’s presidency is doomed but not because of his racial makeup.
Is it a badge of honor with you guys to write with uniformly transparent idiocy?
This phrase for example, LOL: “one of my beloved Uncle Remus tales”
Tar Baby is an overt racist slur. Just because you keep an arsenal of racist remarks handy doesn’t diminish the offensiveness of Lamborn’s statement.
Yeah, one could say that, you know, lynching people in effigy and during the Health Care “debate” or the signing of the watered down bill, the Tea Bag contingent were using the word “nigger” it was them trying to express themselves in Ebonics, or maybe it was a a mispronunciation of “An Iggernant fool who don’t know how to say “human being with darker skin” or some other stupid shit.
How bout that “christian” Jihad, working out for you ok, is it?
How many more people you intend to kill, like in Tucson, Arivaca, Knoxville, Oslo? Cause, near as I can see, cousin, people toting around machine guns, assault rifles and other “second amendment solution” goodies in America are looking to kill Americans. Since that’s the vast majority of who you would actually meet, speak to, shoot up their churches, political rallies, and homes…
Oh, that’s right, Sam Wurzlbach, who isn’t a real “Joe” nor a Real Plumber declared us to be not “Real” Americans.
Honestly, I just can Not See (ok stupid say it out loud) why any of us who are so declared to be Not Real Americans, have targets printed on our pictures, hanged or burned in effigy (or in the Oslo thing, “Not Real Norwegians” )
Would be offensive in any way. Especially since the majority of those who will be non-racistly racially Profiled (such as I have already been, at gunpoint) and who ARE so profiled just happen to be Real American Citizens, just not in the eyes of the NotSee militia types.
So I’ll make you a deal, TeaBag, I’ll show you MY papers when and if you can prove to MY satisfaction that YOUR papers are in order.
Using your own rules of course. When you show your long form birth certificate, your ID cards, your passport, a certified letter of testimony from your third grade teachers maiden aunt, statements from your clergy, etc… I’ll simply declare them to be forgeries and you can thank your own lunatic racist NotSee friends for writing the rules exactly like you did.
Guess you didn’t think of that, now, did you?