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Jon Stewart on Helen Thomas and South Carolina. Brilliant.

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Thank You, South Carolina - The Race to Replace Disgrace
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Things That Pissed Me Off

The last week or so has been a parade of outrage and bullshit that I've longed to blog about, but simply didn't have time. Here's a few, numbered for your commenting convenience.

1. BP CEO Tony Hayward made a strong DoW bid... I can't believe BP lets this jackass anywhere near a camera at this point. When he's not shamelessly—and transparently—lying, he's saying something unbelievably stupid. Multimillionaire oil executive Hayward stood in front of a camera on a Gulf pier and declared that "nobody wants this over more than me. I want my life back."

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2. South Carolina State Senator Jake Knotts (R-Naturally) played Good Ole Boy.

"We already got one raghead in the White House; we don't need a raghead in the governor's mansion."

He was, of course referring to candidate for S.C. governor Nikki Haley, and inferring she is Muslim for the benefit of the mouth-breathers in that state. Haley is actually of Indian descent, and a Christian. Her parents are Sikh.

[Knotts] says her father walks around Lexington wearing a turban.

“We’re at war over there,” Knotts said.

Asked to clarify, he said he did not mean the United States was at war with India, but was at war with “foreign countries.”

One of President Palin's "real Americans."

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3. Well, Arizona isn't gonna stand around and let South Carolina be the most repugnant, racist shithole in the country without a fight: In Prescott, AZ, things reverted back to the days of Billy Jack. A City Councilman with a radio show and a bunch of racist passersby bullied an elementary school into agreeing to "whiten" the faces of a mural depicting diverse faces of ACTUAL FUCKING STUDENTS IN THAT SCHOOL! While that mural was being painted, at times with the help of the kids themselves, they were actually heckled with the n-bomb and other slurs. Can we give that state back to Mexico already? (In the end, the school superintendent overruled the cowardly principal and the mural was unaltered—but this is likely only due to the national attention.)

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And then there's Israel. But that's a whole other post. Or more.

Reading Assignment

On the heels of my and Mrs. F's respite to the north and the disenchantment upon our return to the Overrated Capital of Southern Cool—Asheville... followed by this twoglasses thread comes, at just the right time, one of the best things I've read all year.

Too good to excerpt. Just read the whole thing.

The Phil Nugent Experience: Race Against Time

UPDATE: And, yes, Nugent leaps right into the blogroll on the strength of that South post, this Gates post, this Sotomayor piece and this excellent Cheney vs. Bush post.

Cabinet Refacing

President-Elect Obama has filled out his Cabinet, and there are surely a couple of posts there worth second-guessing, if not outright complaint-worthy. But only as a matter of policy, idealogy, or the fact that I don't like them—but, at this point I'm trusting they'll be following Obama's lead.

What I DON'T want to hear anyone bitching about is who didn't get picked for some stupid-ass demographic reason...

NOT BLACK ENOUGH
The Congressional Black Caucus is bent out of shape because apparently Obama's Cabinet doesn't closely resemble the S1Ws enough...

Black lawmakers irked by Obama’s diverse Cabinet

Some members of the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) are disappointed President-elect Obama did not appoint more African-Americans to his Cabinet.

Obama tapped four blacks for Cabinet posts, including Eric Holder. If confirmed, Holder will be the first African-American attorney general.

But Obama passed over black candidates in selecting Cabinet nominees for positions central to setting policy for urban America, such as the departments of Education, Labor, and Housing and Urban Development.

[...]“On balance, I’d say a great deal of thought went into the shaping of this Cabinet,” Davis told The Hill. “And he ended up with a real rainbow. But some people, sure, thought there should be a bit more color in it.”

Another senior member of the CBC who requested anonymity said more pointedly that Obama “isn’t doing enough for the black folks.”

As dumb as that is, THIS one is even worse...

NOT SOUTHERN ENOUGH
Yeah. Twenty straight years of Southern Presidents surrounded by other Southerners and these fucking rednecks are bitching about what?

Southerners are the missing group in Obama's Cabinet
By Jim Morrill | Charlotte Observer

There are Democrats and Republicans, liberals and moderates, Hispanics and Asians, whites and blacks, Northerners and Westerners.

But one group arguably was missing when President-elect Barack Obama rounded out his 15-member Cabinet Friday — Southerners.

[...] "Obama scored a tremendous advance for Democrats in winning the three large Southern states and ignored them," says Larry Sabato, director of the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia. "I'm just stunned. It was the one grouping completely ignored."

[...] "There really ought to be one (cabinet post) from each state," says Sabato. "These are three really big prizes, and they're tenuous. None of these states is guaranteed for a Democrat in the future."

There's more:

The disparity isn't an accident -- critics already are calling it a snub -- and that perception could slow the pace of recent electoral gains Democrats have made below the Mason-Dixon line.

"Southerners need not apply," said Rep. Jack Kingston, R-Ga. "It's hard to believe that there wasn't anybody qualified for something from the South." [...]

Dan Carter, a political historian at the University of South Carolina, said the shortage of Southerners among top White House aides is highly unusual and could invite criticism.

Um...Fuck You? Seriously. Perhaps the fact that Obama is picking qualified, knowledgable people to man the posts eliminated all the yokels at the door? But that's not really even true. Obama's got people from Texas, North Carolina, D.C., Florida plus Arizona and New Mexico. I guess not all of them are the "right kind" of Southerner...

Go read the whole AP piece, it's filled to the rim with stupid.

The best thing I saw on this? From the comments at Benen's:

Fine, fine, three new cabinet posts for the south then. Here are my suggestions;

Secretary of Tobacco
Secretary of NASCAR
Secretary of Obnoxious Whiners

Will that make them happy?

For the record, Obama’s Cabinet has 11 whites, four blacks, three Hispanics and two Asian Americans. Several are women, and one is the first openly gay cabinet-level appointee. It's a diverse—yet extremely qualified—group by almost any measure, so haters can sit back and drink up...