Yesterday the right wing media nuts were shell shocked by Obama's speech, and if they didn't offer a polished critique, it was only because they were stunned.
Twenty four hours have passed and they now have their right wing talking points, and they are as ugly as they come.
Limbaugh is castigating and making fun of Jeremiah Wright. Pat Buchanan is condemning Wright as a hateful man and condemning Obama for not walking out of his church with outrage. Lou Dobbs is echoing their sentiments. And Hannity, that head without a brain, is saying Obama is a racist and an anti-Semite.
There you have it. The swift boating this time around will not be smears and outright lies about a candidate's military record. This time the right wing-nut hit job will be religious and racial. Obama's religion is somehow all wrong, his pastor too angry, his outrage against his pastor insufficient, his separation from him incomplete. And of course this is all so because Obama's pastor, like Obama, is black.
To a large group of white men in this country, black equals frightening. A large group of white men in this country are showing themselves to be ignorant, immature and insecure.
I knew that having a black nominee for the presidency would inflame racial hatred among white men, that it would threaten their manhood and bring out their barely sublimated white supremacism, but I was unprepared for it to erupt this soon and this viciously.
I am appalled and frightened by a certain category of white men in this country who are now speaking openly and in blatant racist terms against a distinguished, intelligent, dignified and accomplished man who cares enough about this country to be away from his family and even risk his life to make it a better place. I can only hope that enough white men will stand up and condemn this as loudly and vehemently as possible - not just men who are liberal and democratic, but men who are conservative and republican.
I'm no fan of Justice Clarence Thomas, but his words keep coming to mind: This is a "high tech lynching for uppity blacks."
