Commentary and analysis on American politics, culture, and national identity, U.S. foreign policy and international relations, and the state of education
- from a neoconservative perspective! - Keeping an eye on the communist-left so you don't have to!
The reason the GOP sucked so badly in the last election has absolutely nothing to do with Bob Barr and/or libertarians. It had to do with how poorly your party governed. Like most libertarians I haven’t voted for a Republican since Reagan. And frankly what happened to the size of government under Reagan is one reason why. Bush compounded the problem (Medicare Part D? “No Child Left Behind”?) and the eternally squishy McCain promised more of the same.
Hell, I didn't even know who Erin Andrews is, not having watched ESPN in a while ... And assuming this is legit, you are perpetuating a crime by linking the video - which I won't do.
In the world of love, dating, and marriage – a few men have weighed in on stories regarding women and weight.
It seems that our obsession with thin women has taken such a hold these days, that the beautiful Erin Andrews, sports reporter for ESPN was the victim of a peeping Tom incident in the privacy of her hotel room.
The video went viral and fortunately not just her attorneys but sportscasters are denouncing her invasion of privacy.
This is just an example of what happens in a society in which we place so much value on external beauty.
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UPDATE II: Don Surber responds by email, and writes a post on it, "Email of the Day":
OK.
I give up.
Who is Erin Andrews and why should I care/be surprised that she has a video of her naked?
Doesn’t every female celeb under 30?
It seems there will be no stopping the propagation of this video now, despite the threat of legal action by Andrews. ThePirateBay, on which the torrent file is linked, was acquired recently, in part due to legal issues.
Erin Andrews may now be the most sought after woman in sports -- and all because of an elusive peephole video that has been uploaded to the internet. The Erin Andrews peephole video has gone viral -- or at least articles and ads purporting to have the Erin Andrews peephole video have gone viral -- and the internet has been ablaze for the past couple days with traffic either accessing or attempting to access the comely sports announcer's naked form via a video filmed without her knowledge. For her part, she has issued a legal statement through her lawyers that once the perpetrator or perpetrators are found, they will be prosecuted.
And rightly so...
Erin Andrews, for those who still have no idea who she is, works for ESPN as a sports reporter. Apart from being extremely attractive and popular, she is very good at her job. And although the more cynical will say that Erin Andrews has made it as far as she has primarily because of her looks, it must be noted that, if true, it isn't because she has calculatingly used her beauty to become a popular ESPN sports reporter. You won't find half a dozen swimsuit calendars with Erin Andrews posed provocatively atop the months of the year. And you won't find any nude photos or Playboy spreads (although she has been voted Playboy's Sexiest Sports Announcer).
And no sex tape. There is no Erin Andrews sex tape.
But you can find her in hundreds of photos on the web. For some, she wears far too many clothes, but clothed she is. And her photos (and videos) rarely show her in anything overly provocative, although she doesn't steer away from the forming fitting pair of slacks or an accentuating sweater. (There is nothing wrong with dressing for success or simply looking presentable. Male sports announcers are not seen running the sidelines in sweats or a ragged t-shirt and jeans.)
Still, Erin Andrews seems to have taken great pains over the years to be taken as a serious sports reporter, announcer, and journalist.
But there is an Erin Andrews peephole video and if people were sick of seeing everything Erin Andrews on the internet, they had seen nothing compared to the traffic onslaught of the search for the peephole video. Which will in turn lead to Erin Andrews popularity and fame skyrocketing. It is known as the "Paris Hilton Law," or something to that effect. Naked photos, videos, or sex tapes tend to do that for an attractive woman's career these days, but those images are usually taken with their consent. They may have not been placed on the internet by their consent (and usually are not), but the photos et. al. of them in their various degrees of nakedness were taken with their knowledge and consent.
Erin Andrews peephole video was not.
And internet users apparently want to see it because it has remained one of the most searched topics on the internet for the past several days. With the various websites being tracked down and shut down by Erin Andrews' lawyers and threats of lawsuits, the peephole video has also become something of a hide-and-seek game. Users have been treated with search terms like "Erin Andrews peephole video," "Erin Andrews peephole video google cache," and "Erin Andrews peephole video rapidshare." No doubt there have been hundreds of articles and blogs written about the elusiveness of the video (this writer has read about a dozen simply researching this article), many of them complaining about the unavailability of the peephole video once they arrive, or that there is some form of locking quiz to complete in order to access the video, or that the link was simply a scam to get the user to access the target website with no intention of showing the Erin Andrews peephole video.
Cassandra's right. This was a crime and no one should take advantage of it by "Google-bombing" the crime.
Stacy McCain is a great guy, but all of you McCainiacs ought to remove your lips from around his ass sometime.
My response? Again, this is news, obviously.
As for the McCainiacs, well, if folks want to draw lines, fine. I have no problems reporting on a hot news story of a hot ESPN news reporter who's the victim of a crime, with ... links. Nope, doesn't bother me at all ...
As for Robert Stacy McCain and the McCainiacs? Well, there are limits, and here's a big, bright line: With all due respect, I wouldn't photograph my neighbor in a bikini by the pool, getting out of the shower topless, or shaving her legs in the bathroom. I am linking to the post though, for the purposes of argument. The difference between the Erin Andrew link and those links right here is that the latter have absolutely zero news values. Still, no doubt Cassandra or someone else will say I'm perpetuating the invasion. That's fine, if you think so, don't click the links. Again, to repeat: DON'T CLICK THE LINKS!!
I have no interest in watching the video and just now saw Dr. Douglas's post.
Criminal voyeurism isn't sexy. Nevertheless, crime is news, and the fact that so many people felt the need to comment on it just goes to show why the most famous headline in history was the New York Post's "HEADLESS BODY IN TOPLESS BAR." Or, as Hunter S. Thompson observed in Hell's Angels, "Every editor loves a good rape."
Maybe this is another example of how New Media helps demystify what Old Media has been doing for years. Dr. Douglas shows you the strings in the puppet show - "Look, I'm shamefully exploiting prurient interest!" - and you say, "That's disgusting!"
Atwater Councilman Gary Frago has apologized for distributing racially-insensitive e-mails to friends and local government officials. KFSN-TV Fresno has the story, "Atwater Racist Emails":
The emails were sent out by Councilman Gary Frago. Frago said they were meant to be a joke, but many people aren't laughing, calling them offensive and racist.
"They weren't sent as a racist, viscous act. They were sent as a very stupid act, and I don't know how many times I can say tell you I'm sorry."
Atwater city councilman Gary Frago is defending himself after e-mails he sent out surfaced in Friday's Merced-Sun Star newspaper. "If I could retract them all, knowing what I know now, I would retract all of them."
If you check the video, the black gentleman who is interviewed refuses to accept Frago's apology. Also, from a post at the black politics blog, Electronic Villiage, "Personally, I think that Frago should lose his seat on the city council."
The e-mails are clearly unacceptable, and recipents should delete them like any other piece of hateful spam. Frago appears genuinely upset and he admits that forwarding the e-mails was stupid.
But, how much does this tell us about racism in America?
One of the more interesting responses comes from Ta-Nehisi Coates, "Now I'm Not Racist ..." He writes:
One cool thing about the Obama presidency is, far from leading us into a postracial America, it's actually revealing that significant minority of white folks, (35-40 percent? Too optimistic?) who are not racist, but just really really don't like black people Al Sharpton. Take this latest installment in what is, basically, a weekly drama:
In the past several months Atwater City Councilman Gary Frago has sent at least a half-dozen e-mails to city staff and other prominent community members containing racist jokes aimed at President Barack Obama, his wife and black people in general...
Actually no. And second, even if it were, would that fact support Ta-Nehisi's contention that 60-65 percent of "white folks" are racist? That statistic just hangs out there as some monstrous indictment of America as irredeemably racist. - a meme which is standard on the Democratic-left.
The problem? It's simply not true. Poll after poll shows that Americans are more tolerant towards blacks today than at any time in history. One of the most important indicators of views on race relations are the findings on interracial marriage. In particular, opposition to a black-white interracial marriage has always been a standard measure of entrenched racism. According to Earl Black and Merle Black, in Politics and Society in the South, progress on inter-personal relations is the last barrier of the "color line" that has divided Americans since the Founding. And so interestestingly, a look at the data reveals dramatic acceptance of interracial marriage today, and hence greater tolerance and racial acceptance. See, Gallup, "Most Americans Approve of Interracial Marriages." Also, Pew Research, "Guess Who's Coming to Dinner: 22% of Americans Have a Relative in a Mixed-Race Marriage."
Sometimes it's argued that it's the younger cohort of Americans who account for the change. That is, the old guard bigots are as racist as ever. Consequently, as these old Bull Connor-wannabes quit the scene, America will reach the promised land. Of course, assumptions like that ignore the fact that Barack Obama's election confirms America's historic commitment to equality of opportunity. Moreover the Pew survey above, in particular, shows only minimal support for that contention.
But make sure you read Ta-Nehisi's essay at Slate, "Playing the Racist Card." He's talking about Geraldine Ferraro as the most recent example of that "Implicit to the racist card is the idea that no racists actually live among us." Or, for one to deny that they're racist, is itself racist:
The bar for racism has been raised so high that one need be a card-carrying member of the Nazi Party to qualify. Had John McCain said that Hillary Clinton was only competitive in the presidential race because she was a woman, there'd be no dispute over whether the comment was sexist. And yet when the equivalent is said about a black person, it's not only not racist, but any criticism of the statement is interpreted as an act of character assassination. "If anybody is going to apologize," Ferraro
told MSNBC, "they should apologize to me for calling me a racist."
In some measure, the narrowing of racism is an unfortunate relic of the civil rights movement, when activists got mileage out of dehumanizing racists and portraying them as ultra-violent Southern troglodytes. Whites may have been horrified by the fire hoses and police dogs turned on children, but they could rest easy knowing that neither they nor anyone they'd ever met would do such a thing. But most racism—indeed, the worst racism—is quaint and banal. There's nothing sensationalistic about redlining or job discrimination. No archival newsreel can capture what it means to be viewed as a person who, minus the beneficence of well-meaning whites, simply can't compete.
The "bar for racism"? That's an interesting concept, and there's no room at a blog post to delve into all the other hypotheses offered by Ta-Nehisi (what is this "quaint and banal" racism, for example).
No, what's really key here is Ta-Nahisi's dejection at the passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. You see, with the passage of that landmark legislation, the country made its historic commentment to equal treatmentn under the law. That, along with the Voting Rights Act of 1965, the 24th Amendment to the Constitution, and decades of progressive Supreme Court rulings dating back to Brown in 1954, have helped this nation achieve the full measure of it's promise. Thus for Ta-Nahisi to lament the narrowing of racism as an "unfortunate relic of the civil rights movement" is a sad commentary on racial victimology. Think about that: We know today that Jim Crow racism has been repudiated and marginalized as the sentiments of a reprehensible fringe; and Ta-Nehisi's upset about it? For him, it's thus only a short step from that position to finding in every insenstive or stupid remark - like Councilman Frago's - some reprise of the post-bellum horror of white supremacy.
It's too bad, but that's where the radical left is nowadays. And don't forget that it's probably the biggest double-standard in America today. Recall that James von Brunn, the alleged Holocaust Memorial shooter, was a registered Democrat from Maryland. And just this last week, when California's Barbara Boxer, a top national Democratic official, was upbraided for plantation-style condescension towards Harry Alford during Senate testimony, the hard-left netroots media establishment remained silent. See Newsbusters, "On NAACP's 100th Anniversary Media Ignore Boxer's Racist Treatment of Black Chamber CEO."
Of course, Ta-Nehisi totally ignored Baraba Boxer's meltdown. But he's all over Patrick Buchanan's recent comments at MSNBC (here, here, and here, for example).
Go figure?
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(Addendum: See also, "The GOP's Young Hatemonger," where author John Avlon finds one more odd example to tar virtually the entire Republican establishment as racist. It's mostly baloney, of course. But until conservatives are willing to make a more concerted effort to repudiated Democratic racism AND Democratic race-baiting, the right will concede the field on civil rights to those less committed to racial equality than the partisan heirs to Abraham Lincoln.
Back on June 18th, I published the video and post ISLAM IN AMERICA: "FALL OF CAPITALISM AND RISE OF ISLAM", a conference planning jihad and the take over of America. No media, no politician, no statesman has spoken against this century's Nazis staging a huge conference to attack and destroy America -- in Chicago. If this were a KKK conference or some white supremacist conference, they would descend like the locusts that they are.
Hizb ut-Tahrir America (HTA) indicated that it had transitioned from its covert status to a public phase of operations by issuing an announcement, signed in its own name, that it would host a conference in July 2009 to support the establishment of a Caliphate. The promotional video can be viewed on YouTube. The event, titled "The Fall of Capitalism and Rise of Islam," is scheduled for Sunday, July 19th, 2009, at the Aqsa School in Bridgeview, Illinois.
A great American Atlas reader called the Hilton hotel to politely express her outrage that they would allow a radical Islamic convention whose mission by objective is the overthrow of the American government and the implementation of an Islamic state in America. Here is his response.
Hi Pamela--I took it upon myself to call the general manager of the Hilton in Chicago which agreed to contract with the HTA group. I asked him if he would have agreed to allow a neo-Nazi or Holocaust-denying convention to book at his hotel. He was very polite, told me that the group had misrepresented themselves at the time they booked the hotel and that he had been misquoted by Fox News. He was not happy that they were there but according to their lawyers they could not cancel the booking b/c it would be discriminatory (or words to that effect). Then he told me the party line bullshit about how the HTA is not on the terror list, etc. I informed him that they are indeed considered a terror group by countries like Russia and suggested that he attend the conference to hear just what was being said about the West and the US in particular, if he was even allowed to.
I told him that as a frequent traveler and Hilton Honors member who stays at Waldorf-Astoria collection hotels, I would be reconsidering going to them in the future because of this. It's really an outrage that hotels can't or won't turn down business of this sort because of the almighty dollar or fear of litigation. Once again the enemy using our freedoms against us to try to destroy us. Maybe Hilton's CEO should hear from more of us about this...
I attended a protest rally at Democratic Representative Loretta Sanchez's office in Garden Grove. That's me with the House GOP's "Organizational Chart of the House Democrats' Health Plan." Megan Barth is with me in the second photo. She organized the event and created the awesome protest signs. (Essay continues below ... but notice our little right-wing extremists in the third shot down!)
Turnout was moderate for our event. We had a couple of dozen protesters lining up along Lewis Avenue in Garden Grove. Peak turnout was 30-40, with some folks coming and going.
The group first turned up at the door of Rep. Sanchez's office. As Megan reports, "Loretta's office was not too kind in letting us stand by the doors." The group took the event out to the main entrance to the office complex. After an hour or so, we were met by Mr. Chris Clark of The Abbey Company. He said protesters were illegally parked, and ordered that we move our cars. A number of members of the group left the event to find street parking (myself included). My hunch is that Sanchez's staffers called property management, who probably weren't too happy with a bunch of activists marching out in front of their facility.
But check this out from The Chicago Boyz, on Senator McCaskill's office, "Their Fear Tells Us a Lot":
Honestly, they called the cops on these people? What did they think, that a church’s ice cream social had got out early and now the participants were roaming the streets in a sugar and milk-fat induced frenzy seeking to drink the blood of leftists?
I make a point of the protesters being white because it feeds into the same perception that I touched on in the Neo-Nazi Boogyman. A lot of leftists have heaped abuse on various tea party protesters as being racist and violent based on no other criterion than that they were non-leftist whites. Clearly, these people have wildly exaggerated, hysterical fears of politically active non-leftist white people, and they lump all of these ordinary people in with the racist, left leaning, white-supremacist micro-minority.
Somehow, I don’t think that if a bus load of leftist, African-American protesters showed up that the first response of the staff members would be to close the blinds, lock the doors and call the cops. Even though I know absolutely nothing about Senator McCaskill, this little incident tells me a lot about how the people in the Senator’s office, and therefore the Senator herself, view their fellow citizens.
Okay, I'm out the door this minute to go protest Obamacare at Representative Loretta Sanchez's office in Garden Grove. I'll have a report with some roundups from around the nation later today.
The Tea Party movement continues today with "health care freedom parties" being held outside the offices of senators and congressmen all over the nation.
In Coweta, plans include a mini-tea party outside the office of Congressman Lynn Westmoreland. It will be from noon to 1 p.m. at Westmoreland's district office, located in the White Oak Professional Center on Highway 34 East.
"Our focus is on nationalized health care, and expressing that we do not want a nationalized health care system," said Wendy Bloedt, local coordinator for the newly-renamed Southern Crescent Tea Party Patriots.
For legislators who have come out against the plans for "health care reform," such as Westmoreland, "it is also an opportunity for us to go out and thank them for listening and voting the way their constituents" want them to vote, Bloedt said.
Bloedt also plans to present Westmoreland's staff with a copy of the Constitution, and the pledge signed by people at the July 4 tea party event in Peachtree City. Attendees pledged they would read the Constitution in its entirety.
UPDATE: Removed original picture from the post. Anonymous, in the comments, suggested that the photo featured a misattributed quote. No problem. Notice the new picture above. Vladimir Lenin was on hand. The founder of Russian Bolshevism affirmed that indeed President Obama's governing program is becoming big enough to take away everything that you have.
A key U.S. congressional committee on Friday approved healthcare legislation that includes a hefty tax on the rich but critics pointed to fresh warnings that President Barack Obama's health reform plan would do little to rein in skyrocketing spending.
The House Ways and Means Committee agreed to raise taxes to pay for the plan's estimated $1 trillion cost in part by higher taxes on couples making more than $350,000. Critics argue that it would harm small businesses who fall into this tax category.
The bill was approved on a 23-18 vote and must also be approved by two other House committees. It is part of a broad Obama plan to bring health insurance to many of the 46 million Americans who do not have it and trim excessive costs.
Further doubts about the high cost of Obama's effort emerged on Thursday when Congress' own independent budget analyst said reforms now being considered would do little to control rising costs. Republicans and fiscally conservative Democrats seized on this, and called for more controls on the scale and cost of the plan.
Congressional Budget Office chief Douglas Elmendorf told the committee its legislation would expand federal spending on healthcare "to a significant degree" while doing little to trim costs.
"Instead of rushing through one expensive proposal after another, we should take the time we need to get things right," Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell said.
What we celebrate tonight is not simply the journey the NAACP has traveled, but the journey that we, as Americans, have traveled over the past one hundred years ....
And yet, even as we celebrate the remarkable achievements of the past one hundred years; even as we inherit extraordinary progress that cannot be denied; even as we marvel at the courage and determination of so many plain folks - we know that too many barriers still remain.
We know that even as our economic crisis batters Americans of all races, African Americans are out of work more than just about anyone else - a gap that's widening here in New York City, as detailed in a report this week by Comptroller Bill Thompson.
We know that even as spiraling health care costs crush families of all races, African Americans are more likely to suffer from a host of diseases but less likely to own health insurance than just about anyone else.
We know that even as we imprison more people of all races than any nation in the world, an African-American child is roughly five times as likely as a white child to see the inside of a jail.
And we know that even as the scourge of HIV/AIDS devastates nations abroad, particularly in Africa, it is devastating the African-American community here at home with disproportionate force.
These are some of the barriers of our time. They're very different from the barriers faced by earlier generations. They're very different from the ones faced when fire hoses and dogs were being turned on young marchers; when Charles Hamilton Houston and a group of young Howard lawyers were dismantling segregation.
But what is required to overcome today's barriers is the same as was needed then. The same commitment. The same sense of urgency. The same sense of sacrifice. The same willingness to do our part for ourselves and one another that has always defined America at its best.
The question, then, is where do we direct our efforts? What steps do we take to overcome these barriers? How do we move forward in the next one hundred years?
The first thing we need to do is make real the words of your charter and eradicate prejudice, bigotry, and discrimination among citizens of the United States. I understand there may be a temptation among some to think that discrimination is no longer a problem in 2009. And I believe that overall, there's probably never been less discrimination in America than there is today.
But make no mistake: the pain of discrimination is still felt in America. By African-American women paid less for doing the same work as colleagues of a different color and gender. By Latinos made to feel unwelcome in their own country. By Muslim Americans viewed with suspicion for simply kneeling down to pray. By our gay brothers and sisters, still taunted, still attacked, still denied their rights.
On the 45th anniversary of the Civil Rights Act, discrimination must not stand. Not on account of color or gender; how you worship or who you love. Prejudice has no place in the United States of America.
Barack Obama is the President of the United States. And that's what makes his NAACP address so lousy. Any significant black leader today is going to have to make that speech. He or she is going have to reach back to all the accomplishments dating to the early 20th century, when a black man could be lynched - in the north or the south - for looking at a white women.
Sure, Obama's right to speak truth to the history. But it's so old. And not only that: It's so, well, lame. It's been 45 years since the Civil Rights Act of 1964. If a black person can't make it in America today, they aren't going make it. What barriers are keeping folks down? What impediments? It's not all those "indicators" touted by the President. The rate of imprisonment; the proportion of HIV/AIDS; the number of those uninsured ... You get the picture. The President's talking statistics, not causation. But that's his play - lay it on thick with the black folks, but then go easy on whites with shameless racial bargaining. Can't alienate the largest chunk of the voting electorate. Hit the right notes, and you'll soothe white guilt without inflaming recriminations on the other side.
Obama's skilled at the talk. He's done the community action thing and he worked as a racial grievance law professor who taught post-structural theories of critical race analysis. If you've read that stuff it's all institutions and no personal responsibility. Obama's old pal, education professor William Ayers, has a recent book titled Race Course Against White Supremacy. That's the standard pedagogy among the left's "Teachers College" elite. That's the indoctrination. There are points to be scored by victimology, and there's an industry to keep alive by constantly attacking whites as bigots.
But the President's going too easy on his brothers and sisters, frankly. Obama would have done himself a favor by reprising Bill Cosby's address to the NAACP in 2004, on the 50th anniversary of the Brown decision. Sure, he paid due deference to some of Cosby's themes, but the President's inauthentic on personal responsibility. He's too caught up in the "blood of martyrs" frame of the Jackson/Sharpton race hustlers. You can't break out of poverty and social isolation when the top black representatives are trying to keep you down on the plantation. Jim Crow is long gone, and we only see him when the media conjures up some "right-wing extremist" who's really a Democrat in the news. James von Brunn was a registered Democrat from Maryland. John Duesler, the Philly swim club manager, is a Democrat and Barack Obama blood-donor activist(O-Positive!). Just yesterday, we saw Democratic Senator Barbara Boxer upbraided by Harry Alford of the National Black Chamber of Commerce. By rattling off some NAACP resolution and an endorsement for "cap and tax" from 100 Black Men of Atlanta, Senator Boxer sought to bring Alford down low as just one more po' negro. "What's 'a matter wit' you, boy ... I got me some fren's who say we be stylin' wid' de climate-hoax taxpayer ripoff! Get with the program, mofo!"
In his speech yesterday, President Obama spoke of the family of Emmett Till: "If Emmet Till's uncle Mose Wright could summon the courage to testify against the men who killed his nephew, I know we can be better fathers and brothers, mothers and sisters in our own families." Gee, that's great Mr. President. Hark back for more blood of martyrs, will you? But hey, if someone wants to use Emmett Till for an example, they'd be better off asking: Why are four blacks in Chicago charged with desecrating Emmett Till's grave? And man, who are you going to blame?!! The President should have layed down some names in shame. C'mon, four black grave robbers alleged to have exhumed hundreds of bodies for cash at a historic black cemetery? I seriously doubt that's the kind of "race-lifting" W.E.B DuBois had in mind!
But as long as blacks today live for the past, longingly comforted in knowing that, yes, they were once horribly mistreated as subhumans, then they'll never fully have to take responsibility for lifting themselves up.
Check out Ta-Nehisi Coates for more on that. He takes issue with the New York Times headline, which quotes the President saying, "we have no excuses for failure." Well, we don't, as I've pointed out here at length. But Ta-Nehisi's perturbed:
Like I said earlier this week - so much of this isn't about Obama himself, but a deep-seated desire to get out from under history. Expiation on the cheap. White guilt isn't anyone's friend. Least of all black people's.
Au contraire, mon frère! We're getting plenty of history. Now if we could just get the culture right ... now that'd be some progress!
You may remember Susan Roesgen as the woman who rather notoriously played the role of Obama stimulus apologist while carrying a CNN microphone at the April 15th Chicago Tea Party ... Well, it seems that she’s become an unemployment statistic ...
I didn't post this video earlier, although it's classic. Readers might recall, but this was April 15th, and I was doing some original reporting on the tea parties. See my piece at Pajamas Media, "Suburban Warriors Rally at Orange County Tea Party."
Check the link at TV Newser, but CNN wouldn't comment as the why Roesgen was dissmissed. Mmaybe it's a routine cut back? It's be hard to deny, whatever the case, that CNN's vaunted "objectivity" took a huge hit that day.
In many places across the South you can walk in the footsteps of slaves, and if you understand the history, it is not a happy journey. The same is true at Friendfield Plantation outside Georgetown, South Carolina.
It's not exactly "Gone With the Wind," but what makes this overgrown 3,300 acres of marsh and pine trees stand out is this: The family of first lady Michelle Obama believes her great-great grandfather was held as a slave here and labored in the mosquito-infested rice fields.
It makes Friendfield Plantation a symbol of something more than servitude. It's the symbol of something that's never happened before: One important segment of an American family's journey from the humiliation of slavery to the very top of the nation's ruling class.
CNN recently was the first television network allowed to visit the plantation and shoot video. It's not a museum. It's just private land, still with shadows of its past.
Friendfield's most distinctive historical feature, perhaps, is the dirt road known as Slave Street.
Six white-washed little shacks are all that remain of the slave quarters, even though rows of these houses once stood on the property. About 350 slaves lived here during the 19th century.
The houses are nothing special -- no plumbing, of course. The wooden walls are paper thin in places. It would have been hot and humid in summer, and most certainly cold in winter, although the shacks had fireplaces.
They would have been crowded: probably one or two families living in a space smaller than a modern-day garage.
As a professor whose own ancestry includes grandparents who were slaves, the story of Michelle Obama's family is fascinating and vital to the national discussion of where we are today.
But as a political analyst, I find it extremely interesting that CNN would now devote so much coverage to President Obama's ties to the peculiar institution. The second video above includes snippets of Anderson Cooper's interview with the President in Ghana. As I wrote previously, Obama's visit to Africa was the latest stop on his global apology tour. And there's no greater sin in American history than the evil of slavery. CNN's shameless exploitation of racial sympathy is to be expected. But it's simply despicable that the President himself would pander this issue, given that his rise to national power was predicated on a pledge to advance the cause of post-racial America. Obama launched his career on the national stage with one of the most important political speeches of a generation. At the 2004 Democratic Convention, Obama proclaimed:
Now even as we speak, there are those who are preparing to divide us - the spin masters, the negative ad peddlers who embrace the politics of "anything goes." Well, I say to them tonight, there is not a liberal America and a conservative America - there is the United States of America. There is not a Black America and a White America and Latino America and Asian America - there’s the United States of America.
But instead of those majesterial words, we have the lost promise of Obama's rhetoric five years on. Race relations have deteriorated under this administration. The politics of race is more bitter than ever, as we have seen this week amid the confirmation hearings for the president's racist "wise Latina" nominee.
Frank Ricci, the witness we’ve all been waiting for at Sonia Sotomayor’s confirmation hearings, finally took the floor and told his story to the Senate Judiciary Committee.
There were no stunning revelations. But Ricci, addressing the appellate court denial of his civil rights case, laid down one line straight from the Republican playbook:
“Americans have the right to go into our federal courts and have their cases judged on the Constitution and/or federal laws,” he said, “and not on politics or personal feelings.”
Ricci has been the most vocal of the 19 New Haven, Conn., firefighters who sued under federal civil rights laws after the results of a promotion test were thrown out. The city did so because it feared it would face a lawsuit from black and Latino firefighters claiming the tests had a discriminatory effect on minorities. The white plaintiffs lost at the trial court and before Sotomayor’s appeals court panel, but eventually prevailed in the Supreme Court.
Several of the firefighters, dressed in uniform, sat behind Ricci during the hearing. Another plaintiff, Lt. Ben Vargas, also testified.
The lieutenant's test that I took was without a doubt a job- related exam that was based on skills, knowledge and abilities needed to ensure public and the firefighters' safety.
We all had an equal opportunity to succeed as individuals, and we were all provided a road map to prepare for the exam.
Achievement is neither limited nor determined by one's race but by one's skills, dedication, commitment and character. Ours is not a job that can be handed out without regard to merit and qualifications.
For this reason, I and many others prepared for these positions throughout our careers. I studied harder than I ever had before, reading, making flash cards, highlighting, reading again, all while listening to prepared tapes.
I went before numerous panels to prepare for the oral assessment. I was a virtual absentee father and husband for months because of it.
In 2004 the City (ph) of New Haven felt not enough minorities would be promoted and that the political price for complying with Title VII (ph), the city civil service rules, and the charter, would be too high.
Therefore they chose not to fill the vacancies. Such action deprived all of us the process set forth by the rule of law. Firefighters who earned promotions were denied them.
Despite the important civil rights and constitutional claims we raised, the Court of Appeals panel disposed of our case in an unsigned, unpublished summary order that consisted of a single paragraph that made mention of my dyslexia and thus led many to think that this was a case about me and a disability.
This case had nothing to do with that. It had everything to do with ensuring our command officers were competent to answer the call and our right to advance in our profession based on merit, regardless of race.
Americans have the right to go into our federal courts and have their cases judged based on the Constitution and our laws, not on politics or personal feelings.
The lower court's belief that citizens should be reduced to racial statistics is flawed. It only divides people who don't wish to be divided along racial lines. The very reason we have civil service rules is to root out politics, discrimination and nepotism.
Our case demonstrates that these ills will exist if the rules of merit and the law are not followed.
Our courts are the last resorts for Americans whose rights are violated. Making decisions on who should have command positions solely based on statistics and politics, where the outcome of the decision could result in injury or death, is contrary to sound public policy.
I watched Ricci testify. You can see at the video how his reading is stilted. But he articulates the issues perfectly.
What a guy!
And, as usual, we saw early this week the left's scurilous attempt to smear the firefighter. See, "The Borking of Frank Ricci."
Well done. 
