The right running scared...already.
You could see it starting...With Melanie Morgan on KSFO's Melanie Morgan. She fired the first salvo in the race-baiting that has become the right wing-nut assault on Barak Obama. On the December 4th, 2006 edition of Sussman, Morgan & Vic, Brian Sussman stated that, "Halfrican and, again, his father was -- his father was from Kenya, his mother's white.", egged on by co-host Melanie Morgan saying, "Senator Obama, who is, as you call, a 'Halfrican' --".
This sentiment was later echoed buy Rush Limbaugh on January 16th as he referred to Senator Obama by stating, "And for Barack Obama, a -- well, he's a half-minority...". Limbaugh later abandoned all pretense and stole the line from Melanie Morgan and Brian Sussman when he went on to say, "Barack Obama has picked up another endorsement: Halfrican American actress Halle Berry. "As a Halfrican American, I am honored to have Ms. Berry's support, as well as the support of other Halfrican Americans,".
It should be clear to anyone, by now, that the right wing-nut media...in the persons of Brian Sussman, Melanie Morgan, Rush Limbaugh, Michael Savage-Weiner, et al...,is showing its true colors. The here-to-fore sub rosa racism of America's hard right is surfacing in all of its ugliness with the appellations "hafrican", "half-minority" and other less obvious references to Obama's race. It appears to be their belief that only rich white, heterosexual (at least in public), Christian (again, at least in public), males should hold the keys to power in this nation. Barak Obama and Hillary Clinton both threaten that nasty little paradigm.
And now we have the now exploded myth that Barak Obama was educated in a madrassa while he was living in Indonesia. Insight posted an unsourced story asserting that Senator Obama was raised as a Muslim and educated at a madrassa while he was living in Indonesia as a child. CNN sent a reporter to verify this asssertion, only to find that the "madrassa" was a public school attended by Muslim, Buddhist, Christian and children of other faiths as well.
Even more interesting is that the Insight story asserted that Hillary Clinton's campaign office leaked this information to Insight after performing a background check on Senator Obama, but no evidence was presented by Insight to support this claim. There are also equally weak claims from other sources in the same right wing-nut quarter that the information was leaked by John Edward's campaign office. So, the right wing-nut media is attempting to smear three liberal/progressive candidates with the same foul brush.
This ugliness, surfacing as early as it does in the campaign cycle, seems to indicate a degree of fear and loathing for Obama and Clinton which has less to do with their qualifications for office than it does their race or gender. But that's been the dirty little secret of right wing politics in America since the civil-rights movement in the sixties. This view was perhaps best voiced by Michael Savage-Weiner on his January 15th broadcast:
It (civil rights)is a whole industry; it's a racket. It's a racket that is used to exploit primarily heterosexual, Christian, white males' birthright and steal from them what is their birthright and give it to people who didn't qualify for it.
The words of a fearful little man, seeking the approval of other fearful little men. Obama and Clinton...They must scare the living hell out of the lunatics.
