In a 20-page memo on GOP electoral woes, Rep. Tom Davis (R-Va.) repeatedly misspells Barack Obama’s name – it’s one R, congressman, not two — and then manages to use the racially charged term “tar baby” in a paragraph about Obama and immigration.
“Remember,” Davis writes, “Hispanic voters are a swing group in this election and future elections. John McCain, being from a border state, may be out of sync with many Republicans but he has standing among Hispanics. Barrack Obama has not made the sale to Hispanic voters. Thus, this issue is a tar baby for anyone who touches it, with land mines everywhere.”
Wasn’t Davis the one who recently said that if the Republican brand were dog food, it would be taken off the shelves? Ok, so this isn’t the end of the world, but Rep Davis, statements like this aren’t going to do much for your party in the fall.
Filed Under: GOP, Racism/Bigotry, Republican Party, Right Wing Stupidity, The House
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Foot In Mouth Disease seems rampant in the Repugs this week….omg..
Well this certainly explains why the republican party is dead in the water. What a bunch of moes!
Tar Baby?!???!
Just when you think they can’t get any dumber….
Uncle Remus must be rolling over in his grave.
3 gB Says: Tar Baby?!???!
____________________________________________
It’s a new brand of cigarettes targeting infants.
Har, har yet another smear from one of these piece of shit gop racists. Damn them.
Tarbaby is not always a racist term
There is no scandal or story here. You have only succeeded in making yourself look foolish.
Isn’t that what they call the child of a Tarheel?
Race card and gay marriage is all they got.
Off topic but I love this, from Kos:
“Obama Fires Back at McCain - Yet Again
by Scout Finch
Fri May 16, 2008 at 05:05:06 PM PDT
Speaking to the NRA today, John McCain called Obama’s foreign relations plans “reckless.” The McCain quote (courtesy of from Ben Smith at The Politico):
Earlier today, Sen. Obama made a few remarks I would like to respond to. I welcome a debate about protecting America. No issue is more important. Sen. Obama claimed all I had to offer was the ‘naive and irresponsible belief’ that tough talk would cause Iran to give up its nuclear program. He should know better. I have some news for Sen. Obama: Talking, not even with soaring rhetoric, in unconditional meetings with the man who calls Israel a ‘stinking corpse’ and arms terrorists who kill Americans will not convince Iran to give up its nuclear program. It is reckless to suggest that unconditional meetings will advance our interests.
It would be a wonderful thing if we lived in a world where we don’t have enemies. But that is not the world we live in, and until Sen. Obama understands that reality, the American people have every reason to doubt whether he has the strength, judgment and determination to keep us safe.
Barack fired-up that rapid response team and wasted no time hitting back (via press release):
“What’s reckless is continuing the Bush-McCain foreign policy that has cost us thousands of lives and a trillion dollars in Iraq, strengthened Iran, enabled Hamas to take Gaza, took our eye off al Qaeda, failed to capture Osama bin Laden, failed to finish the job in Afghanistan, and left us less safe and less respected in the world. No amount of utterly predictable fear-mongering and tough talk can change the fact that John McCain is running to continue the most disastrous foreign policy in recent American history,” said Obama campaign spokesman Bill Burton.
Holy shit — that was a WWF style smack-down of McCain. Can you smell what Barack is cooking?”
Had Kerry done this he probably would have won the election. Obama will not be smeared or swiftboated by the Rethuglican incompetent lowlifes!
….#11..I know, Kerry did win the election but I mean by a margin large enough to keep it out of reach of the anti-democratic election trumping conservative activist justices on the Supreme Court.
WhalersFan @ 8:
agree, also can refer to a sticky situation. Which IIRC was the original intent.
Well, I think this is a mountain out of a molehill. The context here is clear.
These people say and do enough dastardly things without trying to stretch this one so thin.
Maybe he wants to sink the GOP faster. More power to him!
Man o Man, this from one of the only Republicans who is not a chicken-hawk, a guy who actually served and now he blows his own foot off with a well placed shot.
That’s got to hurt.
It was racist, if anything we’ve learned about Republicans is their artful, dishonest, ways with language. Fuck them.
I swear they want to lose!
Actually Tar Baby means. . . A situation or problem from which it is virtually impossible to disentangle oneself.
But being a Con used the term we’ll make an exception .
Don’t underestimate the level of disrespect and outright depravity of these guys. It’s like looking for the good side of the Ku Klux Klan. It sometimes just doesn’t exist. These personalities are the same who’d wear white sheets in the 1950’s Mississippi etc. Or bomb churches with little girls in the 1960’s. Don’t let the respectable suits and language fool you. They are sick mother fuckers and if you need a refresher on the subject watch the movie Mississippi Burning with Gene Hackman.
Well, nothing really to comment on in here and I have an opportunity to go on a boat ride up the Mekong. I’ll check back this afternoon.
Oh, forgot to ask … is it me, or do most of the republicans have a real pasty look to them?
And what happened to that good news of yesterday about the possible jailing of Karl Rove?
L.A. Confidential @ 19:
IOTIYAR (It’s Only True If You’re A Republican)?
Dude, don’t ‘become the thing you hate’.
Gretchen @ 4:
. . . Huckabee makes a “joke” about someone shooting at Obama.
WhalersFan @ 8:
If a repug used the term you know it was meant to be derogatory. You are the foolish looking one to me.
1Watt @ 13:
I think you are about 99 watts short of a reading lamp.
FOX is State Sponsored TV @ 10:
Well, they can’t run on their record of turning Clinton’s legacy of peace and record prosperity into record deficits and endless wars. They need to distract their bedwetter base with scary black preachers and homersexuls.
Get a grip, folks. The “tar baby” has nothing to do with race. It comes from an African-American, and ultimately African, folk tale, but it is not in any way pejorative toward people of African descent. I’m not going to bother to explain it, look it up yourselves.
But please, don’t go off on a rant about something you don’t understand.
Jimmi the Grey @ 22:
Haven’t worn a suit since I promised I never would a long time ago. Don’t need to worry about that.
He tried working in the phrases ‘cotton picking’ and ’spear chucking’ but it sounded forced.
Tarbaby is not always a racist term- excepting when it comes out of a racist mouth. If they meant ’sticky situation’, that is what they’d have said.
Bottom line is still what Obama inherits on January 20th is a giant barrel of shit, and the expectation to turn it into a barrel of roses.
By June 09 people will likely respond w a collective wtf and wonder what just happened.
Sounds like just more dog food to me. That shelf is getting more and more empty. Just like the Republican’s “ideas”.
Ruthless People @ 26:
Homersexuals? You mean Marge?
WhalersFan @ 8:
When is it not a racial smear? When did it become acceptable to use such references, especially against a United States Senator and probably our next President? It is a racial smear and there is no way for you to ’sugarcoat’ it.
The use of the term “tar-baby” by a republican is not shocking. It’s like the story of the frog and the scorpion, they simply cannot help being republicans.
MacDaKnife @ 33:
OMG! Sugarcoating a “Tar Baby.” Now isn’t that as sticky a racial smear as ever hasstuck to a racist Republican?
The term “tarbaby” isn’t necessarily racist, but much like the word “niggardly” you are an idiot if you use it.
L.A. Confidential @ 28:
That’s a really good promise to keep, and strong foundation. ;)
Just soundin off because I’ve been seeing some frantic sounds coming from C&L’s comments lately and wanna remind us all that we on the left hold to higher standards in these kinda things. I (being politically to the left of the Democratic Party) see this as one of those little ‘crap…really wish I’d have phrased that better’ moments. Kinda like Mr. Obama would probably rather have phrased the ‘god, gunz and bitter’ quote differently.
Just keep you’re cool everyone, and the WH will be yours*
*Guarantee not subject to unforseen Terrorist Attacks, Un-Varifiable Elections or Declarations of Martial Law. Good in all 50 States and Associated Territories.
Dr. Quasius @ 36:
Almost exactly. While Tar Baby may possibly be used without reference to race i have never heard it used in any other fashion. Niggardly means stingy but is so close to N*gger that it should not be used when stingy or miserly are perfectly good words and are not concievably construed as racist.
WhalersFan @ 8:
you sir/madame are a gop non-reality moron. racists always deny.
How long do you think it will take before the republican leadership sends a broadcast e-mail to their talk radio minions to spread the meme that progressives should cut their membership a little slack for using the term “Tar Baby”. They’ll point out that it has been a “coon’s age” since they last slipped up and used such a blatently racist remark in a public forum. Come monday, Limbaugh and Hannity will be whineing that people who complain about something so trite are nothing but a bunch of nlers who are prancing about like a bunch of sambos to make something out of nothing.
/snark.
L.A. Confidential @ 19:
you are right about the definition, but in the south and i am from the south, it is used
more often as a loose racial slur.
Dr. Quasius @ 36:
I agree. Of all the terms in the English language he could have used, why this one? It isn’t one that pops into my head and I don’t think it has been commonly used in decades. Davis isn’t THAT old.
Ruthless People @ 12:
Surely you mean Al Gore?
As the child of a bi-racial marriage, growing up in the Deep South, I can safely say that “tar-baby” is precisely a racially-charged term, used for effect (division, ultimately). I would hazard a wager that the Rovian tactics squad is turned on the loose over the next few months…
xoites (One White Vote for Obama) defends Constitution @ 38:
Niggardly stems from a Norwegian word. Niggle. Niggling. Sprung up around 1570s. They don’t use it anymore. I don’t feel a need to stop myself from using it. If there is someone within earshot stupid enough to think it is somehow related to a racial slur, fuck ‘em. They need to get an education. That’s not my problem.
What a dumb honkey.
Niggardly = double-plus-ungood(?)
This is just as misguided as the uproar over “niggardly” a few years back. “Tar baby” is a popular cultural reference with the over 50 crowd (of any race) that has disappeared because Disney suddenly and permanently stopped showing Song of the South (as to why they did that–well, I’m not going near that tar baby). It has never been any sort of derogatory word against blacks–it has nothing to do with color. The tar baby was simply a doll made of tar used as a trick against a rabbit. It has no other meaning!
Taking a guess about the word and being uncomfortable is perhaps a natural thing to do. But getting angry over something you don’t understand is just foolish. This site (which I normally love) owes this Tom Davis guy an apology.
miss_kitty @ 45:
I agree in principle, however why get something stirred up when it so avoidable? If you use “niggardly” in front of black folks you are almost deliberately trying to create a situation. People may be ignorant about the genesis of the word, but that won’t keep you from getting your teeth kicked in.
If you call a black person a “tar baby” you’re insulting them, though I’ve never heard it used that way. In this situation it’s clear that the intent was to mean that immigration was a sticky mess that would stick to any of the two candidates who touches it which is probably true: no matter how you approach that problem someone is going to be mad at you. This manufactured outrage is about on a par with the “furor” over Kerry’s botched joke and countless other GOP faux scandals. Do we have to prove that we can jerks just like the GOPers?