Sarah Palin calls Obama "half white or half Black," wants him to "refudiate" NAACP

During a recent appearance on Sean Hannity’s show on FOX NEWS, in which she was pushing back at the NAACP’s resolution on teabagger* bigotry, Sarah Palin claimed that they didn’t care if President Obama is “half white or half Black.”

While Obama embraces his mixed parentage, he identifies himself as African American, not biracial, not “half white or half Black,” but African American. Folks who are biracial or of mixed heritage have every right to declare how they want to be identified and everyone else should respect their choice.

Make no mistake Palin meant this as a diss, a racial dog whistle, intended to defend teabaggers against charges of racism and other forms of bigotry, while at the same time reminding her like minded audience that he is not like them, he is different.

She is implying that white folks can’t be racist against some one who is “half white,” while at the same time reminding folks he is “half Black.” Let’s not forget that Palin’s buddy, radio host and pill popping bigot Rush Limbaugh refers to Obama as a “Halfrican American.” These references have a purpose and its not a celebration of Obama’s diverse background.

In the same interview Palin called on Obama to “refudiate,” (yeah the crazy lady made up the word “refudiate”) the NAACP for its resolution condemning the teabagger movement for the bigotry that is directed at Obama as well as others.

Think about that now, Palin wants Obama to “refudiate” (I guess that means repudiate) folks who are speaking out against the bigotry directed at him. Seriously?

Whenever the teabaggers get together the bigoted signs and rhetoric are not far behind. Lets not forget the time they called Congressman John Lewis, a civil rights hero, the “n-word,” spit on Congressman Emanuel Clever and called Congressman Barney Frank the “f-word,” all in one day.

The racially charged atmosphere that surrounds the teabaggers’ protest is just sickening. Whether its the picture of Obama dressed up like a witch doctor, Tea Party leader Dale Robertson carrying a sign with the “n-word” on it or the kid carrying a sign that says “Obamanomics: Monkey See/Monkey Spend,” its not surprising that many African Americans, including yours truly, as well as decent people of all backgrounds are alarmed by the overt racism on display at these events.

Rather than Palin pandering to her fellow teabaggers she needs to call them out, “refudiate” their bigotry, accept the NAACP’s resolution and challenge her friends to be above the bigotry that has defined their movement. Anything short of that is unacceptable, but sadly expected.
*I refuse to defame a special moment in American history but comparing this ignorant band of blithering idiots to the true patriots who took part in the Boston Tea Party.

FORGET GLENN BECK: the UPS Store has temporarily halted buying ads on Fox News Channel as a whole

While I'm definitely thrilled to see the success of Color of Change's threatened boycott of companies that advertise on FOX NEWS CHANNEL (FNC) during the Glenn Beck Show, I'm more excited by this line from the Associated Press article on the effort:

-snip-
"This is a good illustration of that conundrum," said Rich Hallabran, spokesman for UPS Stores, which he said has temporarily halted buying ads on Fox News Channel as a whole.
-snip-

Now does this mean that the UPS Store will stop advertising on FNC completely? Who knows. But what it does mean is that the boycott on Beck is making advertisers really evaluate where they advertise and hopefully this is the beginning of a new era in broadcast advertising, a new era in which personalities are not rewarded for spreading lies and hate.

I do feel that the AP and others do the public a disservice when they group MSNBC's Rachel Maddow and Keith Olberman with FNC's Beck and Sean Hannity because the reason for the backlash is not liberal/progressive vs. conservative, its about responsible rhetoric vs. irresponsible rhetoric.

By drawing this comparison we are being led to believe that they all do the same thing, they don't. Folks like Beck, Hannity, Bill O'Reilly and Lou Dobbs are not problems because they represent a conservative point of view, they are problems because they use misinformation and outright lies to divide us. I am no fan of MSNBC's MORNING JOE, but while Joe Scarborough has not entirely avoided misinforming, this show for the most part is responsible when it comes to dealing with some of our most divisive issues of our time.

Hannity update: the hooker pics were from a TV segment he did promoting prostitution

Yesterday we posted pictures of one of FOX NEWS principal hypocrites, Sean Hannity, with the ladies of the Moonlite Bunny Ranch (MBR) as well as their pimp Dennis Hoff, and questioned how he came to appear in these pictures. A YouTube scan turned up a video of this visit posted by the folks at NewsHounds and it appears that Hannity visited the brothel with a TV crew in tow in an effort to "Hannitize" them during a segment on "Hannity's America" which aired originally aired on July 29, 2007.

We aren't too sure what "Hannitize" is supposed to mean but in our unbiased critical analysis (wink, wink) we take it to mean that when you get "Hannitized" you get a slick 3.5-minute commercial masquerading as a news segment.

Although Hannity appeared to lecture the girls and Pimp Hoff for less than a minute, we also got to meet the women who work at the ranch, learn about the process of selecting a lady (or ladies), we find out that folks from all walks of life visit MBR and Hoff tells us how the the privacy of patrons is safe. The segment also featured a rhythmic music bed and a laid back Hannity in jeans topped off with a black open collared shirt. After watching this segment we realized that if we were in the market for a legal brothel in Nevada MBR would be our choice.

Shouldn't our moralizing friend have gone with bible in one hand and a cross in the other?

Our guess is this "Hannitization," which was probably pitched by whomever does the media relations for the MBR, actually DROVE business to the brothel rather than discouraged it. If we were Hoff, the ladies of MBR or the media relations team we would be THRILLED with this segment. In essence Hannity used his TV show to promote prostitution, seriously.

We enjoy watching “Cathouse” on HBO and are not making moral judgments here, as we mentioned yesterday we are just calling out the hypocrisy. Hell, we can even be accused of promoting prostitution ourselves, but let the record know we don’t portray ourselves of moral crusaders.

When we made our initial post yesterday we did not know the circumstances behind the photos and now that we do it just reinforces Hannity’s hypocrisy.

Sean Hannity PHOTOGRAPHED CAVORTING with hookers and their pimp

On March 2, Megan Kelly of FOX NEWS CHANNEL (FNC) went out of her way to distort the facts of President Obama’s stimulus plan and claimed it included a provision that would fund a high-speed train between Los Angeles and the Moonlite Bunny Ranch (MBR), a brothel which is featured in HBO’s hit series “Cathouse.” We wonder if she got that info from fellow FNC personality Sean Hannity, who may know the brothel intimately and was PHOTOGRAPHED cavorting with a bunch of MBR ladies as well as their pimp Dennis Hoff.

While Kelly was doing what FNC is known to do, MAKE SHIT UP, the photos of Hannity were sitting right there, not on some paparazzi page but on the official MBR website.

We will not accuse Hannity of any illegal behavior, MBR is a licensed brothel in Nevada, but we will accuse him of being a grade A HYPOCRITE. We don’t claim to know the circumstances surrounding these photos, however we do know that in 2005 Hannity went after Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg claiming she supported legalized prostitution.

On November 1, 2005 MediaMatters quoted Hannity:

“I guess where I am on this, if you look at Ruth Bader Ginsburg, I mean, she -- the Ginsburg rule, she doesn't have to answer specific questions, clearly pro-choice going in, thinks there may even be a constitutional right to polygamy, has a controversial view we should lower the age of consent to 12, supports legalized prostitution, very left-wing.”

Upon seeing these photos we immediately we wondered, “what will Hannity’s religious right fans say about this?”

If Hannity is the moral crusader he claims to be, why the hell did he put himself in a position for these pictures to be taken? Did he visit the brothel? Is he a customer? Did he run into Hoff and the MBR ladies at a trade show or convention?

The Hannity we know and HATE, would never put himself in proximity of these “sinners.” If he couldn’t have avoided meeting them shouldn’t he have lectured them on their lack of morals, told them they were going to hell and REFUSED to take a picture with them?

Right?

On numerous occasions those of us on the “secular left” have laughed hysterically when moralists on the right (Larry Craig, Mark Foley, Ted Haggard and David Vitter to name a few) have railed against us for our alleged “lack of morality” only to see these folks exposed as hypocrites. We knew Hannity would eventually be exposed, we were just waiting on the evidence.

Sean you have some ‘splaining to do.

The REMARKABLE thing about Obama telling the GOP "You can't just listen to Rush Limbaugh ..."

Is that none of this country's "alleged patriots" (Hannity, O'Reilly, Beck, Savage, Dobbs, et al) have called Limbaugh out as anti-American we he declared on January 16 that he wants Obama to fail. Can you imagine the backlash if Keith Olbermann, Whoopie Goldberg or the Dixie Chicks had said what Limbaugh said about Obama about George Bush?

The hypocrisy of the "alleged patriots" is just appalling. The fact that Sean Hannity did not jump down Limbaugh's throat the minute he said what he said shows you how insincere and fake these guys really are.

Meanwhile for folks who thought that Obama was too nice to fight, it appears he is not afraid to pick a fight with the far right's biggest dog. GOBAMA!