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  • 'Raghead' slur is new ugly twist in S.C. race

    'Raghead' slur is new ugly twist in S.C. race
    1 hr 18 mins ago

    Lee Atwater would be proud. Or ashamed. Or both.

    Atwater, the famed GOP operative who ran George W. Bush's 1988 presidential campaign, was the universally acknowledged master of the political dirty trick — his was the diabolical mind behind the "Willie Horton" ad that did Michael Dukakis in — until a deathbed conversion in which he regretted the "naked brutality" of his career. Atwater was also a native of South Carolina, and in recent months his home state has been living up to his political legacy in ways he never could have imagined — most recently with a Republican state senator using the slur "raghead" for GOP gubernatorial candidate Nikki Haley, a Christian of Indian Sikh descent, and for President Obama.

    South Carolina has always had a singularly mean-spirited and crafty political culture, especially on the GOP side, where dog whistles about race and religion come across loud and clear to its good ol' boy base. There were the rumors floated during the 2000 Republican presidential primary about a supposed illegitimate black child of Sen. John McCain, and there was the time in 1990 when political consultant Rod Shealy conspired to increase the turnout among anti-black white voters in the GOP primary by recruiting a black candidate (which he correctly reckoned would benefit his candidate) to run for Congress.

    South Carolina has also of late become known for the sexual peccadilloes of Gov. Mark Sanford and the anti-Obama rage of one of its congressmen, Joe Wilson (he of the "You lie!" outburst during the president's address to Congress on health care).

    And now the state's Republican primary for governor has tied those threads of political deviousness, sexual innuendo and white rage into an Atwaterian nightmare.

    Front-runner Haley, an attractive "pro-family" candidate who has the backing of the tea party movement and Sarah Palin, has been the target of not one but two claims of infidelity to her husband — both lodged by conservative political operatives who claim to have slept with her. And on Thursday a state senator who is supporting one of Haley's opponents casually referred to her as a "raghead" and claimed that she is a Manchurian candidate launched by a "network of Sikhs" to take over the governorship.

    During a visit Thursday to "Pub Politics," an online political chat show hosted from a bar in Columbia, S.C., state senator Jake Knotts said: "We already got one raghead in the White House; we don't need a raghead in the governor's mansion." Haley's parents are Sikhs of Indian descent; she has converted to Christianity but still attends Sikh religious ceremonies on occasion out of deference to her parents.

    According to the Columbia Free Times, Knotts also claimed that Haley was a plant being controlled by nefarious handlers:



    Knotts says he believed Haley has been set up by a network of Sikhs and was programmed to run for governor of South Carolina by outside influences in foreign countries. He claims she is hiding her religion and he wants the voters to know about it.



    The "raghead" remark seemed like an inevitable grace note in the gubernatorial primary. Knotts is supporting South Carolina Attorney General Andre Bauer's candidacy, and this week a campaign consultant for Bauer named Larry Marchant came forward to claim he had a "one-night stand" with Haley — a married mother of two — at a school-choice conference in 2008. That allegation came just a week after Will Folks, a right-wing blogger and former campaign worker for Haley, claimed to have engaged in an "inappropriate physical relationship" with her.

    Haley has categorically denied the charges and says she has been "100 percent faithful" to her husband. Bauer, who fired Marchant and says he has had nothing to do with the charges of infidelity, has chosen a curious approach to staying out of the fray: He's demanding that Haley take a lie-detector test to prove that she never cheated on her husband. Haley, meanwhile, has pledged that if she's elected, she will resign if proof ever comes out that she did sleep with Folks or Marchant.

    Neither Marchant nor Folks has come forward with proof of their claims, though Folks has released phone records showing that he frequently spoke to Haley on the phone late at night and claims to have seen a photo, allegedly taken by a private investigator, of himself and Haley in a "compromising position."

    As for Knotts, he has issued an apology for the "raghead" comment, claiming that it was "intended in jest" and that the "humorous content was lost in translation." Though the "Pub Politics" show was webcast, host Wesley Donehue, a South Carolina political consultant, Tweeted that "technical issues" with prevented Knotts' remark from being archived on the show's site, so no video of it was immediately available. But he later Tweeted that he had his own version, as yet unreleased. (To add to the insular, high-school nature of the campaign's glorious disarray, Donehue was the person Folks accused of first peddling Folks-Haley rumors to the press, allegedly prompting Folks' confession.)

    Even in his apology, Knotts managed to get another underhanded dig in at Haley, whom he says "is pretending to be someone she is not." Bauer used identical language in his statement challenging her to a lie-detector test. The implication that she is, as Knotts put it, "hiding her true religion." Meanwhile, the Christian Broadcasting Network's David Brody published a story Thursday saying her emphasis on her Christian faith has evolved over the years.

    Haley has thus far used the bizarre attacks to her advantage, painting herself as a victim of a corrupt political culture, and has maintained a healthy lead in the polls. The primary is Tuesday, which leaves only three more days for Haley's opponents to systematically eviscerate the myth of the Southern gentleman.

    — John Cook is a senior national reporter/blogger for Yahoo! News.

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    Copyright © 2010 Yahoo! Inc. All rights reserve
    To sit down with these men and deal with them as the representatives of an enlightened and civilized people is to deride ones own dignity and to invite the disaster of their treachery - General Matthew Ridgway

  • #2
    I watched the SC Governor (repub) debates on C-Span. Nikki Haley was the only one of the bunch that impressed me. The rest of the crop were typical politicians, full of doubletalk and inflated egos. A pretty sad group overall.
    "We will go through our federal budget – page by page, line by line – eliminating those programs we don’t need, and insisting that those we do operate in a sensible cost-effective way." -President Barack Obama 11/25/2008

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    • #3
      I'd like to say I'm stunned by such callous accusations but nothing seems surprising any more, regardless of the accompaning immediate shock. I don't know what civil or criminal provisions can be used as a recourse for Mrs. Haley but I avails herself of them.

      What cheap, evil people we can be...
      "This aggression will not stand, man!" Jeff Lebowski
      "The only true currency in this bankrupt world is what you share with someone else when you're uncool." Lester Bangs

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      • #4
        Originally posted by S-2 View Post
        I don't know what civil or criminal provisions can be used as a recourse for Mrs. Haley but I avails herself of them.
        Its just a name-call. Sticks and stones, etc.

        -dale

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        • #5
          Originally posted by dalem View Post
          Its just a name-call. Sticks and stones, etc.

          -dale
          It's more than that. It's a calculated campaign tactic to raise doubts about her moral character and draw attention to her ethnicity and religious background.
          To be Truly ignorant, Man requires an Education - Plato

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          • #6
            Originally posted by JAD_333 View Post
            It's more than that. It's a calculated campaign tactic to raise doubts about her moral character and draw attention to her ethnicity and religious background.
            ...that makes the utterer into an utter tool. She'll be fine.

            -dale

            Edited: cool, this may be the first time I've used BOTH meanings of "utter" in the same sentence.

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            • #7
              Originally posted by dalem View Post
              ...that makes the utterer into an utter tool. She'll be fine.

              -dale

              Edited: cool, this may be the first time I've used BOTH meanings of "utter" in the same sentence.
              uh..I suppose congratulations are in order. Utterly fantastic.
              To be Truly ignorant, Man requires an Education - Plato

              Comment


              • #8
                Originally posted by JAD_333 View Post
                It's more than that. It's a calculated campaign tactic to raise doubts about her moral character and draw attention to her ethnicity and religious background.
                Additionally painting the entire American Sikh community as un-wanted.
                Cow is the only animal that not only inhales oxygen, but also exhales it.
                -Rekha Arya, Former Minister of Animal Husbandry

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                • #9
                  Tronic Reply

                  "Additionally painting the entire American Sikh community as un-wanted."

                  It's likely got nothing to do with a Sikh ethnicity and everything to do with the color of her skin...or more accurately, blood.

                  The guy is a racist and his comments are calculated to incite racist sentiment. Mrs. Haley could as easily been hispanic, asian, or black-as was his other target, the President of the United States.

                  I doubt he even knows anything about Sikhs but that they didn't originate in America.

                  Neither, he needs reminding, did his forefathers.
                  "This aggression will not stand, man!" Jeff Lebowski
                  "The only true currency in this bankrupt world is what you share with someone else when you're uncool." Lester Bangs

                  Comment


                  • #10
                    Originally posted by troung View Post
                    Nikki Haley, a Christian of Indian Sikh descent
                    Originally posted by troung View Post
                    Haley's parents are Sikhs of Indian descent; she has converted to Christianity but still attends Sikh religious ceremonies on occasion out of deference to her parents
                    Interesting composition of words. I guess no level of transformation will ever amount to "pristine". It is definitely "skin color".
                    Last edited by Hindu_Infidel; 05 Jun 10,, 14:45.

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                    • #11
                      Gotta love the fine specimens of humanity from dixie.
                      F/A-18E/F Super Hornet: The Honda Accord of fighters.

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                      • #12
                        This is the main reason I tewnd to shy away from Republican politics, even though I hate the Dem version of Welfare politics.

                        Every now and then some clown emerges either espousing some bitterly ethnocentric, xenophobic, homophobic or otherwise socially intolerant viewpoint (like this one and the infamous "Macaca" incident) or using some vile underhanded tactic (like the smear campaign against McCain in 2000) and I am left wondering who the Republicans actually are.:(

                        McCain obviously is an exception, but he has little respect within his party anyway.
                        "Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent. Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent. Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil? Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?" ~ Epicurus

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                        • #13
                          Originally posted by S-2 View Post
                          "Additionally painting the entire American Sikh community as un-wanted."

                          It's likely got nothing to do with a Sikh ethnicity and everything to do with the color of her skin...or more accurately, blood.

                          The guy is a racist and his comments are calculated to incite racist sentiment. Mrs. Haley could as easily been hispanic, asian, or black-as was his other target, the President of the United States.

                          I doubt he even knows anything about Sikhs but that they didn't originate in America.

                          Neither, he needs reminding, did his forefathers.
                          Yes, a racist attack, and a very un-educated one at that as there is quite a large community of white Sikhs in the US whose ancestor's did not originate from Punjab, and most likely share the same origins as Mr. Knotts.
                          Cow is the only animal that not only inhales oxygen, but also exhales it.
                          -Rekha Arya, Former Minister of Animal Husbandry

                          Comment


                          • #14
                            Originally posted by antimony View Post
                            This is the main reason I tewnd to shy away from Republican politics, even though I hate the Dem version of Welfare politics.

                            ...I am left wondering who the Republicans actually are.
                            Well, the person who was the target of the smear is also a republican. Don't paint everyone with the same brush, that's what the guy you are complaining about did.

                            And let's not pretend the same thing has never happened on the democrat side either.

                            I've spent a lot of time in South Carolina, and I would say the racial issues there are more pronounced than we see in the northwest. But that doesn't mean everyone has those problems, and most people don't.

                            The author's comments make clear his bias- he dragged out every anti-republican complaint he could come up with, even though they have no bearing on this particular state senator or this comment.

                            It's like the tea party coverage by the MSM. Invariably some reporter will mention- "Well, this guy isn't a supporter of Timothy McVeigh, but..." It's all about drawing linkages in the reader's mind even when they are unrelated.

                            This is about the SC governor race, not Joe Wilson, Lee Atwater, Mark Sanford, George Bush, etc.
                            "We will go through our federal budget – page by page, line by line – eliminating those programs we don’t need, and insisting that those we do operate in a sensible cost-effective way." -President Barack Obama 11/25/2008

                            Comment


                            • #15
                              Reply to Highsea

                              Originally posted by highsea View Post
                              Well, the person who was the target of the smear is also a republican.
                              Cannibalism is no less despicable than murder is.

                              Originally posted by highsea View Post
                              Don't paint everyone with the same brush, that's what the guy you are complaining about did.
                              I can see for myself the opinion of known conservatives on this board about this issues, and that is certainly heartening. At the same time, this sort of thought seems to be in line with the behaviour of Southern State Republican politicians.

                              There may very well have been similar things with Dems, Senator Byrd comes to mind, but I certainly have not heard about them as much. Maybe that's the "MSM bias" at work.
                              "Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent. Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent. Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil? Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?" ~ Epicurus

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