News Roundup for 10/3/11

Noted anti-prejudice expert, Herman Cain
-Headline of the Day-
"Herman Cain faces backlash for 'playing race card' against Rick Perry."

Just a heads up before we get started here, this is a story without any good guys, like The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly.

By now you've probably heard of Rick Perry's association with a hunting camp and the use of a word that's so offensive that many mainstream news outlets have been reduced to pointless censorship by referring to it as "N*ggerhead." Seriously, that's not avoiding anything other than spelling it right.

Anyhoo, Herman Cain got wind of the story and told Fox News Sunday that for Perry to "leave [a rock with the word 'Niggerhead' painted on it] there as long as he did, before I hear that they finally painted over it, is just plain insensitive to a lot of black people in this country."

At this point, I'm going to chime in a remind everyone that Herman Cain is a bigot himself. In other words, prejudice sucks when it's directed Herman Cain's way, but if you want to hate everyone else, knock yourself out.

But Herman's problem here isn't the obvious hypocrisy. Herman's problem lies where conservatives' problems with the base always lie; in embracing reality. Because Herman Cain complaining about racism is the worst thing ever!

"Daily Intel rounds up numerous conservatives on Twitter lambasting Cain for 'smearing a good man.' The Daily Caller calls Cain 'at worst, highly irresponsible.' The mostly subliterate RedState commenters have convinced themselves that Cain is the real racist for going after Perry," reports Alex Pareene. And, of course, Erick-Erick joins in on the fun, because you can always count on him to be an idiot.

The problem is that Rick Perry is a Tea Party type. Of course, so's Herman Cain. But when someone accuses a Tea Party type of racism, that means the accuser is a commie. Automatically. They're just trying to discredit a movement that marches around with pictures of Barack Obama with a bone through his nose. You know what's racist? Calling the Tea Party racist, that's what!

"Herman Cain is going to very quickly learn that the modern conservative movement only wants to hear good, happy stories about how they successfully eradicated all white racism many years ago," Pareene predicts.

Normally, I'm against political predictions, but I'd bet money on that one. (Salon)


-Good news/bad news-


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Forget gay marriage, how do we explain species-suicide to our kids? (McClatchy)


-Bonus HotD-
"Half of Republicans Don't Know What 'G.O.P.' Means."

A recent poll shows that nearly half of Republican voters don't know that "GOP" stands for "Grand Old Party." Best guesses among the wrong were "Government of the People," "Grumpy Old People," "God's Own Party," and "Gauntlet of Power."

No foolin'. (Wonkette)