youtube politics
 

thought this was interesting. and yeah, I know its rolling stone...just kind of interesting how anyone can be shooting video and the networks are able to pick it up now. and yeah, I know rolling stone sucks.

http://www.rollingstone.com/nationalaffairs/?p=426

8/15/06, 2:04 pm EST
The First YouTube Election: George Allen and “Macaca”

There have already been strong intimations that Virginia Republican Senator George Allen has a “race problem.” Now the 2008 GOP presidential pretender has shown off his unique sensitivities again by repeatedly calling an Asian operative from his competitor’s campaign “Macaca.” A Macaca is monkey native to Asia. The man, S.R. Sidarth, is of Indian decent.

Not content with insinuating that Sidarth is a primate, Allen also said to him, “Welcome to America and the real world of Virginia!” For the record: Sidarth was born in Virginia.

Unluckily — more than unluckily, stupidly — for Allen, Sidarth’s job is to videotape Allen’s public appearances, in the hopes, it would seem, of capturing a revealing off-color moment of candor such as this one. Today, the video evidence of Allen’s apparent race problem is all over the Internet, thanks to the wonders of YouTube.

There’s a paradigm shift under way and politicians like Allen, and to a lesser extent Joe Lieberman and Barbara Boxer, are learning it the hard way. The barriers to video broadcast are now gone. So an opposing campaign no longer has to rely on a local news station or CNN or CSPAN to run video of a gaffe. Any dolt with a handicam now can capture the unscripted reality of a candidate and disseminate it worldwide.

If it generates enough buzz in the blogosphere, the cable networks will even pick it up, as happened almost immediately with Allen’s monkeyboy dig.

What does this YouTube revolution mean for politics? It’s far too early to tell. One might hope that the omipresence of handicam reporters would mean that all of the artifice of advance teams and printed backdrops and hand-picked crowds of supporters only will be erroded. Unlike the professionals at CNN who play along and film the fakeness because it makes for pretty TV, the YouTubers out there are dedicated to exposing such artifice as an embarassment. And embarassing it is.

On the other hand, this YouTube threat could also hurtle the stage management of politics into hyperdrive, curtailing the kind retail politics and informal “Listening Tours” like the one Allen was on yesterday. Every candidate suffers from foot in mouth disease occasionally, if left alone without a script in front of a live audience. The consultants and advance men may stop deploying their candidates to the real world to every extent practicable.

Whatever the case, it’s clear that YouTube is already changing the game. And politicians of all stripes had better watch out.
-- Tim Dickinson

Racial slur? No biggie.
 

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Sen. George Allen denies a remark he made to describe an opponent's campaign worker was racially charged, saying in a statement that the media misunderstood his comments.

The Virginia Republican called S.R. Sidarth, a volunteer on Democrat Jim Webb's campaign, "Macaca" on two occasions during an event Friday in Breaks, a town in Virginia's southwest corner near the Kentucky border.

Macaca is a genus of monkeys, including the rhesus monkey. The senator's campaign said that Allen did not know that "Macaca" refer to monkeys. (Watch Allen refer to Sidarth as "Macaca" -- 2:32)

http://www.cnn.com/2006/POLITICS/08/...eer/index.html

It's cool how he denies he said anything wrong (paying homage to clinton's "what IS IS" I guess even though it's all clinton's fault) instead of apologizing.

Hmm, when a Democratic figure used appaulling language, seems his party forced him to make a wrong right and offer an apology. Glad to see the GOP stay true to their values and moral superiority and say zero about the comment. It isn't even his first time using racial slurs. I guess racial slurs are part of the party ideology.


Sen. George Allen - "This fellow here, over here with the yellow shirt, Macaca, or whatever his name is," said Allen, who at times pointed directly at the camera.

Tony Snow - Having said that, I don't want to hug the tar baby of trying to comment on the program

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/relea...0060516-4.html

Romney isn't a good Republican, he isn't following suit:

BOSTON, Massachusetts (AP) -- Gov. Mitt Romney has apologized for referring to the troubled Big Dig construction project as a "tar baby" during a fundraiser with Iowa Republicans, saying he didn't know anyone would be offended by the term some consider a racial epithet.

oh, it's no big deal. those stupid macacas in the projects don't read the news anyway. cheers.

It's ok, he's taking it back...

"Sidarth later said he did not view Allen's statement as an adequate apology. "First of all, if he is going to single me out in a crowd of 100 people, he ought to apologize to me personally," Sidarth said."

The video clip shows Allen telling the crowd: "Let's give a welcome to Macaca here. Welcome to America and the real world of Virginia."

the senator should perhaps study a racial slur chart to avoid future embarrassments i suppose. frankly, i don't buy that it was some "made up" nickname. be a man, and offer an apology to the guy, not some lamo press brief.

just another right supremacist comment "innocently" misused. surely the noose in his office, the confederate flag on his car and lapel pin in a high school photo (his family is from CA), being against dr. martin luther king day, surely screams non-racist to me.

If it was Hillary or Howard Dean that said something like this you know damn well Foxnews would be playing it over and over 24 hours a day.

typing into google:

foxnews hillary plantation - 64,ooo hits first two links foxnews from january 06. Obama not offended

foxnews allen macaca - 310 hits no links from foxnews on 1st page august 06. target of comment was offended

i already fucking made this thread

try foxnews lott racial
93,000 hits and his comments really weren't bad:
"I want to say this about my state: When Strom Thurmond ran for president, we voted for him. We're proud of it. And if the rest of the country had followed our lead we wouldn't have had all these problems over all these years either," Lott said.

Strom Thurmond's main plank of his presidential campaign was for keeping segregation.

wiki:
One 1948 speech, met with cheers by supporters, *******d the following:

"I wanna tell you, ladies and gentlemen, that there's not enough troops in the army to force the Southern people to break down segregation and admit the nigra race into our theaters, into our swimming pools, into our homes, and into our churches."

wiki has the audio.

more:

check out the platform of the "dixiecrat" party that nominated Thurmond for president.

http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/dixiecrat1.html

After you read how racist Strom Thurmond was in 1948, now re-read Trent Lott's comment. You still think it "really weren't bad"?

Yep.

"If we'd kept the country segregated, we wouldn't have had so many problems."

? am i misunderstanding the comment?

Yep.

Lott's comment was at a 100th birthday party for a guy who'd been in office forever. It was intended as a nice thing to say to someone on their 100th birthday.

Waaaay too much was read into it. Do I think Lott is a racist? Probably. Do I think that comment was racist? No.

SO what did he mean by it Nim?

"We're here to honor you, Strom Thurmond, who is a great guy and it would have been swell if he won that election, happy birthday"

Its all so clear now.

From Wiki:

I don't think it's use is always intentionally meant as racist.
Here's an interesting list of words that I'm sure someone has said at some point without it meaning to be racist. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ethnic_slurs

It's hilarious the logic pretzels you twist yourself into in order to keep claiming that you're right.

I kind of agree with Nimrod here... it was meant as a nice thing to say to someone on their birthday.

He probably would have said "You'd have done the country great by winning" to any old geezer in Congress who ran for President.

(But he probably is a racist...)

So this is what you're telling me.
 

News headline: The Senate Majority Leader, Trent Lott, did NOT make racist comments at Strom Thrumond's birthday. Nothing to see here. No big deal. Big whoop.

In other news: The Senate Majority Leader of the United States Congress is a racist.

Exactly

Do you recall when Ross Perot was dubbed a racist for saying to a group of NAACP supporters that he "sympathizes with the economic struggles that you people have had to endure" and being called a racist for using the words "you people?"

The media reads way too much into things.

I think you people should be equally focusing on the fact that he said "Welcome to America" to an American citizen.

i think thats actually a pretty creative slur

I just saw on CNN that this douchebag has a fondness for the Confederate flag. No, not racist at all!

I find it odd everyone got so upset over Lott basically saying nice things about a guy who was a racist, and virtually no heat was put on the fact that Strom Thurmond, the President Pro Tempore of the Senate, was in fact a racist.

It's like having a celebrity roast for Satan and being shocked - SHOCKED! - when people had the audacity to say nice things about Satan. Isn't the real bad guy Satan?