LIBERADIO(!)

Imma gonna go get my free cone, but before I do…

More conversation and some questions today surrounding the comments made by House Caucus Chair Mike Turner yesterday:

We’ve got a lot of bills on states’ rights here, state sovereignty and all that,” he added. “We went through that fight once before. All of a sudden, we have a black man elected president and everybody wants to start acting like something’s wrong with our country. I didn’t agree with a lot of things George Bush did, but I wasn’t ready to secede from the union.

Chris Devaney, Chair of the TNGOP, is shocked. SHOCKED! I tell you.

If I were Turner, I’d take it all one step further. The rash of states’ rights and state sovereignty bills introduced in Tennessee by Republicans isn’t because we “have a black man elected president.” It’s because some people don’t like a black man telling them what to do. Can’t you just feel them bristle?

Recent events illustrate that Devaney’s shock is disingenuous. Because yes, Tennessee’s Republican delegation may not necessarily be the people who are riled up by Barack Obama’s leadership role, but they most definitely are pandering to the people who are:

A staffer for Rep. James Clyburn (D-S.C.) told reporters that Rep. Emanuel Cleaver (D-Mo.) had been spat on by a protestor. Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.), a hero of the civil rights movement, was called a ‘ni–er.’ And Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) was called a “faggot,” as protestors shouted at him with deliberately lisp-y screams. Frank, approached in the halls after the president’s speech, shrugged off the incident.

Manipulation in politics is nothing new but it can be dangerous when exploiting fear – one of the most unstable of all human emotions – is at its core.

UPDATE: Kleinheider has an interesting list compiled by Democratic House Leader Gary Odom.

UPDATE II: Aunt B is proud of her Democrats today. She has all the deets on 1) The press conference that was called to express the TNGOP’s “shock and outrage that anyone would dare suggest that some people have issues with Obama being black” and that Rep. Jason Mumpower rather hastily ended when “he was asked about the tea party protesters who heckled and spit at Democratic House members, including various civil rights icons, over the weekend in Washington….” and 2) the united font of swagger that has returned to House Dems.