Why Conservatives Still Judge Obama by the Job He Did After College.

[babylonsister]

http://www.prospect.org/csnc/blogs/tapped_archive?month=04&year=2010&base_name=why_conservatives_still_judge

Why Conservatives Still Judge Obama by the Job He Did After College.


There are a lot of things Republicans don't like about Barack Obama. So why is it that they can't let go of the "community organizer" thing? I raise this because Louisiana Sen. David Vitter proclaimed the other day at the Southern Republican Leadership Conference, "I'll take a TV personality over a community organizer any day." Presumably, he meant that he likes Sarah Palin more than Obama. But as Steve Benen points out, he won't be taking a TV personality over a community organizer, he'll be taking a TV personality over a sitting president, who happened to work as a community organizer when he was in his twenties.

Conservative Republicans like Vitter seem to believe that having once been a community organizer is a sin that Obama should never be able to escape (kind of like Vitter's patronage of the prostitution industry, say);). But community organizing is something Obama did after college. As a point of comparison, after she finished college, Sarah Palin was a sports reporter at a small-market local television station. Think about how odd it would be if a Democrat got up and said, "The world is not a small-market local television station, and it doesn't just need a sports reporter!" Yet in her convention speech in 2008, Palin said, "This world of threats and dangers is not just a community, and it doesn't just need an organizer!"

I know conservatives will call me unfair for saying this, but the racial subtext is pretty clear. When they say "community organizer," they mean "guy who works to help black people get more power and influence, probably at the expense of white people." Otherwise, it just doesn't sound like something sinister and worthy of ridicule.

-- Paul Waldman

[unpossibles]

1. plus it sounds all communist and stuff

and you know how they've been told to hate that for too long to ignore it....

[FrenchieCat]

9. Yep....sounds real Alsinky and shit!

[liberal N proud]

2. Community = Socialism

Nuff said

[political_Dem]

3. It only shows that they aren't for the people.

Instead, knocking Mr. Obama's ability to help the community demonstrates the RNC's world view based on self-centeredness, selfishness as well as authoritarianism.

It's not a surprise that they would not want their followers to speak back. They're more about appointing someone to single-handedly call the shots instead of allowing others to debate their platform. After all, walking in goose-step is their mantra and they stick by it.

[jbnow]

12. Funny that the community organizer did just what republicans say Obama

never did... he ran a "company", oversaw and grew a budget and a staff.
When he started as director/organizer he was the only staff and the budget was $70,000. When he left 3 years he had a staff of 13 and a budget from of $400,000.... and many ongoing programs in place.

Well the republicans just manage not to mention that.

[Canuckistanian]

4. Jesus was a community organizer

Paul Revere was a community organizer. So were Nelson Mandela, Gandhi, Lech Walesa and Joan of Arc.

What these guys don't like is that community organizers work DIRECTLY for the people. They cut out the middleman and show people how to do things in the ABSENCE of any government agency.

And they don't like losing that control over the population. They have a desperate need to have others DEPENDENT on them.

Fuck 'em.

[moc]

5. +1000

[Mike Daniels]

7. I'd point out that the Founding Fathers were community organizers

The Revolution didn't spring up fully formed like some Roman/Greek creation myth.

It took one hell of a lot of leg work to bring 13 disparate colonies together and the FF's and others spent a lot of time organizing and running committees/groups that helped spread the message of independence.

While I'm on it, I'd like to see someone ask Palin and the teabaggers how they reconcile their hatred for the elites with their admiration of the FF's who were w/out a doubt the elites of their time and communities.

[Dr Morbius]

8. Spot on.

Samuel Adams might well have been the nation's first community organizer.

It's a shame that for some people "community" holds negative connotations.

[Cha]

6. I hate that President Obama

even has to be in the same article as these low lifes.

We have no worthy opponents.

[Zoeisright]

10. Because they're stupid.

And petty, and mean, and inbred, and cruel, and absolutely, 100% racist.

[davidpdx]

11. It still shocks me that they throw that in his face

as though that's a bad thing. It reminds me of the saying from Forrest Gump, "Stupid is what stupid does" (or something like that)

[hobbit709]

13. That is so last century.

In other words, so Republican. And they have nothing so they have to make up shit.
As the bumper sticker on my truck says.
"Hey Governor Palin, Jesus was a Community Organizer
Pontius Pilate was a governor. Get the difference?"