This is the latest in a series on the use of the race card for political gain:
Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) took to the floor of the Senate earlier this week and delivered a speech which would have made Alan Grayson and Keith Olbermann blush. Following in Harry Reid’s footsteps, Whitehouse used the race card to attack those who disagree with him politically.
Whitehouse compared opponents of the Democratic health care bill to those who hung black from trees in the South and the Nazis who ran through the streets on Kristilnacht:
History cautions us of the excesses to which these malignant, vindictive passions can ultimately lead. Tumbrels have rolled through taunting crowds. Broken glass has sparkled in darkened streets. Strange fruit has hung from Southern trees. Even this great institution of government that we share has cowered before a tail-gunner having secret lists. Those malignant movements rightly earned what Lord Acton called “the undying penalty which history has the power to inflict upon wrong.”
For his coup de grâce, Whitehouse showed his race card, insisting that those opposing the health care bill were racists who could not stand that Barack Obama existed:
And why? Why all this discord and discourtesy, all this unprecedented destructive action? They are desperate to break this president. They have ardent supporters who are nearly hysterical at the very election of President Barack Obama. The birthers, the fanatics, the people running around in right-wing militia and Aryan support groups, it is unbearable to them that President Barack Obama should exist.
For this despicable speech, Whitehouse gets the Saturday Night Card Game award tonight.
Update: h/t to a commenter for these words from Kevin Dowd (not Maureen) in the NY Times, with his year-end reflection:
To Sheldon Whitehouse: You, senator, are an idiot.
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Saturday Night Card Game
Sheldon Whitehouse Becomes Alan Grayson
Sheldon Whitehouse Voted to Defund The Troops in 2007
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