You know, I have a problem with the way that somebody ambushed Randi Rhodes and got her to make racist and prejudiced comments about the governors of Louisiana and South Carolina. It’s just… cruel to do that to an alcoholic on a bender; when you have somebody with an existing history of being found face down in the gutter with the recent contents of her stomach spread out around her in a semi-particulate spray, taking advantage of that by shoving a microphone in her face and asking her to spout off some good, old-fashioned racism is simply not very civi… wait, hold on. She talked this trash on the air?

“Bobby Jindal even converted from Hinduism — Nikki Haley, too — in order to be acceptable to the conservative South in Louisiana and uh — [about a five second pause] Georgia! I mean, that is crazy that in order to be acceptable to the party you have to, you know, pretend that you’ve given up your religion!”

While sober?

Well, then.

OK, let’s start with some remedial ethnology for Randi Rhodes, and any other bitter, racist drunks out there. As Tim Graham noted in his own contemptuous smack-down: Bobby Jindal converted long before he entered politics (guess Rhodes thinks that there’s a Mystical Hindu Conspiracy out there*); Nikki Haley was a Sikh, not a Hindu (I further guess that they all look alike to Rhodes); and she also happens to be the Governor of South Carolina. You know. The state that just elected African-American Republican Tim Scott to Congress with 65% of the vote.

And that’s the real problem for Rhodes, isn’t it? Jindal and Haley are just representative of a larger threat to her favorite narrative. Those awful racist Republicans are infuriatingly – to Rhodes – happy to nominate and elect blacks and Indians and Latinos and women and South Asians; and, worse, they’re doing it in both statewide races and majority-white ones. Ask Artur Davis how much white Democratic support he got in the Alabama Governor’s primary. Ask Kendrick Meek how it felt to watch Florida Democrats pick Charlie Crist over him. Check with every ambitious urban African-American politician in America to see how much they enjoy having to wait until an Approved Minority Member of Congress dies of old age before they can compete for a seat.

Or not. After all, the Democratic establishment visibly is indifferent to the sensibilities of its token minority ‘leaders;’ why should we not follow suit?

Moe Lane (crosspost)

PS: Please note that ProFlowers – and other companies – think that this sort of thing is somehow more acceptable speech than, say, Rush Limbaugh’s. Keep that in mind the next time that you need to send someone flowers.

PPS: One of my colleagues privately notes and worries that bringing this sort of thing to the attention of the public might in fact provide Randi Rhodes with free publicity. I note the legitimacy of said worries in general – but would point out in this specific case the publicity involves not only the woman’s inherent racism, but her inherently incoherent racism. Rhodes doesn’t even know the most elementary details about the people that she hates, bless her heart; I’m happy to put a spotlight on that, honestly.

*Almost refreshing: her ilk usually blames the woes of the world on the Jews.