Joan Walsh: The GOP's southern strategy lives on

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http://www.salon.com/news/politics/republican_party/index.html?story=/opinion/walsh/politics/2010/04/11/gop_southern_strategy_lives_on

The GOP's southern strategy lives on
Some Republicans seem to want to re-fight the Civil War -- and the civil rights movement, too
By Joan Walsh

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Louisiana Sen. David Vitter declared he'd "rather vote for a TV personality than a community organizer" – a big cheer for Sarah Palin! – while Palin rehashed her dumb TelePrompter and "hopey-changey" jokes. A Palin fan explained part of her appeal to Madden: "This is a Christian country, it's not a Muslim country," she said. And Georgia's favorite Catholic philanderer, Newt Gingrich, mocked Obama in a particularly classy way, insisting "What we need is a president, not an athlete," adding "Shooting three point shots may be clever, but it doesn’t put anybody to work." I'm sure race had nothing to do with Gingrich reducing our first black president to one of the most common stereotypes of black men – not only a basketball player, but a show-boating, three-point-shot taking baller who won't even practice his free throws.

Given the shrill, over the top nastiness of the GOP's party weekend, it bothered me Sunday morning to see CNN's Candy Crowley doing a gauzy, soft-focus profile of the SRLC meeting, complete with an admiring sit-down with Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour. Crowley asked Barbour if he saw anything wrong with McDonnell declaring Confederate History Month. And – wait for it, Crowley landed an incredible scoop – the Mississippi governor said...no! Crowley also asked Barbour about the anger loose in America today, but she won today's False Equivalence award by equating the anger on the left and the right. Note to Crowley and all of her Erick Erickson-hiring CNN masters: Nasty slogans about Bush don't equal death threats to Sen. Patty Murray, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and now-retiring anti-abortion Democrat Bart Stupak. And irate liberal Democrats threatening to primary Blue Dog Dems aren't the moral or political equivalent of right-wingers spitting on black congressmen and calling them "nigger," or calling Barney Frank a "fag."

Of course, Haley Barbour decried the anger on both sides – but of course, he also linked it to "Americans" being "frightened" of their government. First of all, "Americans" elected Barack Obama president. But more important, this is becoming a regular GOP thing: Claiming that Republicans wouldn't misbehave except for, golly, they're so darn scared of the Obama administration. (Rep. Mike Pence did it the weekend of the healthcare reform vote, when the spitting and slurring of Democrats by tea partiers reached fever-pitch). I don't know what's scarier about Obama than, say, Bill Clinton, do you?

I've said it before: It's a shame how our cautious, centrist Ivy League president, who was raised by his white family, who never fails to seek conciliation rather than confrontation, somehow turned out to be a scary black man. I didn't see that one coming.