It’s one thing to say those things and believe what you are saying. But, it’s a whole nother thing to really want to hold people down because you think they are less than. To make sure they’re down and stay down. I don’t believe the people I’ve been with want to keep them down, but I do believe this group or the group in power in the GOP must — to use such a strategy. Or they have to know that their actions will keep them down and they don’t give a flying flip at all.

Like you, I haven’t wanted to believe the absolute worst about our public figures. But the bad behavior just goes on and on, and gets harder and harder to gloss over. Now O’Reilly has gone on the radio and said some racist thing about a restaurant in Harlem. This morning on the Today Show, Matt Lauer issued roughly this same apology for him (in absentia). He said he was sure Bill would want to rephrase his statement, refine it to make it more precise, to more accurately represent his true meaning, blah, blah, blah. I realized it was the same excuse I make for these assholes, which is, essentially, “He couldn’t have really meant it, just give him the benefit of the doubt, he just couldn’t be a racist.”

Maybe Bill could prove somehow that he, in his personal life, treats all people equally and with respect. Maybe. But if he, and George Bush, and Karl Rove and the rest of them are going to pander to such base emotion in order to get what they want (votes, ratings point…), then let’s call them what they are. They are racists.

There. I feel better now.

Secondly, from his op-ed:

“You start out in 1954 by saying, ‘Nigger, nigger, nigger,’ ” said Atwater. “By 1968, you can’t say ‘nigger’ — that hurts you. Backfires. So you say stuff like forced busing, states’ rights, and all that stuff. You’re getting so abstract now [that] you’re talking about cutting taxes, and all these things you’re talking about are totally economic things, and a byproduct of them is [that] blacks get hurt worse than whites.”

You know, I’ve been around my fair share of racist jerks and I do believe, from personal experience, that Republicans *are* more racist than liberals. But, I swear to God I never realized, or should I say — wanted to believe — that they want to hurt people on purpose.