A woman came up to Gingrich after the debate and thanked him for "putting [moderator] Mr. Juan Williams in his place".
The so-called "liberal" main stream media has not done a thing with this story yet. My theory is that they can't believe it either and just don't have the language ready to deal with it.
Testing a format issue.
Let's face it-- most people knew very well that the racism was already there-- it was always hidden, disguised, sublimated into guns and states' rights.
But it's pretty well out in the open now. Newt Gingrich cemented it with his "yeah, so what" defense of his comments about African Americans needing to get off food stamps and into jobs. He announced that he was willing to attend an NAACP conference and tell them all directly. Yes, he said it. He didn't say poor Americans, and he didn't say lower class Americans, and he did not even say unemployed Americans. He said African Americans. He said NAACP. He didn't offer to make statements like that directly to the Southern Baptist Convention.
That was stunning enough. What was even more stunning is that none of the other candidates thought it would be in their interest to disavow Gingrich's statement, criticize it, or even disagree -- openly-- with it. Not even Romney, who has struggled so hard to be so absolutely cosmetically correct in all things. Now we know that the cosmetics of race are this: the Republican Party has no problem with a racist candidate and South Carolina has no problem with a racist Republican. You just have to be subtle about it. This was not subtle.
Ron Paul was booed when he said American foreign policy should adopt an attitude of "do unto others what you would have them do to you". This is a state Republican Party which, pollsters tell us, is conservative evangelical. Well, no it isn't, but they say they are.
And I know it sounds rude, but just how stupid are South Carolina Republicans. Do they seriously believe that Romney wants to come down there after the election and do some hunting and kill some large mammalian critters with a weapon? Do they hear him say that and go, why, I just know I can trust him to appoint the right guy to the Federal Reserve and make good decisions about entitlements and interest rates and environmental policy, and I'll bet he can handle those Iranians too. He'll just hunt them down and stack them in his freezer.
Well, maybe they do.
They all vow to attack Iran. Do the voters of South Carolina go, well, he talks a big stick but we know there are complications to foreign policy and it might not always be in our interests to just go over there and whack someone. Like Iraq, hmmm.
