Is GOP using race to block Obama agenda?
(Updated below, with Rush Limbaugh’s on-air comments about me on his Thursday show) Maybe I was feeling guilty for spending so much time on wingnut issues lately — Birthers, Sarah Palin, the Gates controversy, whether President Obama is a “racist” — when I know I should be writing about the political stakes around healthcare reform. Whatever the reason, I was driven to go all meta on Chris Matthews’ “Hardball” today, linking the racist garbage being thrown at Obama to the forces that are trying to block his social and economic agenda, particularly healthcare reform. Matthews led into our segment, mainly focusing on Glenn Beck’s nutty claim that Obama is racist, by noting that Obama’s poll numbers are dropping on healthcare, and I took the opportunity to point out that there’s a connection between the organized campaign to label him some kind of racist alien socialist who’s ineligible to be president, and his difficulties getting his social and economic agenda passed. I did it with a
