What can Brown does for you?
Watch out, Mayor Shirley!
Armed with a 3.22 GPA and a book of glamour shots, 25-year-old Tiffany A. Brown is gunning for your job!
I’m a proponent of young people becoming active in politics, but Tiffany A. Brown’s “campaign” to be the next mayor of Atlanta isn’t political activism. It’s a joke. Fortunately, for this blog entry, it happens to be a funny joke.
Just read what Ms. Brown says about herself on her own web site.
Ms. Brown on her qualifications:
Bachelor’s of Arts in Political Science from Spelman College in May 2001 with 3.22 GPA.
I had graduated with a 3.89. Can I be governor?
Ms. Brown on education:
Being a daughter of a educator herself, Tiffany Brown understands the importance of education . . .
Growing up with a educator obviously being good for she grammar.
Ms. Brown on her experience:
Tiffany Brown has been employed with United States Government Accountability Office, Fulton County District Attorneyís Office, Georgia Law Center for the Homeless, Georgia Conservation Voters, Supreme Court of Georgia, Equifax, Coca-Cola Enterprises, and Atlanta Bar Association.
She’s 25 and she’s had eight jobs? How exactly is her inability to hold a job a qualification?
Which brings me to my ultimate point.
Ms. Brown is one of those people who can’t distinguish between her ambitions and her qualifications. She’s either a rampant egomaniac or a complete idiot — possibly some of both. If she cared about “making a difference” she’d be a community activist starting an after school reading program in her neighborhood or tending to a neighhorhood watch program. She’d work with her neighborhood association, her NPU and then maybe run for city council.
Fortunately, this blog posting is probably the first and last bit of media coverage her campaign will receive. You see, in the U.S., nobody pays attention to thoroughly unqualified candidates unless they’re movie stars, billionaires, or the son of the 41st President.
Happy Independence Day.
>You see, in the U.S., nobody pays attention to >thoroughly unqualified candidates unless they’re >movie stars, billionaires, or the son of the 41st >President.
Or a former first lady. Or the spoiled brother of JFK. Or a former KKK member.
There are “unqualified” candidates on both sides of the aisle.
I assume that you’re referring to Sen. Robert Byrd, elected to Congress first in 1952. I agree that it’s terrible, but then again, I’m not a Democrat and I don’t live in West Virginia.
While we’re on the subject of racism and senators, Mr. Peege, there’s only one political party in this country that has mixed feelings about racism. I’ll give you a hint — it isn’t Robert Byrd’s.
OK, I’ll bite.
First of all, what exactly is “mixed feelings about racism?” That’s like being almost pregnant. Either you’re racist or you’re not.
And are you implying that the entire Republican Party – as their platform – is racist? Or that all Democrats are crusaders for civil rights? Be careful…
I wasn’t implying anything. I was stating something clearly, but very generally. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, I suggest you do a Google News search of the words Senate and Lynching.
The nature of a two-party “system” is that both parties contain fringe/idiot elements that the rest of the party panders to. For example, the Democrats treat Al Sharpton like he’s an actual human, instead of the clown jackass that he truly is.
In the Republican party’s case, one of those fringes is the rural/exurban racist voter who thinks that Confederate battle flags are good and resolutions apologizing for the Senate’s deadly indifference to lynching are bad.
While Sharpton is awful, he’s not running anything.
The ambiguously racist-wing of the Republican party, however, can claim the past two Senate Majority Leaders as two of their own. I’m referring to Sen. Trent Lott, the man who not long ago proclaimed that we wouldn’t have all these darned problems in America if segregationist/rapist Sen. Strom Thurmond had become President, and course Sen. Bill Frist, the man who kept the Senate from a roll-call vote on the apology-for-lynching bill because some Republican senators don’t want to be on the record about it one way or another.
Is the Republican platform racist? Of course not. Is Bush a racist? Of course not. Are some of the people milling about GOP’s big tent racist? Absolutely. Does the national party pander to them? Of course they do, because they’re a powerful fringe. Pandering is what political parties do, after all.
Was that careful enough, Peege?
Ooh, I’ve touched a nerve! :-0
Bad example with Al Sharpton. Google his name and you’ll get plenty of proof that racists are in the Democratic Party as well. Ditto for Cynthia McKinney and, for that matter, the Senate minority leader, who used some thinly veiled racist comments recently against Clarence Thomas.
Yes, Lott’s an idiot. But Bill Frist is “ambiguously racist” because of a procedural vote that was unanimous anyway? Come on. See Mr. Reid’s comments for the closest thing to ambiguous racism, if there is such a thing.
And wasn’t it the chairman of the Democratic Party who said just last year, “I want to be the candidate for guys with Confederate flags in their pickup trucks”? Seems like everybody’s after the rednecks.
All I’m trying to say is that I think you’re overgeneralizing a bit. Like you said, there are wacko fringes on both sides of the party.
You didn’t actually touch a nerve. I enjoy the back and forth and I think it makes for fun reading if anyone ventures this far into the comments. Even disagreeing, it’s great to have some back and forth with someone who actually knows something.
Nevertheless, even people who like blogging get tired and weary (a tree fell on my car today), so I’ll keep it short this time.
1. I’m not now nor have I at any point in this series of postings said a single nice thing about the Democratic Party. “All I’ve said is that the Republican racist fringe is big enough and powerful enough to get pandered to quite a lot by the national party. Sharpton’s a top-shelf race-baiter, yes, but he’s never been elected to anything (unless he had some local office that I missed).
1B. While you’re in the Googling mood, Google my name and Cynthia McKinney’s and you’ll see that I’ve called bullshit on her, um, bullshit, more than once. I do not excuse people because of their party affiliation. If in my work and in my blog posts I pick on Republicans more, it’s because they control government and are therefore far more worthy of scrutiny at the moment. It may surprise you to know that I cheered heartily when the Republicans took over Congress after the ’94 election. Wright, Rostenkowski, et al were rotten.
2. Yes, Frist is ambiguously racist because of a procedural vote. What’s the ambiguity? I don’t know what his thoughts and feelings about race are, but he acted to shield Republican Senators from having to cast a roll call vote on the lynching apology. Why would he do that? To save his party the national black-eye that would come when some jackass Senator voted against the apology. Was he protecting Democrats? Uh, no. The eight senators who didn’t put their name to the apology were all Republicans.
3. Please tell me what Harry Reid said about Thomas. I don’t know.
I guess I was lying about keeping it short.
Interesting. I didn’t know about the eight Republicans who didn’t sponsor it. To me, that’s tantamount to not voting on a roll call, and it’s political suicide. They are still getting called out on it, though, so I don’t see how Frist saved them. (And couldn’t one of the Democrats have objected to the voice vote on the floor to force a roll call?)
I REALLY don’t think they’re racist. If my quickie Googling is accurate, Lamar Alexander (one of the eight) had sponsored a similar resolution that was still in committee. He has also condemned Lott’s remarks and supported sit-ins in Nashville in 1961. I’m sure you could find things that the other Senators have done to promote racial equality – maybe even Lott, too.
There are lots of other issues that the GOP can use to woo the racists – guns, prayer in schools, taxes, etc. Racists are WAY out there on the fringe – along with alien abductees (not sure of their party affiliation – maybe Perot?).
Reid said that Thomas was an embarrassment to the Supreme Court and said his opinions are poorly written – written like an eight-grade dissertation. However, he thought highly of Scalia, who votes often with Thomas and concurs with Thomas’ opinions. So if you’re black and liberal, you’re above reproach. But you can’t be black and conservative!
P.S. Sorry about your car. Glad to see you think Cynthia’s a wacko, too.
Let me get this straight — you’re saying that Reid is borderline racist for saying that Thomas’s decision’s are poorly written. Is there more to it than that? Seriously, have you left something out?
How exactly is Reid’s comment racist? Rude, perhaps. And if you like Thomas’s stuff, you could argue that it’s wrong. But just because he doesn’t like the guy and things he an idiot, doesn’t mean it’s racism?
So now the tables are turned, aren’t they?? I give you an example of a Democrat questioning a black judge’s intelligence, but he likes the white guy who votes the same way. Oh, and if you don’t think it’s insensitive, the Congressional Black Caucus cautioned Reid on his remarks and said that he crossed the line.
Your refusal to see this while jumping on the Republicans shows the double standard that exists regarding race and the two parties. If Frist had said that Barack Obama was an embarrassment to the Senate, and his legislation was poorly written, you don’t think the Democrats would have freaked out? You won’t buy my example, but you think Frist and Alexander are “ambiguously racist” because there was a voice vote instead of a roll call on a resolution?
Jeez.
one of the largest negative consequences from the ‘political correctness’ movement has been the institution of one’s race as a shield for criticism.
look at what happened with alberto gonzalez this past january. a lot democrats were apprehensive at promoting a man who wrote that is was legal to torture detainees in american custody, many of whom had never been formally charged with a crime or had access to legal council.
republicans, true to form, didn’t address the truth or substance of that matter, but deflected it, saying that democrats didn’t like him because he was hispanic.
likewise with thomas. the issue here isn’t that he is black and conservative; it’s that he’s incompetent and ultimately unqualified to sit on the supreme court.
The tables are turned? How exactly?
Questioning a man’s intelligence and writing ability is not racist. All races and ethnicities are blessed with their fair share of idiots. Saying so doesn’t make someone bigotted. That’s why my response to your paraphrase of Reid included a question — Is that it? Did he say more than that?
What Reid said about Thomas and the dynamics behind the anti-lynching non-apology are fundamentally different. Reid said “This guy’s an idiot” whereas the Frist and several of his fellow Senators said with their actions “we can’t apologize for the Senate’s long refusal to condemn lynching because an important part of our constituency reacts badly to stuff like that (for another example, I refer you to the numerous Confederate flag debates around the south).
Dang, I need to stop checking this thread.
The tables are turned, my friend, in that you are now arguing an example of “ambiguous racism,” just as I was doing initially. One man’s definition of ambiguous racism may be another man’s definition of rudeness, or a procedural vote.
I’ll try this one more time:
The Senate apologized under unanimous consent, which means the record shows that EVERYONE voted for it. How does that say that Frist and the others didn’t apologize? (I know, I know, “They weren’t on record…”)
You didn’t address my argument that Alexander had a similar bill that didn’t get out of committee, and that he had a respectable civil rights record. No, because he didn’t co-sponsor the other bill, he’s “ambiguously racist.”
You didn’t address the fact that if the Democrats wanted a recorded vote, they could have asked for it. You also didn’t address my assertion that a double standard exists regarding race in the two parties.
Instead, you jump to conclusions about a procedural matter on a ceremonial piece of legislation, and say that Republicans are too worried about offending rednecks. You offer no proof of their motivation or agenda – secret meetings, memos, etc. No, the knee jerk reaction is, they’re “ambiguously racist.” You have to do better than that to prove a point.
P.S. I never called Reid a racist. I just said his remarks could be construed as more “ambiguously racist” than Frist’s action, or non-action, or whatever he did. My point was to show how silly the term is in the first place.
P.P.S. If I recall, South Carolina’s GOP Governor was ousted a few years ago because he tried to get the Confederate battle flag removed. And Sonny Perdue got it removed once and for all from Georgia’s flag, didn’t he?
P.P.P.S. Just found a great quote from someone on the whole thing: “It reminds me of the loyalty oaths in Catch 22. Everyone was constantly signing loyalty oaths, if someone missed signing one they were suspect. In the future, someone may realize the silliness of all this.”