The Day I Lost My Faith in Humanity, part XI

by Blaine Fridley, Editor-in-Spleefs

with help from a posthumous Sam Kinison

OK, so this story is a few days old, which in the up-to-the-nanosecond blogosphere makes it staler than those fish sticks in the carousel vending machine at work. (Nothing says "We care about our employees" better than vending machine fish sticks. Fucking ew. I'd rather pay 75 cents to snack on a used tissue, you choose the discharge.) But only today did I stop choking on the rage-produced bile that resulted from this:

Yup. This really happened. In 2008. 

So what fringe, whack-a-doo white supremacist outfit is responsible for it? I'll give you a guess: this group is usually identified with just 3 letters. You have 30 seconds…GO!

OK, contestants…markers down. And you guessed "What is the KKK?"

Oohhh, good guess, but the answer you're looking for is "What is the GOP?" Yes, "What is the GOP?" A subtle difference I know, but I'm afraid the judges can't give it to you. Thanks for playing. 

Yup, this HILARIOUS little spoof depicting Barack Obama as a donkey on a $10 "food stamp" framed by a watermelon slice, a bucket of fried chicken, rack of ribs and the Kool-Aid Man was included in a newsletter sent out by those sultans of satire, the Republican Women of Inland SoCal. ZING! 

Read about it here if you haven't already.

But here's the thing: I don't know what's more offensive, the actual "food stamp" itself or the explanation/"apology" given by Diane Fedele, the group's president. SoCal's Press-Enterprise reports "she simply wanted to deride a comment Obama made over the summer about how as an African-American he doesn't look like all those other presidents on the dollar bills.

"It was strictly an attempt to point out the outrageousness of his statement. I really don't want to go into it any further," Fedele said in a telephone interview Tuesday. "I absolutely apologize to anyone who was offended. That clearly wasn't my attempt."

Clearly, Diane. Clearly. Please continue.

Again from the Press-Enterprise:

Fedele said she got the illustration in a number of chain e-mails and decided to reprint it for her members in the Trumpeter newsletter because she was offended that Obama would draw attention to his own race. She declined to say who sent her the e-mails with the illustration.

SHE was offended that "Obama would draw attention to his own race?"!! In the words of the late, great Sam Kinison:

Look, bitch: the only reason he brought it up is because THE MCCAIN CAMP BROUGHT IT UP! No, McCain didn't come right out and say "Don't vote for the black man". It's more subtle than that. The recent rash of outbursts (and lack of GOP contrition re: those outbursts) during McCain/Palin rallies is a perfect example.

Continuing from the P-E story:

She said she doesn't think in racist terms, pointing out she once supported Republican Alan Keyes, an African-American who previously ran for president.

HA! Sounds a lot like the "I'm not racist, I watch Oprah" defense. Besides, supporting Alan Fucking Keyes is no way to ingratiate yourself with the African American population. 

"I didn't see it the way that it's being taken. I never connected," she said. "It was just food to me. It didn't mean anything else."

You never connected? A bucket of chicken. Watermelon. Kool-Aid. Ribs. That "never connected"?! Sam, if you would one more time, please:

And her piece de resistance:

She said she also wasn't trying to make a statement linking Obama and food stamps, although her introductory text to the illustration connects the two: "Obama talks about all those presidents that got their names on bills. If elected, what bill would he be on????? Food Stamps, what else!"