"Obama Disses White Guys"? Really, Washington Examiner?

That was the headline that blared out from the freebie tabloid known as the Washington Examiner this morning. The basis for this accusation springs from the usual DrudgeFauxMalkinLimbaugh cesspool, and concerns Obama's singling out of African American, Hispanic and female voters as being crucial for the Fall campaign.

Maybe this is news to the Examiner, but African Americans, Hispanics and female voters have historically been marginalized in the voting process. African American and Hispanic voters also tend to vote in smaller proportions to their share of the population, especially in mid-term elections. Maybe this is news to the Examiner as well. And yes, some of these marginalized groups have tended to vote Democratic. How about that. Maybe it's because Democratic and Progressive reformers were instrumental in helping previously disenfranchized Americans obtain the vote. Obama didn't say anything about not wanting or needing White votes, or not wanting Whites to vote. Whites tend, and have tended, to be well represented in the voting process. It's possible the Examiner doesn't know this. Nor did Obama reveal any elaborate, conniving plans in combination with the now defunct ACORN, or Michael Moore, or George Soros, to deny Whites, male or otherwise the vote. So the Examiner, doing its duty to pass along the Republican message of the day/year/term, is just making shit up.

This is probably a good place to say something about the appearance of the Washington Examiner, which started showing up around DC Metro stations on or about 2008. While the financial and personnel troubles at the conservative Washington Times have drawn some attention in recent months, its decline has been supplemented by the arrival of the free Examiner. Seems as if the conservative money behind the Times, after deciding it couldn't sell it's paper, just decided to hand it out for free. It hired Faux News regular Michael Barone and Byron York of the National Review to write for it, rendering its political coverage a "fair and balanced" mix of conservative and more conservative. But it is pretty slickly produced and more substantive than the similar but more Style-feature oriented Washington Post Express, a freebie tabloid that began showing up a short time before the arrival of the Examiner.

The Examiner's trafficking and packaging of the republican noise machine's memes has been apparent from the getgo, but in today's edition, it's hit a disturbingly new low. At long last, Examiner, have you no decency?

I know none dare call it racism to expose the confederacy celebration movement's racism, but it's time for those of good conscience to speak up and loudly about the distribution of shit like this. The Examiner's ad sponsors would be a good place to start.