Eh…once again, a slovenly remark to make an aggrieved point. When the hell will he get over it?

He probably ought to delve into history, and learn that, oops, he might not be the first, not black, because he isn’t that (despite the mean bastards who continue to deny people the full measure of their multifaceted ethnicities because they’re racist jerks) but BIRACIAL President. We’ve had a couple of them already. Abraham Lincoln was said to have native American, and possibly African, blood through his mother’s side, and Warren G. Harding, dead Republican and really dreadful President–crooked, lazy, corrupt, just freakin’ AWFUL–was part black, as well. This isn’t one of those “pulled out of one’s ass” rumors, the New York Times has discussed it, as noted by Kathy G at this blog: http://thegspot.typepad.com/blog/2008/04/the-first-black.html

In Sunday’s New York Times, there’s a fascinating piece by Yale historian Beverly Gage which suggests that Warren G. Harding may have been “the first black president.”

The story is as follows: in the early 1920s, a historian named William Estabrook Chancellor wrote a book alleging that Harding’s great-grandmother was African-American; therefore, as Gage explains, “under the one-drop rule of American race relations” Harding would be considered black.

Harding’s political allies quickly went to work to get Chancellor fired and suppress his book, but the rumor lived on. Chancellor quoted dozens of individuals who supposedly swore that the Harding family had been considered black “for generations.” And as recently as 2005, there have been press reports of African-Americans claiming to be Harding’s kin.

Until “genetic testing and genealogical research” settles the matter, says Gage, we can’t know the truth. But there are a couple of points I find interesting:

1. Gage says that Chancellor’s book, while clearly a “laughable partisan screed,” also “contains a remarkable trove of social knowledge — the kind of community gossip and oral tradition that rarely appears in official records but often provides clues to richer truths.” And certainly there is often truth in the oral tradition, as was shown when the Sally Hemmings/Thomas Jefferson relationship, stories of which had been passed down by generations of Hemmings’ descendants, was proven.

It’s intriguing that historians seem to be looking more closely at this kind of evidence, but how does a historian analyze gossip and oral tradition? Are there specific tools and methodologies that have been developed? I’m not questioning the value of such material; I’m just curious as to whether it’s evaluated differently than more traditional sources, and if so, how.

2. Given that there was so much gossip at the time about Harding’s racial background, it’s interesting that this allegation is not well-known today. And I have to think this has something to do with the fact that Harding was such a colossal hack; indeed the term “smoke-filled room” originated to describe the dubious circumstances of his nomination. Harding’s administration was one of the most sordid in American history and he is more or less universally regarded as one of the very worst presidents. He himself even pathetically admitted, “I am not fit for this office and should never have been here.” Says U.S. News and World Report, “Once in the White House, the 29th president busied himself with golf, poker, and his mistress, while appointees and cronies plundered the U.S. government in a variety of creative ways.”

It’s understandable why you’d want to claim kin with the author of the Declaration of Independence. But the presider over Teapot Dome? Eh, not so much.

3. Gage’s conclusion is, I think, well-struck. She mentions Harding’s hometown of Marion, Ohio:

The town gained national fame in 1920 as the site of Harding’s “front-porch campaign”; for weeks, he delivered stump speeches from his well-tended home. Far less well known, as the historian Phillip Payne has noted, is what happened the year before, when a mob of armed white Marion residents drove more than 200 black families out of town, one of a wave of postwar race riots that served to segregate the industrialized north.

As he campaigns to become the nation’s first (openly) black president, Barack Obama likes to say that we’ve begun to put that divisive history behind us. The truth may be that we don’t yet know the half of it.

The link to the NYT piece is at that blog. Fascinating read.

It’s annoying to those who care about cohesive thoughts–even if they are my own.

That doesn’t explain how a nation’s Law and Father of Law get’s the shaft.

But truly the arrogance of Obama is comparing himself to Founding Fathers and then mocking them by insinuating that he’s not white enough to be on US Currency.

Of course this goes to his Egocentrism and mania. He actually views himself amongst the Founding Fathers and one better by being black and thus inherently immuned to being Racist.

The man’s a hack who knows very little of the Founders, their personal views, the compromises made to pass the US Constitution [slavery being one of them] and much more.

Eh…once again, a slovenly remark to make an aggrieved point. When the hell will he get over it?

He probably ought to delve into history, and learn that, oops, he might not be the first, not black, because he isn’t that (despite the mean bastards who continue to deny people the full measure of their multifaceted ethnicities because they’re racist jerks) but BIRACIAL President. We’ve had a couple of them already. Abraham Lincoln was said to have native American, and possibly African, blood through his mother’s side, and Warren G. Harding, dead Republican and really dreadful President–crooked, lazy, corrupt, just freakin’ AWFUL–was part black, as well. This isn’t one of those “pulled out of one’s ass” rumors, the New York Times has discussed it, as noted by Kathy G at this blog: http://thegspot.typepad.com/blog/2008/04/the-first-black.html

In Sunday’s New York Times, there’s a fascinating piece by Yale historian Beverly Gage which suggests that Warren G. Harding may have been “the first black president.”

The story is as follows: in the early 1920s, a historian named William Estabrook Chancellor wrote a book alleging that Harding’s great-grandmother was African-American; therefore, as Gage explains, “under the one-drop rule of American race relations” Harding would be considered black.

Harding’s political allies quickly went to work to get Chancellor fired and suppress his book, but the rumor lived on. Chancellor quoted dozens of individuals who supposedly swore that the Harding family had been considered black “for generations.” And as recently as 2005, there have been press reports of African-Americans claiming to be Harding’s kin.

Until “genetic testing and genealogical research” settles the matter, says Gage, we can’t know the truth. But there are a couple of points I find interesting:

1. Gage says that Chancellor’s book, while clearly a “laughable partisan screed,” also “contains a remarkable trove of social knowledge — the kind of community gossip and oral tradition that rarely appears in official records but often provides clues to richer truths.” And certainly there is often truth in the oral tradition, as was shown when the Sally Hemmings/Thomas Jefferson relationship, stories of which had been passed down by generations of Hemmings’ descendants, was proven.

It’s intriguing that historians seem to be looking more closely at this kind of evidence, but how does a historian analyze gossip and oral tradition? Are there specific tools and methodologies that have been developed? I’m not questioning the value of such material; I’m just curious as to whether it’s evaluated differently than more traditional sources, and if so, how.

2. Given that there was so much gossip at the time about Harding’s racial background, it’s interesting that this allegation is not well-known today. And I have to think this has something to do with the fact that Harding was such a colossal hack; indeed the term “smoke-filled room” originated to describe the dubious circumstances of his nomination. Harding’s administration was one of the most sordid in American history and he is more or less universally regarded as one of the very worst presidents. He himself even pathetically admitted, “I am not fit for this office and should never have been here.” Says U.S. News and World Report, “Once in the White House, the 29th president busied himself with golf, poker, and his mistress, while appointees and cronies plundered the U.S. government in a variety of creative ways.”

It’s understandable why you’d want to claim kin with the author of the Declaration of Independence. But the presider over Teapot Dome? Eh, not so much.

3. Gage’s conclusion is, I think, well-struck. She mentions Harding’s hometown of Marion, Ohio:

The town gained national fame in 1920 as the site of Harding’s “front-porch campaign”; for weeks, he delivered stump speeches from his well-tended home. Far less well known, as the historian Phillip Payne has noted, is what happened the year before, when a mob of armed white Marion residents drove more than 200 black families out of town, one of a wave of postwar race riots that served to segregate the industrialized north.

As he campaigns to become the nation’s first (openly) black president, Barack Obama likes to say that we’ve begun to put that divisive history behind us. The truth may be that we don’t yet know the half of it.

Not so! I’ve been a Democrat all my life (adored the Kennedys, voted for McGovern in my first election ever, voted straight Dem ticket every election, local and national, since), my parents were both Democrats, and their parents before them.

And yet this season I’m ready to vote for McCain. Many Democrats feel as though the party we loved is gone. McCain is pretty liberal for a Republican. Back in the early 70s Nelson Rockefeller was a Republican whom quite a few moderate Democrats would have supported over McGovern had he won the Republican nomination, so .. there is precedent for this phenomenon.

That is an insult to MLK and all the wonderful people who have put their lives on the line for civil rights over the years. Obama waltzes in and claims credit for it. What a fake.

That is when I saw Obama as the evil person he is and his campaign as the force for divisiveness and racial distrust that it is. I’m amazed at how long it is taking the American people to see this too. But see it they will.

That’s about as sexist as it gets. Straight from Obama’s mouth.

Don’t recall hearing a PEEP out of him over the “Broes before Hoes” tee shirt.