“The Best Food Stamp President…” Gingrich Plays the Race Card, as Press Cheers “Debating Skills”

[Better Believe It]

January 23, 2012
“The Best Food Stamp President…”
Gingrich Plays the Race Card, as Press Cheers “Debating Skills”
by LAURA FLANDERS

South Carolina. It’s going to be the state that keeps on giving to President Barack Obama. I’m not talking votes; I’m talking hate. Newt Gingrich’s primary win has the pundits praising his “debating skills,” but the less prudish among us can be clear: Gingrich’s skills aren’t rhetorical; they’re racial. He’s feeble at striking down his opponents’ arguments; what he’s great at is digging up his audience’s racial rage. It worked for the former Speaker in South Carolina; it’ll work against the Democrats all year.

War with Washington, the “best food stamp president,” a slap down of the one African American moderator (“First, Juan…) Newt Gingrich had the GOP crowd on its feet in Myrtle Beach last Monday with exactly the same linguistic bombast that worked so well to end federal income support for poor people when he was speaker of the House. For the Republican candidates it’s all about looking presidential and Newt Gingrich was so confident about what activists of the South Carolina GOP want in the White House that he re-cut his joust with Juan Williams for a campaign ad as if to say “Vote Newt! He Can Beat Up A Black Man!” Cap that with his attack on CNN’s John King and you have vintage Gingrich: beating up the straw black man – and the straw liberal broadcaster who coddles him too.

Unless Democrats grow some sudden spine, there’s no reason to believe Newt’s “best food-stamp president” will work any less well than his “welfare queen.” Poor people everywhere are in – more – trouble. Instead of holding firm against the Right’s assault on government programs, or talking up the facts of who suffers what when the nation’s stirred up by bigots — a President reluctant to call out white racist innuendo, has already agreed to multiple budget compromises that have cut social spending by billions of dollars.

President Barack Obama has defended food stamps generally but a battle is shaping up during the farm-bill debate, and that’s guaranteed to bore to death most urban voters — and all the media. House Agriculture Committee Chairman Frank Lucas, R-Okla., a signer of Paul Ryan’s budget slashing plan, and House Agriculture Nutrition and Horticulture Subcommittee Chairman Jean Schmidt, R-Ohio, have indicated they’re looking at tightening up eligibility for food stamps. Already Pennsylvania, facing a spike in use, plans to impose new “asset” tests on recipients, one that advocates say will hurt the poor already reeling from recession.

Read the full article at:

http://www.counterpunch.org/2012/01/23/gingrich-plays-the-race-card-as-press-cheers-debating-skills/

[JaneQPublic]

1. It's to Obama's benefit that they hype the GOPers' debate skills

In the past decade or two, the general election debates have been just the opposite, where the media downplayed the Repub candidate's debating skills. Then, all the GOPer had to do was NOT take a dump on the stage to be declared the winner.

We should all help to build the meme that Mitt and Newt are the best debaters in the history of the world. And then watch them fall short.

[Lawlbringer]

2. Didn't more people

wind up getting on to EBT/FS during Dubya's reign?