Eugene Robinson of The Washington Post, whose columns run in The Fresno Bee, won the Pulitzer Prize for commentary Monday.
According to this article in the Washington Business Journal, Robinson won for his columns about the presidential campaign of Barack Obama, the first African-American to win the nation's top job. Robinson, a former foreign correspondent and assistant managing editor for the paper, also is black:
After winning the award, Robinson told colleagues gathered in the Post newsroom that he was particularly pleased to have won for his coverage of "the biggest political event of my lifetime, and one that has personal meaning for me," according to a story on the Post's Web site.
In Robinson's column on today's opinion page, he says that President Barack Obama should have shown a little more fire at recent the Summit of the Americas, especially at slights from the leaders of Nicaragua and Venezuela.
Obama was right to show respect for the leaders of neighboring countries big and small at the Summit of the Americas. Those who were not gracious enough to show respect for him deserved to be given -- metaphorically, of course, and in the spirit of hemispheric cooperation -- the back of the presidential hand.
Obama would be well served with this guy on his staff.
By the way, thank you for making the gentleman's race known to us. Otherwise how could we have possibly guessed?
"Robinson, a former foreign correspondent and assistant managing editor for the paper, ALSO IS BLACK."
I’m sooooo confused ..... Is Robinson’s worth, talent or ability because of his blackness? Or is it because he is good at his job? I doubt very much, in the reporting of some other person’s success, that you would end with the statement, "by the way, he / she is White or Asian"!
Libs seem to forget MLK’s: "I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character."
What is it with libs and race?
BTW, Obama is not right or wrong because of the color of his skin. He is either right or wrong based on his beliefs, practices and resulting character. The same as everyone else!
"What is it with libs and race?" Well, I guess the complaint you have with the article is pointing out something that doesn't need to be said. Similar to the one in which some conservatives blame everything they don't like on liberals. As if all Democrats or all far-left-liberals (I don't consider Dems and far lefties the same) put the words "by the way, he is black" in this article. You were making good point but lost credibility with that one statement.
I think the column was just poorly written. Robinson said his coverage of the Obama in the election "had personal meaning" one assumes that is because he is black and for Obama, also black, to win the Presidency was a big deal. It was not even considered a possibility all that long ago. It could have been stated clearer. But... Dem bashing is more fun I suppose so go with that.
Regards, Kim... who is white; actually a little red cause I was in the pool most the day yesterday. I'd better tell my husband we can no longer be married because I'm Democrat therefore I am racist.
What is it with libs and race?
Apparently it's a big deal to some right-wing conservatives, too, since that's all you talked about in your post.
You know Lisa...I'd be willing to bet that when you wrote the article you added Mr. Robinson's race because many people here probably wouldn't know that. And of course it explains Robinson's emotional connection to Obama's win. THEN you (or someone) decided to put in a picture and THEN of course that line becomes moot. It's alright, I got it, and I don't feel any need to chastise you for not changing the text, or to throw the race card at you.
Congratulations to Mr. Robinson! I'm happy for him. I've always enjoyed his pieces.
I caught the spirit of Mr. Robinson's opinion about the way in which president Obama conducted himself lately. At this point, I would be careful to encourage President Obama to use the back of his hand. Unfortunately as many of his supporters have discovered, it is too late now.
As a child I spent hours surveying large natural history maps with pictures of wildlife common to different regions of the country. I asked my sitter if all these animals still existed. Charity Washington would affirm only what she knew. It is good that you also have finally linked up to a role model who believes that wolves and scorpions still exist.
It's always a little sad when people of color betray their own.
So .... if I read OO right, if I disagree with a person of the same ethnicity, I am guilty of "betraying one of (my) own..." What kind of pathetic reasoning is that? (When I disagree with Joe Biden, it’s not because he is white, it's because his policies are moronic!). Disagree if you must; disagree because of differences of opinion, politics, world-views, religious preferences, but to even "suggest" racial betrayal because of differences of opnion, is beyond comprehension.
Again, a person is not right or wrong because of the color of their skin, they are either right or wrong based on beliefs, practices and their resulting character.
Are libs so devoid of decency and moral character that everything must be reduced to it’s a "little sad when people of color betray their own..."?
Are conservatives now the only ones left that look at a person’s beliefs, moral character, principles, and what a person stands for, rather than his / her skin color?
TC....I always thought osage was more conservative than liberal. Maybe I'm wrong. And I didn't see where Robinson betrayed Obama, or visa versa. Did I miss that?
You missed it Scott, find the answer you seek located on the cosmic continuum between Squeeky Fromme and Ted Kaczynski.
You did it again TC. You started to make a good point and had to end it by bashing liberals. Why do you do that? I can see you teaching Sunday School. "Adam was a conservative and Eve was a liberal. We know this because Eve ruined Eden and Adam was powerless to do anything about it." Do you not realize that your words that people should be judged on their character and not their "classification" is true of judging liberals and conservatives too?.. or is that too liberal an idea for you? Don't you get tired of watching your credibility fly out the window? Just between you and me... word has it in liberal circles the apple tasted great.
"...Bashing liberals. Why do you do that?"
Good question! A challenging question! The simple, obvious answer would be .... they just make it so easy!
But beyond that .... to not do so, to not oppose tyranny is to give up on our constitutional republic. I kind of feel like Winston Churchill: "If you will not fight for the right when you can easily win without bloodshed; if you will not fight when your victory will be sure and not too costly; you may come to the moment when you will have to fight with all the odds against you and only a small chance of survival. There may even be a worse case: you may have to fight when there is no hope of victory, because it is better to perish than to live as slaves."
Up front: I have a First Amendment right to express an opinion on anything - at least so far! Obama willing! I know free speech is a foreign concept to liberalism, who would coercively eliminate all opinions and thought outside their failed and narrow beliefs. If you doubt that, we have a recent example - just look at what liberalism is trying to do to Miss California just for expressing her opinion!
An effeminate liberal judge, Perez Hilton - only the latest of gay totalitarians, who asked the controversial question, also created and posted on the internet an obscene drawing of Miss California - displaying a photo of Miss California speaking into the microphone. In place of the microphone, he drew an outline of part of the male anatomy on her face. Hilton is a foul-mouthed, anti-Christian bigot. Unfortunately, this sick mind-set is common and typical of those who are liberals!
Conservatives are the only ones able to be totally honest about who liberals are. (Remember, I’m a convert from liberalism! I remember what I was in my sinful liberal past!). Libs are, by nature, "truth benders." They are taught to deceive, obfuscate and obscure. (They make great bureaucrats!). I’ve never met a lib who didn’t have a hidden agenda. Incidently, conservatives also have an agenda, but they don’t try to hide it. They are not dishonest about their goals and beliefs.
Libs have achieved, not solutions, but cheap talk ABOUT solutions. With libs it’s never about solutions, it’s about what can be accomplished by using the latest "crisis" to their advantage: Obama’s chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel says, "You never want a serious crisis to go to waste .... (a) crisis provides the opportunity for us to do things that you could not do before." Libs need to maintain or create a crisis, so as to insert their world-view into a culture.
Liberals oppose religion, traditional families, nationalism (love of country) and free market capitalism because those institutions are obstacles to their agenda of tyranny.
They foist their false ideological agendas on the innocent and malleable, our kids - for example, global warming, "green compliance," "special and privileged rights" for the LGBT community, evolution, etc.
Libs are Cheney-Bush-obsessed. Syndicated columnist, Charles Krauthammer says that Dems / libs want to, "keep Bush alive as the permanent nemesis and foil of Obama."
Even Marxists like Chavez & Castro have admitted and commented on how liberals of the Democrat Left are "useful idiots" that serve their cause....
I think Libs are ill-at-ease around conservatives. They don’t want anyone expressing opinions like: It’s wrong to kill babies (of any age), it’s wrong to take money from hard-working people, that morals, family values and religion are important. Evangelical Christianity is anathema to libs - as evidenced by their perverse life-styles. All I know is, BC (before conversion / conservatism / Christianity), I sure didn’t want to deal with spiritual, moral or ethical issues. Most libs I know, politically or theologically, only want to live in a make-believe utopian fantasy world. They would rather "contemplate their navels," than face life’s realities.
Once again TC....your diatribe is the biggest crock of crap I've ever read. But isn't it wonderful that you have the right to share your clueless, self righteous crap with the rest of the world?
If only you knew what Christianity was really about, you'd be a much different person.
You could have just said, "because I have an irrational obsession." It would have meant the same and saved a lot of space. All this time I thought is was the Lilliputians that caused the ills of the world. Thanks for straightening it out for me.
Excellent, TC...EXCELLENT!!! Perhaps the best summation of why true conservatives detest Liberalism that I have ever read in this blog.
You're actually impressed by that rant, Bill?
I am saddened, but not surprised, at the response of libs like Scott. His response is so very typical of the lib mind-set; no pont-by-point rebuttal, no attempt at offering his own opinions, no studious examination of the subject at hand, just a dismissive, (it’s) "self righteous crap."
Can it be that libs are so devoid of a historical perspective, so empty of intellectual attainment, so out-of-tune with culture and society, so lacking in cogent thought, that they are incapable of expressing or defending themselves in debate, discussion or in a public forum?
Intellectual honesty demands that we - no matter what our opinions or politics - express exactly what we believe. Conservatives never seem to have a problem specifically detailing what they believe. Libs try to hide behind the clever use of words and terms that serve to cloak their true intentions. How many time have you hear a lib say something like - “I’m not a liberal, I’m a progressive / moderate." If they were intellectually honest, they would say, "I’m a Marxist and proud of it."
If libs were intellectually HONEST, unashamed of their beliefs, life-styles and world-view, I imagine they would have to say something like this:
I believe that:
(1) Global warming, flatulent cows and fish trump water, farmers and food;
(2) What is yours is mine to take;
(3) Bush-Cheney-Halliburton-911-Conspiracy;
(4) Killing babies is good, executing a criminal guilty of a capital crime is bad. Sucking out the brains of the unborn should be a constitutional right;
(5) Sex of all types for all ages (homosexual, children, animal, multiple partners) is a right;
(6) We need "special and privileged rights" for certain favored, monied and elitist groups;
(7) There is no God & if there is, He doesn’t care;
(8) The 10 Commandments at a courthouse, the holiday greeting, "merry Christmas," or "one nation under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance, will collapse our country and lead to a constitutional crisis;
(9) We need to mandate confiscatory taxes on producers who create jobs / higher taxes lead to prosperity;
(10) Decriminalize all drugs;
(11) Islamic terrorists are not really terrorists after all - they are "man-caused disaster facilitators" and all Islamists are "freedom fighters." (And much more).
The only question that remains is how any human being can believe such pap.
How can anyone think it normal for two men to say "I do," countenance the thrusting of a pair of scissors through the skull of an unborn baby, or believe that bovine flatulence will affect the ocean tides?
"The roots of liberalism –– and its associated madness –– can be clearly identified by understanding how children develop from infancy to adulthood and how distorted development produces the irrational beliefs of the liberal mind, .... when the modern liberal mind whines about imaginary victims, rages against imaginary villains and seeks above all else to run the lives of persons competent to run their own lives, the neurosis of the liberal mind becomes painfully obvious." Dr. Lyle Rossiter, author of, "The Liberal Mind: The Psychological Causes of Political Madness."
Dr. Rossiter also says that "the liberal agenda preys on weakness and feelings of inferiority in the population by: (1) creating and reinforcing perceptions of victimization; (2) satisfying infantile claims to entitlement, indulgence and compensation; (3) augmenting primitive feelings of envy; and (4) rejecting the sovereignty of the individual, subordinating him to the will of the government."
"Intellectual honesty demands that we - no matter what our opinions or politics - express exactly what we believe. Conservatives never seem to have a problem specifically detailing what they believe. Libs try to hide behind the clever use of words and terms that serve to cloak their true intentions. How many time have you hear a lib say something like - “I’m not a liberal, I’m a progressive / moderate." If they were intellectually honest,(May I Mr. Morgan?) they will say...
"I’m a Marxist and I really don't care about you, the smelt or the water. My sole interest is destroying your traditional American way of life, anyway you will let me...taxation, education, regulation, persuasion, pressure, or force."
T.C., if you want point-by-point rebuttals, first you should offer something other than a string of unsupported assertions. For example, you claim that liberals only offer talk, not solutions. That is patently false. Liberals have offered solutions to a number of problems, including the economic tail-spin, healthcare, energy, terrorism and many others. And those that are in power are actively working to implement those solutions, often in spite of conservative opposition. You may not like the solutions, and may dispute their effectiveness, but it is dishonest of you to claim they don't exist. If you want intellectual honesty, try showing some yourself, instead of falsely congratulating yourself for your "honesty."
Btw, I still don't believe you were ever a liberal. Can you tell me one liberal position you previously espoused? (And I don't mean just supporting JFK - a person is not a position.)
A general inquiry: Other than in like; how could one respond to pseudo intellectual, whining, long-drawn-out, padded demagoguery? In Spanish one might respond; su argumento es tan complejo que no lo entiendo nada. (Too complex to make anything of it.)
Hey, Bart, since you appear to define "intellectual honesty" as defining someone else's position, how about this one for your side:
"I'm a conservative, and I don't care whether we leave a habitable planet for the next generation - all I care about is maximizing my profits at all costs. I pretend to care about farmworkers, but all I really care about is using their plight to get more water for growers. Then I'll go back to ignoring them. I don't care about poor people, school children, the elderly, the disabled or mentally ill - all I care about is keeping taxes as low as possible so I can spend more money on myself. I don't care about any of our constitutional rights except the right to bear arms, and the right to practice my religion - and make everyone else abide by the rules of my religious beliefs, too. I claim the ten commandments are the foundation of our law, but I probably couldn't name more than 4 of them on a good day. I call myself a Christian, but I act more like a Pharisee."
Gee, I think I can get the hang of this sort of "intellectual honesty" you and Mr. Morgan peddle. Or we could cut all this ad hominem cr*p and discuss the issues.
Nice job Mike D. but your description of the conservatives presented on this blog left out:
1. Inability to research an issue beyond a slogan.
2. Unaware that humans are biological organisms whose life depends on the habitability of the environment they refuse to care for. Laymen's terms they piss in the water they drink.
3. Refuse to admit environmental issues exist until it is too late to correct them.
4. Fight for their individual rights at the cost of the individual rights of others.
5. Claim littering and pollution creates jobs and vigorously support the thought.
6. Fail to learn from history
7. Expect point by point rebuttals but refuse to acknowledge points made or facts supporting them and resort to name calling. A review of the blog archives will support that.
8. Have large brow ridges.
Did you see Congressman Radanovich describing the diminuitive gravity of your monitor species? He wriggled his pinky to demonstrate smeltness in a congressional hearing.(He can do that in spanish also.) You should smuggle some smelt out of the country now while you can. Get a big green kayak and rendevous with a North Korean submarine. Use the contact list on your cell phone and pick a remote location where they can pick you and the precious cargo up...turn your GPS off. Take them to a better place with an economic climate in which they will thrive. Meanwhile I will be monitoring the California Republic flag with a glass of fresh grapefruit in my iron fist. Good Luck and don't forget your favorite MSNBC tapes.
Skip it Mike...nothing intellectual ever comes out of their mouths anyway. Just judgment of others they don't know. Oddly enough, all the conservatives and Christians I know personally are people I like and respect. They are nothing like some of these in here.
Thanks for sharing your beliefs TC. What was it that gave you the impression we cared? I honestly never thought I needed to spell out mine.
Let's see if the albatross is coming after me again. But just the same, I like to convey that it is nice to read Mike D. again. Bottom line, maybe I can post again...but maybe not. I shall know soon at a couple of mouse clicks. Pursuant to other posts; I wished that I could converse in Spansish.
"Oddly enough, all the conservatives and Christians I know personally are people I like and respect." Scot
That is not odd to me because they are conservative and they are Christians. The odd ones are on this blog (in my humble opinion.)