--Did anyone else notice how....somber Eugene Robinson was tonight on KO?---

I felt really bad....I know this thing with Ashley was really bothering him. As it should. He seemed really dejected, and not his usual jovial self. :(

He is an outstanding journalist, and a thoughtful human being. This incident troubled him, for obvious reasons.

This kind of brings back the good 'ol days, doesn't it? He's old enough to remember that shit.

just sheer disappointment. It was almost painful to watch him.

the rerun to see him again....and he seemed to really be holding back too....When Keith asked if McCain's campaign would be remembered for race baiting, he paused and said "....I don't think that's how Fox will portray it...I don't think that's how Drudge will portray it..." I agree with him that, unless McCain cleans some house in PA, there are questions that need to be asked.

"This lady obviously has mental problems...she ought to be forgiven and forgotten...small incidents like this are distracting to Republicans who have enough problems as it is"


Forgiven??? Small incident?? God, David Gergen. You fail.

level of frustration too. He just has way too much class to really say what he's no doubt like to say.

..as he should be - this was a disgusting stunt and reminded us of how truly bigoted the Republicans are.

In the whole jubilant "we nailed you freeptardz" vibe (of which I am the WORST offender), I think a really serious element of this whole thing has been kinda overlooked.

accusations in a very poignant way.

in the can. He will have a big ol' time with this, and not spare the racial angle.

will do with it on Monday, too.

he's always light hearted, and jovial, but serious, but tonight, he was just down. No smiling, no nothing. You could just feel his pain, and see the hurt/disgust in his face. Even though, in my mind he was way over gratutious about Ashley....he said she was troubled and that he hoped she got help, or words to that effect, but was nice about it.

I've been a bit out of touch with the news today, but the one report I read on Yahoo left me feeling less than sympathetic to Ashley.

time is just one too many. Hopefully, racism and bigotry will now become the biggest fail anyone can display and be called out on it continually. Eugene is sick of it, as a white person, I'm sick of it. He'll be back to his old self soon but who could blame him? Enough already.

I know I do. This is not just fun in games. Unfortunately people have been pulling this "it was the black guy!" stunt for decades and that has left countless innocent Americans in jail or even dead. :(

way beyond faking an attack and robbery.

And, yeah, it's POlitical.

attentive to detail there would be one more black man in jail...probably last night. And the tv would be screaming for his head.

or any number of black men. Other than Eugene, is the media even grasping the implications of this? Seems like they just treated it like, aw gee, it was a hoax. No, it was much worse than a hoax. Black men have been lynched for doing less than this idiot claimed was done to her.

Hers is the kind of mindset that put Emmitt Till in his grave. Gene was not himself tonight at all, but if I were him, I wouldn't have been, either. There's too much ugliness in American history to laugh this off.

Then at the same time...a sense of defeat over takes you and the only thing left is to move on.

Think about it. Ashley Todd probably respected McCain/Palin, and believed in them. She then saw them engaging in the disgusting attacks on Obama, and the efforts to encourage white voters to vote against Obama due to racism. Ashley Todd probably thought doing what she did was perfectly legitimate according to the standards set by those who she respected.

The Obama campaign should call on McCain/Palin to reject this types of acts.

It ties into a racist narrative that takes us back to the worst times in American history. It is beyond shameful. Mr. Robinson was both saddened and eloquent.

he actually answered me.

I don't blame him. How many times do we have to hear about big, black scary men that don't even exist?

and not only Susan Smith, who I said Ashley reminded me of last night, but I had forgotten about Charles Stewart?-- I remembered it after she mentioned it. He was another one who I knew was lying from the get go.

the republican party there. He was very 'Family values".

Some family values.

Pat Robertson's Christian Coalition, let us not forget that. Wrapped his abuse up in the flag and the cross.

that prey on white women.

I'm a middle aged white women and it pisses me the fuck off. It's not like i haven't seen racism in my lifetime, hell i grew up in Massachusetts during busing but i had hoped that a good number of americans had evolved and than something like this happens and it dashes your hope for a little while.

they harm other blacks. Whites kill/harm more whites than any other race.

Broke my heart. :(

if he hasn't already. I would love to hear his reaction in more detail.

:(

He's my favorite guest and it was very sad to see.

guy if someone had been caught.

I also find it too close to the wound of the Troy Davis story here in Georgia. This kind of injustice still goes on. Thank god the PA police were on to this and handled the case brilliantly -- but my heart hurts thinking of all of the people in this country who don't get a fair shake because of people like Ashley who feel so entitled to make false accusations. I am sure Ashley wouldn't have dreamed of doing that if she were African American. That is white privilege in process.

It didn't succeed this time -- I celebrate that and hope for more change in a positive direction. But I'm outraged that she played with someone else's life (dark 6'5 African American man) and now certain pundits are saying "it's a small matter". How dare they? How would they like to wear a false accusation for days, as an entire race?

His somber tone struck me hard. Shame on the media for (thus far) not giving this vile stunt the coverage it warrants.

when the enormity of what he had just said began to sink in, I wanted to scream in anger at what racism and the exploitation of racism by McCain/Palin is doing to my country.

I noticed. It is devastating to realize that America will vote a black man into the presidency yet it is still so full of race-based hatred.

i noticed his sadness also. felt bad for him.

accussations about attacks on our prescious white women in the past led to lynching.

I'd say he had reason to be sad.

How long until the next 'harmless hoax' comes along?

I hoped we could get through this election without the unthinking reactionary hatred which causes people to believe someone black did something horrific to someone white. Seriously, the reaction is never rational.

It is the thing that makes the primitive brain take over. My woman? Someone violated one of our women?


Attack.
All of them.
Get all of them.
We can't trust them.
We can't/won't take that chance that Obama will let them loose.


I'm sure Mr. Robinson knows exactly how long it takes to jump from one stage to the next irrational thought based on race hatred.

It's that sense of frustration that happens every time a story like this comes on air. It is the moment of witnessing before one's very eyes the accusations of a white person get taken as gospel without any factual truth. And because of white privilege and entitlement, they get a pass if they are found out as false. The bitter sense of irony here is that the girl is going to be all right. She will probably be accepted in society and have a full, scandal-free career due to the simple fact that she is a person who is to be pitied while a six-foot-four tall Black man won't be given the same amount of empathy.

She's not even going to give a care about how her word could have potentially jeopardized the lives of a lot of black people. Even worse, her accusations maybe could have led to some rather violent racialized incidents due to retribution. After all, McCain and Palin set the stage for anger with their hate speech.

It is even more angering that some in the MSM are ignoring the repercussions or laughing it off like it is a big joke.

Believe me, no one in twenty years is going to bring up her name as being the perpetrator of a hoax.

But everywhere members of the dominant culture are going to utter Twana Brawley and Crystal Gail Magnum. They are never going to let Black folks live that down.

I thank the folks who give a damn about this situation. In the larger culture, I doubt people care as much about what this means. :(

The Todd incident is just the most flagrant example of a very disturbing pattern. I genuinely fear an outbreak of extreme right violence in the next few years. much of it directed at black men and other minorities.

I'm not talking about the freeper crazy talk about white riots -- though I suppose one or more of those could occur, riots by small segments of small segments of the population who hold unpopular views are easily controlled, and only fools plan to riot. I mean the "patriot" movement, on steroids -- a pattern or bombings and sabotage and, yes, lynchings, a pattern of relatively isolated localities with far right elected officials violating the civil rights of minorities on a scale we haven't seen for half a century or more-- domestic terrorism, with the accent on "terror", sometimes operating under color or law, and other times operating with the law turning a blind eye towards offenders. Think bloody, low-grade insurrection, one which might not pose a great threat to the US government, but which poses a great threat to individual Americans.

The extreme right has had eight very good years. They dominate the airwaves. They've captured a major political party. They've been allowed to sniff at the halls of power, and they believe (movie reference fully intended) that tomorrow belongs to them. And rather than gaining the power they believe should by right be theirs, they are watching it all slip away into the hands of, of all people, a black man. In the meanwhile, conservatives who fail to fully grasp either who they have allied themselves with, or how marginal their views really are, have doubled down on trying to incite yet more hatred among these people.

Mix in the personal desperation many in the fringe will be experiencing as a result of the economic collapse. Desperate people do desperate things. Desperate crazy people do unthinkable things.

I am very happy that the fringe right's eight+ year long dance partners are on the verge of being evicted from power. I believe that Obama has the potential to be one of America's great presidents (though obviously the future is up to him, the Congress, and to us). I even harbor a certain glee that my former party may have marginalized itself to death, and that we may well need a new major party to arise to take it's place (I'm betting on a progressive-DLC split, with a new party emerging from within the current Democratic Party).

And I am terrified of the future, given the history of right wing violence in America, and the level of agitation among the right. I've literally lost sleep over what I've been seeing, sat up nights worried for myself, for my friends and family, and for the many people I do not know personally but who will become targets if what I am seeing forming up comes to pass.

I really hope I'm wrong. But I don't think I am.

misled into feeling that they are doing things for the good of the country. Blame anybody but the governments mishandling of our country for everything is what they are teaching. This is the same way cults get started. The republicans are playing a dangerous game. They seek to divide this nation and the thought of Obama bringing everyone together is scary to them. I pray we move past this one day and become a better nation.