(Photo: Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)
By Joyce Jones
Newt Gingrich shared some interesting thoughts this week about whether birther claims are racist and it’s his assertion that they are not, Politico reports.
“I think that Obama creates very powerful emotions about him, largely because of the radicalization of his views. And I think that that’s a key fact,” he told reporters before the Mitt Romney fundraiser Donald Trump hosted in Las Vegas.
Now the reason Gingrich knows that attempts to paint a picture of the president as not simply un-American but African — red meat to the kind of people who still don’t cotton to the idea of a Black family in the White House — aren’t racist is that no one accuses Reps. Allen West or Tim Scott, who are African-American, of not being U.S. citizens.
“So the idea of asserting that any charge against Obama somehow manages magically in the media to get back to racism, I think is just one ore device to protect Obama,” Gingrich said.
Sounds to me like the former House speaker is comparing Hawaiian pineapples to Florida oranges. First of all, Tea Party darlings West and Scott are drinking out of the same Kool-Aid vat when it comes to most issues related to Obama, so of course they’re not being called un-American. And one never knows what certain people may be whispering behind their backs. But I wouldn’t get too comfortable if I were them.
Just the other day, West expressed support for keeping some of the popular provisions in the Affordable Care Act, such as barring providers from rejecting people who have pre-existing conditions and keeping kids on their parents insurance plans until they’re 26. The original Tea Party group Freedom Works, Club for Growth and other conservative advocates want the entire law repealed.
You’d better watch your back, Allen West.