Gingrich And Santorum Attack Obama For His Comments About Trayvon Martin's Death.

On the 23rd of March, President Obama spoke out on the murder of seventeen year old Trayvon Martin after a journalist asked him about the case.  He had this to say:

“I’ve got to be careful about my statements to make sure we’re not impairing any investigation that’s taking place right now. But obviously this is a tragedy. I can only imagine what these parents are going through and when I think about this boy, I think about my own kids. I think that every parent in America should be able to understand why it is absolutely imperative that we investigate every aspect of this, and that everybody pulls together, federal, state and local to figure out exactly how this tragedy happened…But my main message is to the parents of Trayvon Martin. You know, if I had a son, he would look like Trayvon. And I think they are right to expect that all of us as Americans are going to take this with the seriousness it deserves and we’re going to get to the bottom of exactly what happened.”


(Here's the video... I urge you to watch it because it gives the quote context and meaning)

Stirring words.  Compare those to some of the quotes you can find under the comments section of any article on the Fox News website about the Martin killing, and they're practically worthy of an award.  Here are just a few of those quotes, by the way (just for funsies):


"Gated communities exist because people are afraid….& negros thrive on crime…Look at our prisons."

"Need that too….But Negr0s only have their welfare checks….and in any event can’t follow rules."

"That is all it was — just another n i qq er. No loss"

"niqqers don’t walk, they shuffle, and how was doing all of that one handed, cause we know the other hand was holding his clown pants up. "

Oh, racism.  You are disgusting.

At any rate, when President Obama turns his attention towards something, even if it is for a mere two and a half minutes, the GOP candidates have to weigh in.  The subject is, of course, irrelevant.  What matters to them and to their constituents is what he said (see above).

Both Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich took issue with President Obama saying, "You know, if I had a son, he would look like Trayvon." Why?  My first reaction was that, yes, it was an odd point to bring up.  However, if you watch the video you'll notice that he says it almost as a caring, contemplating side-thought.  In the moment, it made sense for him to say that, and I think the kindness in his voice was appreciated by Trayvon's parents.

So my natural second thought was, "What the fuck, guys?"

Here's Newt Gingrich's response to the president, courtesy of The Huffington Post and Hannity Radio:

"What the president said, in a sense, is disgraceful.  It’s not a question of who that young man looked like. Any young American of any ethnic background should be safe, period.  We should all be horrified no matter what the ethnic background. 

Is the president suggesting that if it had been a white who had been shot, that would be OK because it didn’t look like him.  That’s just nonsense dividing this country up.  It is a tragedy this young man was shot. It would have been a tragedy if he had been Puerto Rican or Cuban or if he had been white or if he had been Asian American of if he’d been a Native American. At some point, we ought to talk about being Americans. When things go wrong to an American, it is sad for all Americans. Trying to turn it into a racial issue is fundamentally wrong. I really find it appalling."

The italicization is mine because I really want to emphasize how deluded this idiot is.  President Obama did not say that we should pay more attention to Trayvon Martin's death because he looks like the son he never had - all he said was that he looked like the son he never had!  More importantly, President Obama did not suggest that if Trayvon was white, this would be okay.  I refer you to my logical fallacies post just a few days ago.  What Gingrich has done is a perfect example of the straw man argument and it is horrifying.

Obama is not trying to turn this into a racial issue - George Zimmerman did that when he followed an African-American teenager for "walking suspiciously."  If anything, Gingrich is trying to turn it into a racial issue by suggesting that President Obama is.  The disgraced Former Speaker is playing to his base, a base that cares far more about people's skin color than who people are underneath.

While Gingrich is making mountains out of specks of sand, Santorum was on Hugh Hewitt's (whoever the fuck that is) radio show saying this:

"This is an unfortunate situation where the President has taken a horrible tragedy, where someone did a heinous act, and that the authorities did not, did another horrible act in not following and prosecuting that to the fullest extent of the law. And then, his, again, politicizing it, this is again not what presidents of the United States do. 

What the president of the United States should do is try to bring people together, not use these types of horrible and tragic individual cases to try to drive a wedge in America. And this is something that there are horrible acts of people doing outrageous things for a lot of hateful reasons. And to say that it is a societal problem because one person, or even two does a horrible thing is not something that presidents should so quickly run to, or any politician should quickly run to. We need to have a society that can elevate the debate beyond one sick person or somebody else’s response to it."

The president was not in the Rose Garden specifically to answer questions about Trayvon's death.  It was something a journalist just asked, and Obama responded to.  Simple as that.  If someone asks a question, you usually answer it.  

And who exactly is President Obama trying to drive a wedge between?  People that believe in justice and people that don't?  Racists and non-racists?  No where in Obama's answer did I find evidence of him trying to separate America.  No where.  

Thankfully, many members of the GOP have criticized Santorum and Gingrich for attacking Obama on this issue, while others have distanced themselves from it altogether.  And while I want to believe President Obama's senior campaign adviser David Plouffe when he said on CNN's State of the Union, "I don't think there's very many people in America that would share that reaction,” a quick look at most conservative blogs has me begging to differ.  There are a lot of people that share that reaction.  And it's scary.

Again, please watch the video above.  It's crucial to understanding this post.  Tell me what you think about the president's sentiment in the comment section below.  

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