TPM has caught the conservative movement with its racist pants down again. Actually, we saw so much racist garbage during the campaign from the low-information Base that it was no surprise to find out the Teabagger movement and is apesh*t not just about taxes, but the fact that we have a black president.
On Sunday night, Dr. David McKalip forwarded to fellow members of a Google listserv affiliated with the Tea Party movement the image below. Above it, he wrote: "Funny stuff."
Asked about the email in a brief phone interview with TPMmuckraker, McKalip said he believes that by depicting the president as an African witch doctor, the "artist" who created the image "was expressing concerns that the health-care proposals [made by President Obama] would make the quality of medical care worse in our country." McKalip said he didn't know who created it.
After being busted for this bottom-of-the-barrel trash behavior, the Florida Medical Association condemned McKalip's bigoted email and called for an apology. McKalip had his nuts in a vise, so I'm sure it pained him to type this one out:
"I genuinely regret the decision I made in passing this e-mail message along. Directly to President Obama, I sincerely apologize for offending him. This was, in no way whatsoever, my intention. The image has nothing to do with my feelings or thoughts on any race or culture. I recognize that this image is offensive and hope that the nation refocuses on assuring all Americans have access to high-quality, affordable health care with no party interfering in the patient-physician relationship. My intention is to focus directly on the issue at hand, which is putting financial and decision-making power into the hands of patients and taking it from government and insurance companies," said McKalip.
Yes, we are to believe that the first image that comes to mind when you think of the current president is that he runs around a bone through his nose dressed as a a loincloth-clad witch doctor as he discusses health care reform.
I'd like to say that this was the end of it, but we're talking about conservatives, right? Specifically the kind of conservatives who talk a big game about personal responsibility except when it comes to themselves. Case in point —McKalip's not sorry for what he did, he's mad at the humorless Left for finding out about his jocularity and ruining a perfectly good joke. Besides, he can't be racist, because, well, he helped out them pickaninnies once:
In an interview yesterday with the St. Petersburg Times, which picked up the story, he declared: "I am not a racist. I am simply a person speaking up to make sure patients don't get hurt by the government and by insurance companies.''
As a defense against the racism charge, he noted, in the paper's words, that he had "helped organize a career counseling day several years ago for African-American Boy Scouts." And he blamed liberal activists for touting the email, which he called a "satire."
Perhaps someone should buy him a membership to The Valley Club.
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This sounds like what Cambridge cop Crowley said. Is this the new “get out of disgrace” card? “I can’t be a racist because I once [gave CPR to Reggie Lewis] [spoke to black children]”?