The SOTU and Newt's racial stereotype problem.

I am settling in to watch the SOTU address with O. It should be interesting. Republicans say that it will be nothing more than a political speech, and they are already ready to go with their talking points.

One republican who won't be there is Rep. Doug Lamborn of Colorado. I guess he is really afraid that some of that tar will fly off his Oness and get on his skin.

Anyway, O is coming in now. There are hugs and kisses all around. Oh ohhh, he is approaching the supremes. ("Smiling faces, sometimes pretend to be your friend...) And now he is hugging "Gabby" Giffords....ohhhh. Now that was a "Kodak Moment". O, you might have just bumped your approval ratings by about five points.

My friends over at Politc365 have a live feed. I think I will check it out.
[Feed]

O was in big time campaign mode. The [right]wingnuts will be foaming at the mouth tomorrow. This election should be fun. The battle lines have been drawn.

Finally, and believe me, I don't even want to bring this up, because I am honestly hoping that Newt comes out on top in the republican primary.

"GOP contender Newt Gingrich has built up quite a record of making derogatory, racially-charged remarks on the campaign trail. He frequently derides President Obama as a “food stamp president” and said he would go to the NAACP and tell African Americans they should “demand paychecks and not be satisfied with food stamps.” Last week he said work is a “strange, distant concept” to Fox anchor Juan Williams, who had the audacity to ask Gingrich at a recent debate if he understood why blacks might be offended by his remarks.

More than 40 Catholic leaders recently challenged Gingrich to “stop perpetuating ugly racial stereotypes” with his divisive rhetoric.

For Gingrich, perpetuating ugly racial stereotypes is nothing new. Today, the Huffington Post reports that at the height of Gingrich’s power in Congress, one of his major speeches had to be edited to remove a racist characterization of Asians, Latinos, and black Americans:

But before Gingrich could deliver his grand new theory of American civilization to the public in a 1993 speech, his deeply divisive racial stereotypes would need to be removed.

“For poor minorities, entrepreneurship in small business is the key to future wealth,” Gingrich wrote by hand in a first draft. “This is understood thoroughly by most of the Asians, partially by Latinos, and to a tragically small degree by much of the American black community.” [...]

By the time a member of Gingrich’s staff typed up the notes and prepared the speech for delivery at the National Review Institute, the racial stereotypes were gone." [Source]   

I smell dirty politics here, but I still can't give Newt a pass. I know exactly where Newt stands on these issues, and it's scary that he could have gotten even this far.