GOP Rep Lynn Jenkins: Republicans Need “Great White Hope”
Do they even think about what they’re saying? Attempting to encourage conservatives at a town hall meeting, first term Topeka Republican Lynn Jenkins said “Republicans are struggling right now to find the great white hope. I suggest to any of you who are concerned about that, who are Republican, there are some great young Republican minds in Washington.”
Those great minds include, according to Jenkins, Rep. Eric Cantor R-VA., Rep. Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., and Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis. They’re all white, by the way.
The phrase “great white hope” is frequently tied to racist attitudes permeating the United States when heavyweight boxing champion Jack Johnson fought in the early 1900s. Reaction to the first black man to reign as champion was intense enough to build support for a campaign to find a white fighter capable of reclaiming the title from Johnson.
In response to inquiries by The Topeka Capital-Journal, a Jenkins spokeswoman said Wednesday the congresswoman wanted to apologize for her word choice and to emphasize she had no intention of expressing herself in an offensive manner.
Great, now you can’t say the word “white”. Maybe there should be a dictonary of banned speech to keep up with everything.
Go freedom !
placefield Reply:
August 27th, 2009 at 1:19 pm
Don’t be so obtuse, it has nothing to do with the word white. Fact is that she implied that the Republican Party need a great leader who is white, therefore any other race would not be acceptable. Whether she actually believes this or not I don’t know, but she should have thought about it before she spoke.
Rocky the Liberal Rottweiler Reply:
August 27th, 2009 at 1:20 pm
You can say anything you want, H, and Democrats like it when you do because then you reveal the true you.
Rep. Jenkins may or may not be racist, but whole bunches of her repugnicant constituents are, which explains her choice of rhetoric.
EricG Reply:
August 27th, 2009 at 7:54 pm
Hey … we banned me from calling you Hitler loving little American Neo-Nazis (aka “Neo-cons”) exactly what you all are.
So maybe we should. It would tick you off and that’s a much needed element at this time in our politics. Time for the neo-cons to be thrown out like the trash.
August 27th, 2009 at 12:37 pm
Frankly, I just see this a a rhetorical device.
August 27th, 2009 at 12:52 pm
Alan: “Do they even think about what they’re saying? ”
Uh, no. That’s why they’re Republicans. They’re exempt from thinking.
But I don’t find this to be a racist statement. It’s an admission that Obama is a dominant, formidable force, like Jack Johnson was, and later, the “Brown Bomber” Joe Louis.
It’s no secret that the Republican Party represents a certain kind of angry, bitter, reactionary, regressive white constituency. I’m glad they recognize that, and continue to admit it.
August 27th, 2009 at 1:04 pm
So now we have the racist police telling us “what we mean”. Just ask her what she was trying to say first before calling out wolf.
jake Reply:
August 27th, 2009 at 3:22 pm
No-one is telling you “what you mean”, no-one needs to ask her what she was “trying to say”. There is a video at the start of this thread- and she said it – no spin required, no parsing or editing – she said it. You seem to be the one claiming she was trying to say something other than the words which came out of her filthy mouth. You would have to be a very supple contortionist to bend and twist your way into a position to see her words as anything other that raw, republican racism.
EricG Reply:
August 27th, 2009 at 7:52 pm
You jerkwad neo-cons always tell us liberals “what we mean” by way of your hate-hosts like Beck or O’Reilly. You should check the dog poop all over your backyard before you start poking fun at us for a little on our porch.
August 27th, 2009 at 1:27 pm
Rush / Palin would do!!!
August 27th, 2009 at 6:13 pm
I don’t think they even know what they sound like.
It’s a lot like the right wing callers on Alan’s and all radio shows. They have no idea that they literally sound like a pack of Nazis, fascists and communists when they repeat the lies of the punditry and the spin of the GOP.
Daddio Reply:
August 28th, 2009 at 8:47 am
You say you are a Christian Eric? You very seldom ever sound like one with you intolerance towards those who dis-agree with you.
karthiks030977 Reply:
August 28th, 2009 at 8:53 am
Eric Said:
“I don’t think they even know what they sound like.
It’s a lot like the right wing callers on Alan’s and all radio shows. They have no idea that they literally sound like a pack of Nazis, fascists and communists when they repeat the lies of the punditry and the spin of the GOP.
”
Daddido: From where do you get intolerance in the above message? If he is being intolerant, what about all the people on Fox News etc who ARE using the exact same words(Nazi,Fascist,Communist) to describe Obama’s administration?
Ohhh, if Eric is intolerant
EricG Reply:
August 28th, 2009 at 5:31 pm
How tolerant do I have to be?
Do I have to tolerate lies? I was taught you stand up to liars and thieves instead of letting them run roughshod over you.
“You say you are a Christian Eric? You very seldom ever sound like one with you intolerance towards those who dis-agree with you.”
That’s not true. I am always looking for a middle ground. But if people are lying and making things up there is no middle ground to be had.
Make a point. I’ll respond.
If you made some kind of sick and perverted comment about burning gays or trashing liberalism you can bet I’m firing back at you.
But at the end of the day everyone is who they are and no amount of my own blah-blah will change anyone.
I recognize this. Do you?
Do you know that no matter how much you bark and scream at the so-called “looney left” they will never start supporting your vision?
—
Change starts at home. You want to make a difference? Take a homeless person into your home tonight. Like Jesus wants you to do. Try it.
That’s how you get a ‘grip’ on this fellow right here your talking to.
A lot of people use that word, “Christian”, but not many care what it means.
It doesn’t mean I walk around kissing your feet while you lie about my ideology and my president and my country. It means when the fur settles I’ll offer you a hug instead of a left hook at the end of the debate.
The sooner people on all sides understand this the sooner we can stop misusing the name of Jesus Christ in our society.
August 27th, 2009 at 7:50 pm
Rush,Glenn,Bill,Michael,Sarah,Michele and the rest of the right wing nuts still can’t accept the fact that a BLACK man is in the WHITE house and a Latina is on the Supreme Court.
August 28th, 2009 at 1:28 am
Rep. Jenkins just mis-spoke. That is all. By the way, the Republicans she mentioned are all very good conservatives and very good leaders.
OldLefty Reply:
August 28th, 2009 at 8:48 am
Of Cooourse he mis spoke just like:
Limbaugh:
“I tell people don’t kill all the liberals. Leave enough so we can have two on every campus — living fossils — so we will never forget what these people stood for.”
Coulter: “I think our motto should be, post-9-11: ‘Raghead talks tough, raghead faces consequences.’”
“We need somebody to put rat poisoning in Justice Stevens’ creme brulee. … That’s just a joke, for you in the media.”
“My only regret with Timothy McVeigh is he did not go to the New York Times Building.”
“We need to execute people like John Walker in order to physically intimidate liberals, by making them realize that they can be killed too.”
“They are either traitors or idiots, and on the matter of America’s self-preservation, the difference is irrelevant. Fifty years of treason hasn’t slowed them down.”
“This free speech thing is a canard. … How about not letting traitors teach at universities? Yes, I realize I’ve just proposed firing the entire Harvard faculty. These institutions can be shaken — look at Dan Rather. He’s out. Or, as I look at it, one down, two to go. We’re going to need a much bigger trophy case for all these stuffed heads.”
“Some liberals have become even too crazy for Texas to execute, which is a damn shame. They’re always saying — we’re oppressed, we’re oppressed so let’s do it. Let’s oppress them.”
Rep Peter King:
And Joe Wilson has no right to complain. And I think people like Tim Russert and the others, who gave this guy such a free ride and all the media, they’re the ones to be shot, not Karl Rove
Michael Reagan:
“Howard Dean should be arrested and hung for treason or put in a hole until the end of the Iraq war!”
Bill O’Reilly:
Everybody got it? Dissent, fine; undermining, you’re a traitor. Got it? So, all those clowns over at the liberal radio network, we could incarcerate them immediately. Will you have that done, please? Send over the FBI and just put them in chains, because they, you know, they’re undermining everything and they don’t care, couldn’t care less.
The most recent pastor praying for Obama’s death….then HIS church member goes to the Obama rally with a gun?
EricG Reply:
August 28th, 2009 at 5:33 pm
Old Lefty nailed it.
These people use violence and hatred to promote their political agendas. It’s disgusting and shameful and … (never heard this one from me before) unamerican.
August 28th, 2009 at 8:45 am
regardless of what she meant by the commment, she should be smart enough to not say it.
August 28th, 2009 at 1:47 pm