Fanning the flames of the firewall

by digby

Ronnie and Nancy campaigning with Strom Thurmond in 1980

Now don’t you dare read anything into that. Just because Juan Williams is African American and was questioning Newt about whether he could understand why some people would see a teensy hint of racism in his comments doesn’t mean that Newt was milking it in the state best known for its racial politics. Racism doesn’t exist, you see, and it certainly doesn’t exist in South Carolina:

In South Carolina [eleven] years ago, a whispering campaign suggesting that John McCain had fathered an illegitimate black baby may have been a factor in sinking his presidential campaign. A mailer sent out during that period used McCain’s actual daughter, who McCain adopted from Bangladesh in 1993, to support the fraudulent claim.

And Juan Williams isn’t really black. His name is Juan, after all, which, when you think about it, is probably just as bad.