Osborne Ink » The Drive-By Truckers

Sarah Denies, Rumors Persist

Matt Osborne — Mon, 03 Aug 2009 14:32:00 +0000

Palin is a Train Wreck that has whistled past Denial Station.

The pajamas-clad liberal blogger who first broke the story turns out to be a kindergarten teacher. He still insists his story is dead accurate, even though Sarah Palin’s lawyers have threatened him with a lawsuit by name. He’s so confident that he spoke with HuffPo and laughed at the threat.

The Enquirer has already paid sources on the record. That’s not “proof” by any stretch, but it’s tantalizing. The whole Palin story gets juicier by the minute, but I am not an enquiring mind; I don’t want to know, or have need to know, the private life of Sarah Palin. It genuinely does not matter because whether this sordid story is true or not, it still makes me feel better.

If it’s not true, then it’s sweet revenge for all those lovely internet memes about President Barack Obama. That’s right, capitol-P, as in POTUS. The fringe needs to get used to that reality and I refuse to suffer fools among them.

On the other hand, if it’s true — and it’s only a matter of time before it becomes self-evident how true these reports are — then it is still sweet revenge, but for something else entirely:

Yes, we at last have sweet revenge for Monicagate. And having disposed of every possible candidate, Mitt Romney may very well play fall guy for the Last Stand of the Teabag Terror.

Morning Truckers

Matt Osborne — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 08:05:00 +0000

Much to my surprise — and delight — I have tickets to see these guys tonight.

Lyrics to We Ain’t Never Gonna Change by The Drive By Truckers

Let this be a lesson to you girl: Don’t come around where you know you don’t belong.
They’re riding on the avenue and probably coming after you and they all look mean and strong.
Mean and strong like liquor.
Mean and strong like fear.
Strong like the people from South Alabama and mean like the people from here.
Take it from me… We ain’t never gonna change.

Daddy used to empty out his shotgun shells and fill ‘em full of black-eyed peas.
He’d aim real low and tear out your ankles or rip right through your knees.
There ain’t much traffic on the highway. There ain’t much traffic on the lake.
The ATF and the ABI got everything they could take.
Take it from me… They didn’t take it from me.

We ain’t never gonna change.
We ain’t doin’ nothin’ wrong.
We ain’t never gonna change
so shut your mouth and play along.

I thought about going in the army. I thought about going overseas.
I wouldn’t have trouble with a piss test; only problem is my bad left knee.
My brother got picked up at Parker’s, got him a ride in a new Crown Vic.
They said that he was movin’ on a federal level but they couldn’t really make it stick.
Take it from me…

We ain’t never gonna change.
We ain’t doin’ nothin’ wrong.
We ain’t never gonna change
so shut your mouth and play along.

You can throw me in the Colbert County jailhouse.
You can throw me off the Wilson Dam
but there ain’t much difference in the man I wanna be and the man I really am.

John McCain and George Wallace

Matt Osborne — Mon, 13 Oct 2008 01:32:00 +0000

Rep. John Lewis caused a dust-up this weekend by comparing the rhetoric of McCain and Palin rallies to George Wallace. McCain took umbrage, sending his campaign manager to declare on Faux Noise: “The idea that you’re going to compare John McCain to the kinds of hate spread in the ’60s by somebody like George Wallace is outrageous.” McCain called on Obama to repudiate the remarks, and while the Obama campaign didn’t denounce them they agreed the comparison went too far.

Bullshit, I say. The comparison is apt; there are extraordinary parallels between McCain’s disturbing rhetorical turn and the strange career of America’s best known racist. I say this as a lifelong resident of Alabama and a student of its history, but the Drive-By Truckers have already summed it up better than I could:

Wallace started out as a lawyer and a judge with a very progressive and humanitarian track record for a man of his time, but he lost his first bid for governor in 1958 by hedging on the race issue against a man who spoke out against integration.

Wallace ran again in ’62 as a staunch segregationist and won big and for the next decade he spoke out loudly. He accused Kennedy and King of being communist and he was constantly on national news representing “the good people” of Alabama.

His track record as a judge and his late life quest for redemption make a good argument for his being, at worst, no worse than most white men of his generation, North or South. But because of his blind ambition and his hunger for votes, he turned a blind eye to the suffering of black America and he became a pawn in the fight against the Civil Rights cause.

You can read the full lyrics here. The Drive-By Truckers’ website is here.

Basically, John McCain is a decent fellow whose “blind ambition and hunger for votes” have led him to abandon respectable campaigning — and take up the coded language of racism, fear, and ‘other-ness’ instead. That is exactly how Wallace became the voice and face of southern racism. Just a few months ago, McCain admonished surrogates who used Barack Obama’s middle name. Now, the frequency of ‘Hussein’ at his rallies has gone up dramatically.

Sarah Palin is part and parcel of this late, negative turn. As Wallace called King and Kennedy ‘communist,’ Palin infers that Obama is a terrorist. Wallace claimed to represent “the good people of Alabama” and Palin says their ticket represents “good, ordinary Americans” — in contrast with, say, that exotic terrorist with the Muslim name.

McCain has sold his soul in the same way, and for the same reasons, as Wallace. And the rabid supporters who show up at campaign rallies to shout “terrorist!” and “Kill him!” are exactly the same crowd who turned out for Wallace when he ran for president.

Some of them even look old enough to remember:

And if you need a more direct linkage, take a look at who John McCain endorsed in Alabama’s 2006 race for Lieutenant Governor: George Wallace Jr., co-sponsored by the Council of Conservative Citizens. (Get it? CCC=KKK.)

The comparison is more than apt; it’s damning.