CAT Tracks for June 20, 2011

CAT Tracks for June 20, 2011

This just in...

The GOP has challenged NBC for the "What Were They Thinking" award by hiring a Barack Obama impersonator who told racial and gay jokes at their Republican Leadership Conference.

After careful review of the GOP's claim to fame (infamy), this humble observer believes that NBC should keep the award.

I arrive at this conclusion for the following reasons:

I will ass-u-me that whoever hired the impersonator did NOT have advance knowledge of the content of the impersonator's offensive material or that the impersonator strayed from "script". (Call me Pollyanna!)

Someone had the sense to pull the impersonator from the stage rather than allow him to complete his routine and then offer a feeble apology (like NBC).

The GOP only offended social liberals...did NOT have the audacity to challenge the existence or authority of God, Himself. (Whoever made the decision to cut "under God" may escape firing, but there's a good chance that s/he won't escape the eternal fires!)

Even if I'm wrong about all of the above...HEY! I rolled the video tape...the impersonator was black! Back in the day...I'm visualizing a white dude in blackface. They've come a long way, baby! (Sometimes, even Pollyanna can't overlook/overcome reality!)

Enough of my review, on with the show...

POSTSCRIPT:
After viewing the video of the impersonator's performance and "yanking" from the podium, I'm having second thoughts. Reggie Brown may have been stopped, NOT for his racial and gay jokes, but for his poking fun at the field of possible 2012 GOP candidates for President of the United States. When he got to Tea Party darling, Michele Bachmann...exit Reggie Brown, stage left.
Rather than putting myself in the position of being castigated as a typical Democratic flip-flopper, I shall leave the final decision on the award to you...

From the Washington Post

Link to Original Story
Obama impersonator pulled offstage after making racial, gay jokes at GOP gathering
By Aaron Blake and Amy Gardner
NEW ORLEANS — A President Obama impersonator was pulled off the stage Saturday at the Republican Leadership Conference, after telling a string of racially themed jokes about the president.
The impersonator, Reggie Brown, took the stage at the annual presidential cattle call to the Bruce Springsteen song “Born in the USA” — an apparent allusion to the birther controversy. He proceeded to tell a series of off-color jokes poking fun at Obama’s biracial heritage and a gay member of Congress.
Eventually, RLC President and CEO Charlie Davis made the decision to pull him offstage, and a man came onstage to physically escort Brown off.
“I pulled him off the stage,” Davis acknowledged afterward. “I just thought he had gone too far. He was funny the first 10 or 15 minutes, but it was inappropriate, it was getting ridiculous.”
Davis added: “We’ve had a great event. Probably the only problem we’ve had was the impersonator.”
A sampling of the racial jokes:

On Black History Month: “Michelle celebrates the full month. I celebrate half.”

“My mother loved a black man,” but “she was not a Kardashian.”

A picture was shown of Obama and the first lady when he took office. The impersonator then showed a picture of what the Obamas will look like when the president leaves office, and it was the characters of Fred Sanford and his sister-in-law, Ethel, from the show “Sanford and Son.”

Race wasn’t the only subject where the impersonator pushed the envelope.

Of Tim Pawlenty’s decision not to criticize Mitt Romney at Monday’s debate: “[CNN’s] John King served him up a ball softer than Barney Frank’s backside.” (Frank is a gay member of Congress from Massachusetts.)

Of Newt Gingrich’s approval ratings: Dropping “faster than Anthony Weiner’s pants in an AOL chat room.”

There was also one moment where the original Weiner twitpic was shown on the large screens on either side of the impersonator, with no blurring.

The jokes came after speakers including Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour and Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal made pleas for Republicans to be civil in their criticism of Obama. The two men spoke on the topic Friday.

This weekend’s event was attended by several notable presidential candidates, including Rep. Michele Bachmann, businessman Herman Cain, former House speaker Newt Gingrich and potential candidate Texas Gov. Rick Perry.