Melissa Harris-Lacewell

Hope and change, meet business as usual.

Princeton professor Melissa Harris-Lacewell unveiled this curious possible strategy for Democrats heading into the midterms when she appeared on Rachel Maddow's MSNBC show Sept. 8 --

MADDOW: One last last question on the specifics here. The president himself is planning to be very visible from all accounts, multiple campaign events, the first planned press conference in a long while. Is he still the Democrats' best campaign asset or do Democrats need somebody else out there who can throw sharper barbs than a sitting president is really allowed to?

Followed by Harris-Lacewell responding, as if hearing the question from Maddow for the first time --

Whenever Fox News host Glenn Beck raises the history of progressives and eugenics, or the possibility that eugenics is part of the motivation of a legitimate policy debate, the left-wing has a hissy fit. But when the left introduces it, we're supposed to accept it as high-minded and scholarly, especially in the case Princeton University's Melissa Harris-Lacewell. 

On MSNBC's Aug. 12 "Countdown," liberal blowhard Keith Olbermann asked Harris-Lacewell, an MSNBC contributor, what the motivation was behind the proposition the 14th Amendment of the Constitution should be altered to close a loophole for illegal immigrants to achieve legal status in the United States. As expected, Harris-Lacewell suggested it was motivated by racism, but took it even further to say there was some sort of desire for genetic purity pushing it.

"It certainly is xenophobia, but it's got a little eugenics mixed in with it," Harris-Lacewell said. "Part of what I see going on here is, first, a deep misunderstanding about the 14th Amendment, and for whom the 14th Amendment provided citizenship. And although certainly part of it was about newly freed persons after the Civil War, it was also about all Americans."

That's odd, those describing themselves as pro-choice usually aren't this candid when it comes to abortion.

On her MSNBC show Thursday night, Rachel Maddow spoke with Princeton professor Melissa Harris-Lacewell about Republican Senate candidates Rand Paul, Sharron Angle and Ken Buck opposing abortion, including for pregnancies conceived through rape or incest.

Harris-Lacewell said this in response to a question from Maddow --

Occasionally a lefty gets it right. Then a conservative says much the same thing. Followed by liberals denouncing him for it.

Latest example -- Bill O'Reilly's remarks on race at the Sharpton-organized National Action Network conference on April 14 in New York City. Speaking after O'Reilly was liberal action hero Ed Schultz, who spun what was said at the conference on MSNBC's "The Ed Show" that night --

SCHULTZ: You would think that at a serious event to promote equality and civil rights that Bill would rein in the psycho talk. Well, no such luck. He showed zero comprehension of the venue and came out swinging, defending the tea partiers.

O'REILLY: The tea party is a largely white phenomenon, there's no doubt about that, because African-Americans overwhelmingly support President Obama. But it is an overwhelmingly white movement. And now we are seeing that it's being demonized as a racist thing too and the best example was that Capitol display where the African-American congresspeople walked through this gauntlet of protest and there were charges the n-word was used and spitting happened and this, that and the other thing. ... Even if the n-word was used, and it absolutely could have been, you don't demonize a whole group by the actions of one or two people. ... It's a much more interesting country, America, if we stop with the race business, I think. I mean, I'm not black so I don't know your struggle, and you don't know my struggle, all right, because you're not white. ...

Poor Barack Obama.  In becoming president he inherited the "hollow prize" of the United States of America.  That was the astounding theory suggested this morning by Melissa Harris-Lacewell.

The Princeton professor of politics and African-American studies bemoaned the president's predicament on Morning Joe today.  Apparently this "hollow prize" theory is in vogue in certain circles, used to decry the plight of African-Americans who only rise to powerful political positions in "hollow prize" places like Detroit.

Rolling Stone, a music magazine in the same sense that MTV is a music-video channel, was featured on this morning's edition of Morning Joe.  Their cover story is not about the latest escapades of Kanye West or Lady Gaga; instead, they have chosen to write about global warming.  Before anyone asks, none of the above recording artists (to my knowledge) have recorded a song which would have spawned this article.

"As the World Burns," is the eyes-bleeding hyperbolic title of the article.  Contents: The 17 people whom Rolling Stone calls "climate killers."  And the first target of the article: Billionaire investor and ardent Obama supporter, Warren Buffett:

JOE SCARBOROUGH: You put Warren Buffett on that list, I thought he was an Obama supporter?

Is there a sentient person over the age of 12 who believes our health care problems are as serious as the peril facing America after 9/11?

At least one person whose belief in this has been confirmed, though I suspect many others drawn to MSNBC think likewise.

Here's Princeton political science professor Melissa Harris-Lacewell on MSNBC's "The Rachel Maddow Show," where she is a frequent guest, on Sept. 10 --

"There is not a Black America and a White America and a Latino America and an Asian America -- there's the United States of America." -- Barack Obama, 2004 Democratic National Convention keynote address.

"theGrio.com. The African-American perspective on news. Our lives, our world, our stories.  theGrio.com.  Part of NBC News." -- promo for new NBC News website, August 9, 2009.

So much for Barack Obama's promise of a post-racial America.  NBC News apparently believes that African-Americans can be pigeonholed.  In NBC's view, there exists "the" African-American perspective on news.  So announced the NBC News promo, aired during today's Meet The Press, for a new website, theGrio.com.

View video here.

As the confirmation hearings for President Barack Obama's Supreme Court appointee Sonia Sotomayor are upon us, the left-wing attack machine had to take a few last shots ranking Senate Judiciary Committee Republican Sen. Jeff Session, Ala., and the Republican Party as a whole.

MSNBC host Rachel Maddow explained the junior Alabama senator would take over the spot after Sen. Arlen Specter's defection to the Democratic Party on her July 10 program, suggesting his selection to the post was part of some rebranding by the GOP.

"Republicans have also decided to have Senator Jeff Sessions lead this battle for them," Maddow said. "When Arlen Specter defected to the Democratic Party, the Republicans had a choice of who should be their top senator on the Judiciary Committee. They overtly chose Jeff Sessions of Alabama to be that top Republican."

You've heard it here, there and everywhere in the news media - the time is now for a big-government economic stimulus package, not only to revive the economy, but to salvage America's crumbling infrastructure.

That's one of the selling points used over and over again by pundits, as they are paraded out repeatedly on broadcast and cable network news programs - that so-called "shovel-ready" projects will challenge economic woes by revitalizing something we need to do anyway. But only 3 percent of the Obama stimulus plan is slated for such projects.

"The total size of the plan is about $750 to $800 billion - roughly $300 billion is for tax cuts for businesses and individuals," CBS correspondent Chip Reid said on CBS's Jan. 12 "The Early Show." "The rest will be spent on everything from roads and bridges to renewable energy to create three to 4 million jobs. Republicans are raising red flags about the amount of spending."