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Glenn Beck decided to repeat his asking-black-conservatives-dumb-white-guy-questions show with a new round, this time evidently focused on Harry Reid's remarks. Unlike the last time, there weren't any open embarrassments, except for the moment when Beck agreed that poor people are "like a domesticated animal [that] never learns to hunt."

But again, Beck hijacked the words of Martin Luther King Jr. He opened up the show with a King quote written on a chalkboard.

And it really is shameless. Conservatives nowadays love to claim King as one of their own. And it's a complete joke -- because when King was alive, conservatives were the people he had to combat.

Rick Perlstein described this some time back:

When Martin Luther King was buried in Atlanta, the live television coverage lasted seven and a half hours. President Johnson announced a national day of mourning: "Together, a nation united and a nation caring and a nation concerned and a nation that thinks more of the nation's interests than we do of any individual self-interest or political interest--that nation can and shall and will overcome." Richard Nixon called King "a great leader--a man determined that the American Negro should win his rightful place alongside all others in our nation." Even one of King's most beastly political enemies, Mississippi Representative William Colmer, chairman of the House rules committee, honored the president's call to unity by terming the murder "a dastardly act."

Others demurred. South Carolina Senator Strom Thurmond wrote his constituents, "[W]e are now witnessing the whirlwind sowed years ago when some preachers and teachers began telling people that each man could be his own judge in his own case." Another, even more prominent conservative said it was just the sort of "great tragedy that began when we began compromising with law and order, and people started choosing which laws they'd break."

That was Ronald Reagan, the governor of California, arguing that King had it coming. King was the man who taught people they could choose which laws they'd break--in his soaring exegesis on St. Thomas Aquinas from that Birmingham jail in 1963: "Any law that uplifts human personality is just. Any law that degrades human personality is unjust. ... Thus it is that I can urge men to obey the 1954 decision of the Supreme Court, for it is morally right; and I can urge them to disobey segregation ordinances, for they are morally wrong."

That's not what you hear from conservatives today, of course. What you get now are convoluted and fantastical tributes arguing that, properly understood, Martin Luther King was actually one of them--or would have been, had he lived. But, if we are going to have a holiday to honor history, we might as well honor history. We might as well recover the true story. Conservatives--both Democrats and Republicans--hated King's doctrines. Hating them was one of the litmus tests of conservatism.

I lived in a conservative town in a conservative state at the time, and I remember how deeply and viscerally people hated Martin Luther King when he was alive. And for years after his death, conservatives fought his legacy. They opposed a national holiday in his honor (Jesse Helms, that conservative icon, launched a filibuster against the proposal). Even today, many conservatives believe the old Bircherite smears that King was a Communist.

I thought Beck had a phobia about Communists. After all, the allegations that King had "Communist ties" are about as well grounded as Beck's own charges that Van Jones was a "self-proclaimed Communist."

But I guess when they make for handy stage props for phony discussions about race with a carefully selected audience -- shows which rapidly devolve into whinefests by black conservatives about being pegged as sellouts -- he'll look the other way.

Now, I dunno about sellouts. But anyone who thinks "conservative values" were anything but a hindrance to the black community for most of this country's history is just plain ignorant.

Especially if you know anything about what Martin Luther King Jr. actually stood for when he was alive -- and who his enemies were. They were conservatives. And for them to try to claim his mantle now is a travesty and a joke.

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It is hard to explain to white people like Glenn Beck why their "innocent" questions about race actually just reveal their ignorance and their false assumptions about people of other races and the nature of race relations.

But Beck is so blitheringly un-self-aware that he decided to give it a go anyway yesterday on his Fox News show. As you might expect, it was a serial embarrassment.

Beck, you see, was careful to hand-select his audience, people "the media claim don't think exist" -- black conservatives! Not that he ever actually explains this to the viewing audience -- you have to figure that out for yourselves as the show goes along, like the moment when he asks the audience if they think we're headed toward socialism (they all raise their hands) or are accused of being not "black enough" if they are conservative (again, a unanimous show of hands).

And it let Beck lead exchanges like this, with Beck regular Charles Payne and talk-show host Lisa Fritsch:

Beck: How many people here identify themselves as African Americans? (About a third raise their hands) OK -- Why?

Payne: It's interchangeable.

Beck: But wait, wait. Why not identify yourself as Americans?

Fritsch: Well, people can look at you and tell you're black. You can't escape that.

Beck: Yeah, but I don't identify myself as white, or a white American.

Will Brown of the New York Republican Community Coalition points out, adroitly, that "African American" is an "evolution" from the "N word" -- and certainly is preferable. Moreover, it wasn't black people who invented the "N word" or the segregation from enjoying the full fruits of American citizenship it represented -- it was white people. "African American" represents the recognition of their dignity and their rights as Americans.

But this point sails right over Beck's head, because he's too ignorant to appreciate the implications. Had Beck even a smidgen of American history, particularly pertaining to civil rights, he'd know that white Americans for most of the decades of the past century used the word "American" and "real American" almost exclusively to refer to white people -- and that this motif lingers even today (see, e.g., Sarah Palin's references to "real Americans" during the campaign -- speaking before small-town, all-white audiences).

This historical and cultural ignorance just kept manifesting itself:

Beck: Because one of the problems that I have -- and I have to tell you, as a white guy, as a white guy, I'm just being real honest with you, as a white guy, I think white people are uncomfortable sometimes saying, 'You know what, Martin Luther King' -- and then quoting Martin Luther King, because, it's almost as if society says -- 'No no no! That's our guy! Not your guy!' And it shouldn't be that way. And so Martin Luther King, wasn't the dream that we're all judged by the content of our character?

Beck doesn't understand why it's idiotic of white people to quote King -- namely, King was speaking in defense of black people whose civil rights had been systematically and violently denied for over a century, and his words were spoken in that context. They weren't intended to be spoken in defense of advantaged white people who want an excuse to keep stereotyping black people.

The black conservative talkers he had on weren't a whole lot better. Perhaps the most outrageously ahistorical remark came from Fritsch:

Fritsch: The only way black people were ever able to triumph is because of conservative values, which is directly linked to Christianity. Had we been liberals, during the Civil Rights movement, nobody would have done anything!

Um, Ms. Fritsch, you need to avail yourself some history books too. It was conservatives who argued for maintaining slavery before the Civil War. It was conservatives who insisted after the war that blacks be denied the full rights of citizenship, and who erected the system of Jim Crow, who led rope-bearing lynch mobs that crucified thousands of black people. It was conservatives who erected "No Black After Sundown" signs at the city borders of thousands of American towns.

And most of all, it was conservatives who fought the Civil Rights movement tooth and nail. And it was only from the ceaseless efforts of liberals -- many of them indeed Christian liberals -- in opposition to conservatives, many of them Christian conservatives -- that anything was in fact achieved during that era. Somehow, you've managed to get your history completely upside down.

This idiocy reached its apotheosis, though, when Beck played for his audience that audio tape of black Detroiters turning out for welfare assistance funds, originally promoted by Rush Limbaugh, which was nothing more than a nakedly racist bit of ugly stereotyping on the part of the radio talker, Ken Rogulski, who produced it. As King Crimson observed:

The conservo-talk reporter cherry picked through the audio booty until he found the absolute best soundbite that would most perfectly frame the city as one filled with Obama-fawning morons, black Sambos, and greedy welfare grabbers - precisely, as Limbaugh would later argue, the kind of rank idiots who would vote for someone like America's first black president.

And if you listen to the woman making the "Obama money" remarks, you can hear that she's cracking humorously on the humorless, stereotype-dependent white guy asking. He -- and Beck and Limbaugh, by extension -- are the butt of the joke and they don't even know it.

Well, we actually know where Beck thinks this talk comes from:

Beck: All right. These are the people who have been abused by the system. They've been taught they needed the government. They've been taught to be slaves, and their master is Washington! Both parties!

For some reason, those weren't the words he used yesterday. Hmmm. Wonder why not, don't you?

This is just vintage Beck, gorging himself on dumbass white stereotypes of black people and then fobbing himself off as just a colorblind white guy. As we noted before, this is his way of race-baiting:

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Nobody promised...this would be easy.

Open Thread below...

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On the roundtable discussion via ABC's THIS WEEK, the last few minutes were dedicated to the Gates/Crowley Beer Summit story. If you watched most of the news shows on this issue, they told us that that President Obama was the big loser because more people sided with the police officer. However, Gerald Seib from the Wall Street Journal made the most honest statement about the incident and used the WSJ poll to do so. Seib said what the poll really revealed was the people who are predisposed to have racist tendencies voted against President Obama.

Seib: I don't know whether this opened up any new racial rifts or just showed that they're pretty much the same way they've always been. To go back to our poll again, George, if you look at the question we asked about who's more at fault, the professor or the cop. The people who thought the professor was more at fault tended to be older people, not younger people -- they tended to be people from the South, they tended to be more Republicans than Democrats. A lot of the same divides that you would expect to find ten years ago.

Conservatives had hoped that the Gates/Crowley story would open new wounds for Democrats on the race issue, but all it did was tell us that nothing has changed.

The same people who voted against Obama are the same ones who backed the cop. Wow, what a shocker. You can draw your own, unbiased conclusions on that one. It does help to look at the demographic breakdown of a question that has racial overtones, wouldn't you think? Well, it's the media, so that wasn't the case.

In the immediate wake of Prop 8's victory in California, much of the conversation in the blogosphere was dominated by anger – real and perceived – by some gay activists toward African Americans, acrimony grounded in eventually refuted claims that black voters provided the margin of victory. While Prop 8 opponents were understandably frustrated, the way some lashed out at African Americans was counterproductive at best. Although the Right is still trying hard to drive a wedge between blacks and gay rights activists, the broader conversation has mostly moved on.

This weekend's historic grassroots protests against Prop 8, organized via Join the Impact, have people thinking about the future again. And that's where our focus belongs. Prop 8's supporters have the past on their side, but we have the future. My advice to the marriage ban supporters is to savor their victories now because they're going to find out what it's like to be on the wrong side of history.

Even in defeat we can see the signs of victories to come. According to a CNN exit poll, 61% of voters aged 18-29 opposed Prop 8, while 61% of 65 and older voters backed it. That tells you where we're headed, especially if you compare those results to 2000, when according to an LA Times exit poll 18-29 year old voters supported the anti-gay Proposition 22 by a margin of 58-42. The final vote tallies tell a similar story. Prop 22 passed in 2000 with 61% of the 7.5 million votes cast, but Prop 8 passed with just 52% of the 12 million votes cast. Prop 8 was also defeated across a much broader area of the state than Prop 22 (results by county for Prop 22 & Prop 8).

As I see it, the biggest story about Prop 8 is the California electorate's strong shift in favor of marriage equality in just a matter of years. A majority of white voters backed Prop 22 but opposed Prop 8. We'll be able to say the same thing about African Americans and Hispanics in the future if we commit ourselves now to doing the necessary outreach, education, and relationship-building activism – something our opponents have been doing for years.

The Religious Right is the real obstacle to equality. They bankrolled Prop 8 and led an aggressive and misleading campaign that convinced many voters that voting 'yes' on Prop 8 was a vote to protect their religious freedom and their children. There are millions of voters, of all races and ethnicities, many of whom are religious, who might vote today to support a marriage ban, but only because they've heard the lies spread by opponents of equality, and haven't had the opportunity to have a real conversation about the impact of discrimination on same-sex couples and their families.

We may have history and momentum on our side, but as we saw on November 4, progress is not inevitable, especially when the Right is willing to do and say anything to prevent it. It's time to learn our lessons, revise our strategies, and commit ourselves to strategic, respectful outreach to those Americans who need to hear from us.

Kathryn Kolbert is president of People For the American Way

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Have you noticed how all these right-wingers, like Bill Bennett, want to claim credit for Barack Obama's election as some kind of racial vindication for America, when they're the very people who were indulging the worst kind of dog-whistle stereotypes in their strenuous efforts to keep him from becoming president?

Keith Olbermann honored Rep. Michelle Bachmann, the Diva of the New McCarthyism, last night as the "Worst Person in the World" for the following remarks:

Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) told Politico Thursday that she was “extremely grateful that we have an African-American who has won this year.” She called his victory “a tremendous signal we sent.”

“I have not seen the United States as a racist nation,” said Bachmann, who represents Minnesota’s 6th Congressional District, in the east-central part of the state. “In my district, I don’t sense racism, and that’s why I’m thankful that hopefully this will send a national signal across our country that America is not a nation made up of racists. ... On the same hand, I hope that the national media will not confuse disagreement with Obama’s policy positions with being consumed [by] racism.”

Yep, this is the same woman who thought that Obama was "anti-American." Only a day ago, she also said this:

It looks like the Sopranos. That is kind of what we are looking at. This is knuckle Chicago politics and that is what is going to be in the White House now. We have been, conservative Republicans, have felt the brunt of Rahm Emanuel this election cycle, last election cycle. It’s unlike anything anyone has ever seen or heard and now it’s going to come forth out of the White House.

Piece. Of. Work.

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We're raised up here to to know that, um -- you talk about equality? You see equality in Alaska. And so that's a good question, because I think that was a bit of a surprise on a national level, was -- what, you mean the other 49 states aren't quite there, like Alaskans are? Well come on, follow Alaska's lead and start allowing the equal opportunities and the equal treatment.

... Palin made clear to them through her refusal to participate in the state's traditional Juneteenth celebration, as well as her refusal to work on their concerns about minority hiring for the gas-pipeline commission and on her staff, that race relations are pretty low on her priority list. Much of this was reported a few weeks ago by Earl Ofari Hutchinson, but the impact of Palin's behavior comes home here: It's clear that the African American community in Alaska feels thoroughly disenfranchised. Then there was the news today that Palin's rural adviser has quit because of the governor's shoddy treatment of Alaska Natives. Among other items: Palin appointed a white woman to a game-board seat traditionally held by a Native.

The video from that Sarah Palin rally in Ohio last week probably said it all -- that not only are racists herding in John McCain's direction, but that previously obscured racism among mainstream conservatives is now bubbling up at an increasing rate.

A New York Observer report from Florida tells a similar kind of story:

“I don’t believe these polls,” said America Blanca, a 44-year-old small business owner from Miami who wore a red dress and was visibly pumped up by the rally. “Not one of them. Because it’s the kids answering the polls on the computers. Their parents are not home and they are answering and they will not be voting. I think if he is losing, it is only by a little spread. Very little.” She held the tip of her pointer finger about two inches from the tip of her thumb.

Asked if her business made more than $250,000 a year, the cap under which Obama has proposed cutting taxes, she said it did. Told about Obama’s proposal, she answered, “I don’t give a shit. I will never vote for a black man.”

I half-expected to hear the same thing from "Joe the Plumber" last week when it was pointed out to him that he would actually get a tax cut under Obama's plan.

It's clear that the campaign to defeat Barack Obama -- which is what the McCain campaign has rapidly devolved into, ever since it became self-evident that McCain himself couldn't give us a single good reason to vote for him, beyond his moose-in-the-headlights running mate -- is in fact creating an environment in which these kinds of sentiments not only are encouraged, but are now considered normal.

Sure enough, the neo-Nazis and white supremacists are reporting that they're making big inroads these days:

Jeff Schoep, head of the National Socialist Movement, says the government classifies his group as a domestic group of interest, not domestic terrorists. The FBI would not comment.

Interest in the group "has really spiked up," says Schoep, who would not say by how much.

"Historically, when times get tough in our nation, that's how movements like ours gain a foothold," he says. "When the economy suffers, people are looking for answers. … We are the answer for white people.

"And now this immigrant thing in the past couple of years has been the biggest boon to us," Schoep says. "The immigration issue is the biggest problem we're facing because it's changing the face of our country. We see stuff in English and Spanish. … They are turning our country into a Third World ghetto."

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Rush Limbaugh, somewhat predictably, isn't backing down from his claim that Colin Powell's endorsement of Barack Obama was a product of their both being black men -- that is, that it was about race, not policy;

"I thought it should be about race," he said. "I thought you liberals thought this was a historic candidacy because finally we are going to elect a black guy…why hide behind this, why act like it's not about race?"

"This was all about Powell and race, nothing about the nation and its welfare," Limbaugh added.

Limbaugh simply doesn't get it. Obama's candidacy is historic, yes -- but what has made it possible all along is that his campaign has been about transcending race, not wallowing in it.

Obama has carefully eschewed identity politics throughout this campaign. Meanwhile, the Republican campaign has been about nothing but. And it has its most transparent mouthpiece in Limbaugh.

Limbaugh is the guy at the sports bar who carefully tabulates the racial composition of every team on the screen and roots accordingly. If a team has a black quarterback, he predicts they're going to lose. Heaven forfend that any black player demonstrate too much enthusiasm over a touchdown or a dunk or a home run, or that any black linebacker should level a white quarterback, because then the "thug" and "jungle" references come out. He hates Tiger Woods with an inexplicable venom (mostly because he's too uppity "full of himself").

We all know that guy. (Some of them are in our families.) And anyone who's even moderately serious about sports, and moderately knowledgeable about them, knows that that guy is completely and hopelessly full of shit.

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Normally, the story of John McCain's black family -- the ones who are planning to vote for Barack Obama -- might elicit some modest interest in terms of what it says about the complexity of race relations in America.

But what's been even more interesting has been how John McCain has responded to the story ever since it surfaced.

Initially, back when he first was doing the "Maverick" schtick in the 2000 primaries, he actually denied that the aristocratic Southerners from whom he was descended were slaveholders. But it really became impossible for McCain to deny their existence after a 2000 report in Salon in the course of which reporters showed him photographs and birth records in person and he had to concede to their existence.

One account, In the South Florida Times, describes how McCain has handled the connection publicly and privately:

White and black members of the McCain family have met on the plantation several times over the last 15 years, but one invited guest has been conspicuously absent: Sen. John Sidney McCain.

“Why he hasn’t come is anybody’s guess,” said Charles McCain Jr., 60, a distant cousin of John McCain who is black. “I think the best I can come up with, is that he doesn’t have time, or he has just distanced himself, or it doesn’t mean that much to him.”

Other relatives are not as generous.

Lillie McCain, 56, another distant cousin of John McCain who is black, said the Republican presidential nominee is trying to hide his past, and refuses to accept the family’s history.

“After hearing him in 2000 claim his family never owned slaves, I sent him an email,” she recalled. “I told him no matter how much he denies it, it will not make it untrue, and he should accept this and embrace it.”

She said the senator never responded to her email.

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