With black Democrats Charlie Rangel (NY) and Maxine Waters (CA) facing ethics charges, the Daily Show looked at the race card, and came to some interesting conclusions.
Video and transcript below the fold.
JON STEWART: Two prominent African-American representatives in Congress are heading to separate ethics trials in the House over allegations they acted improperly.
ABC NEWS (8/1/2010): New York's Charlie Rangel faces charges he hid income and avoided taxes, and now word that California Democrat Maxine Waters may face charges for allegedly trying to help a bank seeking a bailout, a bank her husband had served as a board member.
SHANNON BREAM, FOX NEWS: The bank did wind up getting $12 million in TARP money.
STEWART: $12 million in TARP money? Also known as, only $12 million in TARP...? Seriously, if that's all she could get out of TARP, that's not corruption, that's incompetence. Here to discuss the story, our Senior Black Correspondent, Larry Wilmore. Um, Larry, what do you make of this?
LARRY WILMORE: Yes, two black members of Congress on trial for ethics violations. No worries, Maxine, stand up and do your thing, little girl!
MAXINE WATERS (8/3/2010): There's a lot being said about why so many black elected officials getting caught up with this new O.C.E. organization... I think about now or recently about 8 members of the Congressional Black Caucus are being investigated and I think more to come. So people are raising questions about that.
WILMORE: Mm-hmm. This is straight up L.W.B.: Legislating While Black. It is an outrage! We will not be silenced. ... Jon, what's wrong? You're not flinching.
STEWART: No, no I'm not.
WILMORE: You know, because when I bring the race stuff up, you really get uncomfortable.
STEWART: Yeah, this isn't really a race issue, though, Larry. It's really an entitlement and corruption issue a lot of people have been....
WILMORE: No, no, no, no, no. Trust me, Jon, it's because they're black.
STEWART: Yeah, that's not flying. That's not really flying on this one, Larry.
WILMORE: Really? Wait, hold on a second....
STEWART: What's the problem? What is it?
WILMORE: Ah, it's the race card.
(swipes card, bzzzzt, shiiiiiiiiiiiiii) No, that's odd, let me try again. (swipes card, bzzzzt, shiiiiiiiiiiiiii) Shit! The race card's maxed out!
STEWART: You... you have an actual race card?!
WILMORE: Don't leave home without it, Jon.
STEWART: But Larry... and your actual race card has a limit.
WILMORE: I guess so. I didn't read... "Void During a Black Presidency". Fuck!
STEWART: Oh, right, there's....
WILMORE: Small print is a motherfucker, Jon. You know, I should've seen it coming, though. Look, the Congressional Black Caucus has been overusing the race card for years, like when they demanded that the utterly unqualified Roland Burris be admitted to the Senate just because he's black. Or when they defended Congressman William Jefferson, who got caught with $90,000 in his freezer.
STEWART: Well, that was... actually, maybe he was planning to bake a money pie.
WILMORE: With frozen money? Please, Jon. Ain't no money pie like a fresh money pie.
STEWART: Obama himself, though, has played the race card.
OBAMA (7/22/2009): Professor Gates then shows his ID to show that this is his house. ... The Cambridge police, ah, acted stupidly.
WILMORE: Yeah, and how'd that go? (swipes card, bzzzzt, shiiiiiiiiiiiiii)
See, Jon, what's different about Obama is he learned from his experience. Here he is last week talking about Charlie Rangel.
OBAMA (7/30/2010): He's somebody who's at the end of his career, 80 years old, I'm sure that what he wants is to be able to end his career with dignity.
WILMORE: See? He didn't play the race card. He played the old card.
STEWART: There's an old card?
WILMORE: Sure! There's all kinds of cards you use to avoid accountability. Look, Jon, there was a time when blacks didn't have a card. The only one out there was the master race card. All right? We didn't qualify. So when the race card came out, yeah, we charged the shit out of that. All right? But nowadays we've got the gay card, the Christian card, the disabled card, the ADHD card, I had bad parents card, the fat card, the I'm the only fill-in-the-blank who works here card, the poor card...
STEWART: There's a poor card?!
WILMORE: Oh yeah, Fat Cat McRicho didn't know that, eh? ... See? I just played it on you, Jon.
STEWART: But you're not poor.
WILMORE: Eh, you just have to be poorer than the other guy.
STEWART: But if the race card, which was once so powerful and used by these black politicians is maxed out, where does it then leave black politicians?
WILMORE: Right, Jon. Safely ensconced in gerrymandered districts, which we bought with the race card, see? Look, Jon, even if you threw Charlie Rangel in jail, you know who'd get elected to fill his seat? Another brother. Look at Rangel's turf.
WILMORE: Harlem. Washington Heights.
STEWART: Yeah, but there's... I see a little bit of Queens in there too, right over there on the right.
WILMORE: Yeah, yeah, yeah, and you know what that bit of Queens is called? Rikers Island, Jon. I think we're safe.
But at the same time, the case against Rangel seems very damning, and there's a reason CREW had included Waters in their most corrupt members of Congress list, even back in 2005 and 2006 when corrupt Republicans were running the joint.
Certainly in the clip, Wilmore doesn't have much sympathy for the CBC after their defense of Jefferson. But did the whole group come out in support of Burris? I definitely know Bobby Rush was playing the race card like there was no tomorrow, and probably maxed it out right then and there. But I'm not sure if Wilmore is correct in laying the blame on the entire CBC for that one.
Anyway, since Tim Wise urged us at Netroots Nation to discuss race... what are your thoughts? And speaking of race, two nights ago, Stephen Colbert looked at how only 1.38% of Fox News viewers are black.