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On March 27th 2012 in Janesville, Wisconsin, Rick Santorum gave a speech and said:
We know, we know the candidate Barack Obama, what he was like. The anti-war government nig- uh, the uh America was a source for division around the world.
A few months ago, Santorum kinda sorta barely managed to explain away his quote:
I don’t want to make black people’s lives better by giving them somebody else’s money. I want to give them the opportunity to go out and earn the money and provide for themselves and their families
telling CNN’s John King:
I’ve looked at that quote, in fact I looked at the video. In fact, I’m pretty confident I didn’t say black. What I think — I started to say a word and then sort of changed and it sort of — blah — mumbled it and sort of changed my thought.
In the video from March 27, Santorum says:
anti-war government nig-
then resets completely into another thought all together:
the uh America was a source for division around the world.
Santorum is a source of division around the country, and could himself become a source for division around the world. So please, register and vote in your state’s primary and the general election!
[h/t Dependable Renegade]
51 Comments
Sounds a lot like Governor LePetomane’s “You mean to tell me we hired a ni-!” in Blazing Saddles.
Funny how it’s so hard for Cons to say “black” or “African American” without stumbling, yet they are apparently so comfy with a certain racial slur that they have to catch themselves lest it pop out of their mouths when they’re speaking to the general public.
There is a practical limit as to how long someone can maintain a completely fraudulent posture and appearance. He’s just another redneck dirtbag. His appearance of integrity has just been nullified.
This stupid asshole is a clone of George Macaca Allan.
It’s so disheartening to realize people like this are ELEVATED into positions of power. If they truly represent us, we are a nation of imbeciles.
Sorry but I got a chuckle out of hearing his nigga stumble :)
Why do I get the feeling that will help him in the next primary.
At first, I didn’t think so, but my gosh, he actually does half-say it, then catches himself.
Brrr — Democrats are, for the most part, useless, but Republicans are downright creepy.
To be fair, Obama would probably rather be called that than be called “Santorum”.
Wouldn’t you?
every country has people like this in positions of power. and people who support them.
BINGO except for you and me.
This is not on Google news.
It doesn’t even come up when you search Google news for “Santourm” or “Santorum nig”.
I used to think that Santorum was angling for a position in a Romney Administration.
He’s clearly gone way too far for that, right off into irrelevance as a voice for the things he supports.
Now I’m not sure what he thinks he’s doing staying in this race.
Good solid Christian. A true family values guy. A real salt of the cracker, er, I mean earth
We are. W proved that.
I’m trying to be skeptical of this, but I can’t figure out what other other word he was possibly trying to say.
I could give a shit what Santorum has to say about the fraud in the WH. No doubt it will have great appeal to the blue collar working class in Wisc. who will likely vote to retain their anti-labor governor.
Obama’s biggest fear is being called a “progressive.”
In a just universe, Santorum’s approvals would instantly drop like a rock because of this. Of course, we don’t live in a just universe.
Santorum isn’t a source of division at all. He unites the bigots well.
“A Freudian Slip,. . . a parapraxis, is an error in speech, memory, or physical action that is interpreted as occurring due to the interference of some unconscious (“dynamically repressed”), subdued wish, conflict, or train of thought.. .”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freudian_slip
Well, of course, we’re aware of that. But would it apply to Santorum in action? Or is it something else?
I’ll help this irrelevant moron off this hook:
He was about to say negotiator-in-chief.
Of course, stopping mid-word the way he did just looks too suspicious and makes him look like a stoopid racist coward.
As Charles Pierce would say, “have I recently told you what a colossal dick he is?”
I’m not usually in the position of defending Rick Santorum, but I don’t think that’s the word he was trying to say. I’m not sure what he was trying to say (and clearly he wasn’t either), but the context is all about attacking Obama as a DFH, not as one of Those People. “Government n*****” doesn’t strike me as a particularly likely phrase to coin.
I suppose you could argue that the word welled up in some Freudian way from the deep frothy depths of his unconscious, but I don’t think the audio gives us quite enough to conclude that.
My wife stumbled on this story this morning, on facebook. The link that someone had posted was dead, the video on YouTube marked as removed, and google searches revealed nothing.
THE SHERIFF’S A NIGG..
I’ve been around for a while and I don’t recall EVER having such a moron being taken seriously as a presidential candidate, for this long, by this many people.
Oh, I know the “not-Romney” crowd is substantial and desperate. But, this guy??? It’s almost unbelievable.
Aren’t ya’ nice.
I found references here on Google when searched just now. They are just hitting the ether now.
You have a valid point. Santorum has united all the not-Romney, right wingnuts, creationist, anti-abortion, religious zealots who otherwise would feel disenfranchised.
I don’t think people are being completely honest when they say the audio is inconclusive.
The audio could NOT be more clear with n-i-gg. I am stating that it is as close to irrefutable as can be that he starts a word with an “N”, followed by a short “I” and a hard “G” before he “uh”s and goes off with another thought. I think we can all at least acknowledge the facts in evidence: there’s a hard ‘g’ in whatever word Santorum is starting to say.
I’m surprised he wasn’t wearing blackface and huge white painted lips. But yeah, I agree. He probably got a few more votyes after that one.
I think in the context, Santorum may have meant to say “naysayer”…but Dr. Freud made him say what he really meant.
Santorum’s from western Pennsylvania originally, where I also happened to grow up. The “N-word” is a pretty common racist epithet in that region…
And this will cost Santorum … zero votes.
He can unite the hard right, but can’t pull moderate Republicans away from Obama in the general.
Romney can compete (perhaps not well) for moderate Republican votes, and the base can suck it up and vote for him anyway, after all, where else are they going to go?
Sound familiar?
Well if you were wondering just how this could be spun by the conservatives, here it is.
http://www.mediaite.com/online/liberals-cut-it-with-the-n-word-thing-there-are-plenty-of-real-reasons-to-hate-santorum/
This site was started and is run by dan abrams, the flack who used to be a suit at MSNBC and is now the ‘legal correspondent’ at ABC.
He has the dreamy blue eyes that stephanie miller used to rhapsodize about.
I don’t know if she knew his dad won ‘Citizen’s United’ for david bosse or runs a site that is a cut above the daily caller…but here it is.
Are you saying we should just call a spade a spade, and be done with it? BONG!
I’m skeptical too, but since this guy speaks in gibberish to my ears anyway, it could be anything.
Sadly it will help him with the Repub base. What a ridiculous excuse for a man he is. Not sure is his ‘savior’ would approve, but….
The audio’s pretty clear on the syllable he actually uttered, but it doesn’t tell us with any certainty what word(s) was trying to say. When people stumble over their words they’re often reversing consonants or collapsing several words into one. If I had to guess what he was aiming at I’d probably go with “anti-war, big-government-loving.” But it could have been any number of things.
That is what’s soooo amazing. It COULD have been any number of things.
I wonder if he meant to say “peacenik” and just messed up? But how many times does one give him the benefit of the doubt?
I agree that while this could be what it’s alluded to be, it’s really a smoking gun only for Santorum’s lack of eloquence.
Perhaps he was just lapsing into channeling Monty Python, to wit…
We are the
knightscandidates who say, “Ni!”Ah me, takes me back to those halcyon days when what Chicagoans wanted was a wet mayor …
Well, whatever. Santorum’s said plenty of vile stuff, so there’s a limit to how much time I’m willing to spend defending him here.
Building on the link above, a fine example of the Chicago pivot.
Wonder if this thread had anything to do with Moser’s leaving the relatively independent Reader for the cushier confines of Chicago Mag. In the same spot, I know I’d be reminded that I have bills to pay.
Indeed.
It strikes me that he fell into autopilot while speaking and suddenly remembered that what he says to his wife at the dinner table isn’t something he should say in public.
What a goon and I mean that from my heart. I want all Blah people to stand with me and Rick to deny that he….ummm “Holy Shit did he just say Government Nig !!!!!”. Damn Ricky that tears it!
I listened to this a couple of times and I can tell you that whatever word he is trying to say is a hard first syllable ‘n-short i sound’. It’s not something like ‘negotiator’ because that is a soft first syllable with a short ‘eh’. So whatever word he’s trying to get away with saying (dog whistle perhaps)starts out like the ‘n word’.
That’s exactly it. This wouldn’t have happened if it wasn’t a word that he used a lot in private, particularly in reference to Obama.
The story is spreading, but so far there’s been “no comment” as the response form Frothy Santorum’s campaign.
It was a kinduva hostile “no comment,” if you ask me:
You’d think Frothy’s handlers would be eager to explain what word sounds like a certain racial slur but isn’t, if for no other reason than to bury the story. But they want to blame everyone else for what comes out of their candidate’s mouth.
Who cares? This is just more of the same, anybody-who-doesn’t-like-Obama- is-a-racist crap. Like the vast majority of African-Americans don’t already know that most Republicans and “working class white Democrats” hate them?
Meaningless drivel. More of the same old social issues used by the ruling corporatist class to divide the working and middle classes against themselves. Santorum’s just a fall guy. And most of you on this thread even see that.
Pathetic. Go ‘head and cheer for that D-Team now! I’m gonna puke. Better get away from the keyboard before I damage it.
I meant DON’T even see that. The editing function on FDL is still sadly lacking.
Yes, we are being accused of thought crimes by a spokeshole for simply pointing out the gross misspeaking.