Comments on: That “Sambo” Story

By: Jay Tea

Jay Tea — Mon, 08 Sep 2008 16:13:58 +0000

Strowbridge, as main page editor, I take full responsibility for every article posted by every author. Fortunately, only once have I had to exercise my authority and yank a posting by one of my colleagues, and I have little concern of it happening again.

Comments are different. We do have a comments policy, and we do enforce it. It is one of the laxest and most tolerant in the blogosphere, and we are proud of that. We do, when called for, censor (”disemvowel”) or remove comments, and ban commenters, but we try to absolutely minimize that.

But we’re not talking about COMMENTS from the general public, but full-blown articles by registered authors. I see that as a distinction worth making. Any drive-by asshole can leave rude comments (and often does); to become an approved author of a site demands a considerably higher standard.

And that’s precisely what the Obama people have done. They’ve set themselves up a mini-Kos where anything can and does happen, and they don’t care — until it gets too embarrassing, and then they take it down.

To be perfectly blunt, they ought to have someone like Oliver running their site.

By: C.S.Strowbridge

C.S.Strowbridge — Mon, 08 Sep 2008 10:56:15 +0000

“Yeah, ain’t that conveeenient. The site is bought and paid for by the campaign, intended for the campaign’s supporters, but they don’t take any responsibility for it whatsoever.”

It would be like you taking responsibility for every reply on your site. You don’t do that, do you?

By: Frank DiSalle

Frank DiSalle — Mon, 08 Sep 2008 10:01:37 +0000

I wonder if this “non-story”, that “no one wants to talk about” because “it isn’t true”, will ever go away?

You guys crack me up!

By: Jay Tea

Jay Tea — Mon, 08 Sep 2008 08:20:14 +0000

Yeah, ain’t that conveeenient. The site is bought and paid for by the campaign, intended for the campaign’s supporters, but they don’t take any responsibility for it whatsoever.

How nice. The Obama campaign has its own in-house version of Daily Kos.

That disclaimer gives ‘em legal immunity, but doesn’t absolve them of moral responsibility. They’ve deleted numerous other entries there, when they were nothing but rank hate (anti-semitism is a common theme), but they don’t delete ones like this.

I believe the phrase is “selective enforcement.”

I don’t see how they can disclaim all responsibility, yet still pay for it and enforce some standards on occasion. Either they own it, lock stock and barrel, or they don’t.

I’m no lawyer, but it seems the concept behind “attractive nuisance” somes to mind…

By: C.S.Strowbridge

C.S.Strowbridge — Mon, 08 Sep 2008 06:27:49 +0000

“Jay, that’s a public section of the Obama website, their version of myspace. The campaign itself had nothing to do with it.”

In other words…

Jay Tea is doing exactly what he accuses others of doing.

By: daniel rotter

daniel rotter — Mon, 08 Sep 2008 01:18:57 +0000

Parthenon’s right. There’s a sentence at the very bottom of the screen of the link you provided that says that the contents of the blog should not be taken as being endorsed or approved by the campaign itself.

By: Parthenon

Parthenon — Mon, 08 Sep 2008 01:13:50 +0000

Jay, that’s a public section of the Obama website, their version of myspace. The campaign itself had nothing to do with it.

By: Jay Tea

Jay Tea — Sun, 07 Sep 2008 20:56:28 +0000

Kudos, Oliver. I sympathize and identify. I get bombarded with “Obama isn’t a real American — why haven’t we seen his birth certificate?” and “Obama is a secret Muslim” and “Michelle Obama’s on video talking about ‘whitey!’” on an almost daily basis, and I’ve been tempted to say something publicly to tell these morons to stop shoveling their bullshit at me.

Oddly enough, you’re showing more scruples than the Obama campaign itself on this one…

http://my.barackobama.com/page/community/post/american/gG5rHP

By: C.S.Strowbridge

C.S.Strowbridge — Sun, 07 Sep 2008 08:18:43 +0000

Bruce Henry: “In north Florida in the 1960s, brazil nuts were “niggertoes”. We really sucked.”

Beyond the racist angle, that doesn’t sound appetizing.

By: Bruce Henry

Bruce Henry — Sun, 07 Sep 2008 03:00:14 +0000

In north Florida in the 1960s, brazil nuts were “niggertoes”. We really sucked.

By: C.S.Strowbridge

C.S.Strowbridge — Sun, 07 Sep 2008 02:56:11 +0000

“Sambo’s was a great family restaurant back in the 60’s & 70’s.”

There were these gummies that were licorice flavored that were called Nigger Babies. They stopped selling them where I live in the 1970s, so they were before my time. However, apparently there were places in the states where they were sold up to the 1990s.

Check out C.S.A. and you will see a lot of ads in the movie for products that were real.

By: Enlightened Liberal

Enlightened Liberal — Sun, 07 Sep 2008 02:30:32 +0000

I hear she deserved it, she was painted like a trollop and was a c—, according to McSame himself.

By: Zython

Zython — Sun, 07 Sep 2008 01:33:40 +0000

Have you heard that story about McCain beating his wife?

Which one(s)?

By: Nimrod Gently

Nimrod Gently — Sun, 07 Sep 2008 00:25:57 +0000

To be fair, it wasn’t named for the racial slur, it was a portmanteau of Sam Battistone and Newell Bohnett, the founders.

Not that they didn’t immediately notice the coincidence and decorate the walls with pictures from the book, of course.

Incidentally, Sambo’s is still going, but it’s a just the one restaurant now, in Santa Barbara.

By: Quaker in a Basement

Quaker in a Basement — Sun, 07 Sep 2008 00:23:33 +0000

There is one thing we can celebrate today.

No one at all has even pretended that calling someone “Sambo” isn’t racist. That might be a first, given that we can usually count on three or four of our regulars to try to rationalize Republican racial slurs.

By: Bruce Henry

Bruce Henry — Sun, 07 Sep 2008 00:21:46 +0000

Sambo’s was a great greasy-spoon in the 70s, where drunks went to try and sober up enough to drive home. Open 24 hours. The clientele was nearly all-white. What better way to keep blacks out than CALLING THE PLACE Sambo’s???

By: daniel rotter

daniel rotter — Sun, 07 Sep 2008 00:20:23 +0000

I agree with Nimrod Gently. What Frank said “would have done the trick” is basically what Oliver wrote here. Frank basically implied in an earlier post that Oliver mentioned a SPECIFIC unproven allegation against Palin (”Have you heard that story about McCain beating his wife?”). He did not and rightly so.

By: william

william — Sun, 07 Sep 2008 00:15:22 +0000

Sambo’s was a great family restaurant back in the 60’s & 70’s.

By: Just John

Just John — Sun, 07 Sep 2008 00:02:03 +0000

In Alaska?

Did you know that Alaska was one of nine states to be a “covered jurisdiction” under the Voting Rights Act: Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Geotgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina, Texas, Virgina.

By: plooger

plooger — Sat, 06 Sep 2008 23:58:36 +0000

Well said, Oliver. Straight up.

And aside from her lies, exaggerations, omissions and controversies, I just came across a revealing Charlie Rose segment with Sarah Palin and Janet Napolitano, from just last Fall. Palin shows startlingly little desire or ability to discuss issues other than “energy” (read: oil drilling).

More here: http://my.barackobama.com/page/community/post/plooger/gG5WS4