Presidential candidate Thompson finds a way to get attention

Tommy Thompson -- you've heard of him, right? -- got up before a Jewish audience and said that making money is "sort of part of the Jewish tradition." The remark prompted murmurs and disbelief in this room -- and a little bit of press coverage for the dark-horse candidate. (Milwaukee Journal Sentinel | AP/no-registration)

Comments

[The Asshole Guy]

And this is a story because of Jews are known to be...

A. Tight with money.

B. Good with money.

c. Good at making money.

i have a litle dradle
i made it out of clay
and when its dry and ready
with dradle i shall play
dradle dradle dradle i made you out of clay
dradle dradle dradle with dradle i shall play

[Soo]

Yay! Tommy Thompson, Attention Whore for President!

Woohoo! Go, Tommy Boy, Go!

Hey, I want people to pay attention to me, too. Perhaps if I stand up and spout some of the racist rhetoric I've heard over the years about Indians (natives and Hindu), I'll get to be his running mate.

/AW = dumbass
//wouldn't get near the guy except to whack him with my big stick

[vksjk]

Tommy's always been a bit of a boob, who's quite adept at uttering malapropisms at just the right time.

[V]

~sigh~

When your particular group spent about 1500 years-and more-deciding that they, as a whole, were going to do their best to not only isolate themselves from the larger community around them, but in doing so have contact only for financial and trade reasons, you are going to be discriminated against by that community. Massive restrictions and legal repressions were created, yes. And that's not the case anymore.

I commend the people in the auditorium for not crying Amti-Semitism, it shows class. Just because this guy is a butthead who's never spoken to a Jewish audience-and a lot of Christians know very little about Judaism and have guilt over that-doesn't actually make him an Anti-Semite.

[oxhead]

V, make that 2,500 years.

[V]

Yah, well, I was thinking specifically of Europe...but you're right. Irony is, when the Jewish community finally decided to secularize a bit and mix more with the outside community in the 19th c, it was during just the period of nation building and nationalism in Europe that fostered and reinforced Anti-Semitism and eventually led to the sh@t that happened in WWII. Sheesh- f'd if you do, f'd if you don't.

[Sheila]

He said something stupid, but it was not a malapropism. He might use words which are malapropisms sometimes, but this statement is not one. One malapropism I have heard many times recently is "reticent," when "reluctant" is the correct word, e. g., "He was reticent to discuss his frequent use of malapropisms." The wrong words bears some similarity to the correct words, and the speaker (or writer) is not aware of the correct meanings of either. I would categorize Thompson's remark as a foot-in-mouth, tactless, pointless, clueless gaffe.

[Phranqlin]

When a larger group decides that your particular group was guilty of killing the son of its deity and spends 1500 years persecuting members of your group, of course you're going to isolate yourselves from the larger community. When a larger group limits your particular group's employment opportunities, of course its members are going to concentrate in the livelihoods (trade and finance) that you're permitted to practice. When a larger group repeatedly massacres members of your particular group, culminating in the efficiently organized, state-sponsored murders of millions of its members (not to mention millions of other innocent people) it takes a while to recover from the trauma.

Thompson is indeed a butt-head; moreover, he is spewing the kind of toxic rhetoric that got the parents and grandparents of the current generation of Jews murdered. To me, it is perfectly understandable if they are a bit upset about it. It's flabbergasting that he would spout off something like this.

Give 'em enough rope and they will hang themselves.

[d_m_arnold]

as another blog pointed out, thompson is among the few members of the current administration that Bush actually fired. how big a loser is that?

[Herschel Goldfarb]

Oy vey! This mensch, he makes me all shpilkus in my gonnectagazoink. Maybe we should be making fun of his people.

Hey Tommy, your people have a proud tradition of making cheese, and eating tuna hotdish in church basements, and freezing your nuts off ice fishing. How's your precious Packers doing, eh? Want some brats and brewskis to go with dat dere cheese? How's dem arteries doing?

[d_m_arnold]

herschel: thompson is hardly a mensch. a schmuck perhaps.

[vksjk]

Sheila,

Thanks for the clarification, I used malapropism incorrectly. I actually did know the real meaning of the word but it was rolling around lost in the back of my brain at the time I wrote that.
Thanks.

[V]

Indeed, Phranqlin, I never said there was no reason for the isolationist policies-but they were in place well before 32 CE-and often times the authorities encouraged Jewish settlement to begin with, and then the common people and merchants, who were jealous of the 'priviledges' the Jews were given (~snerk~ only as compared to serfs, who were basically slaves) would start problems...and, of course, the church, who used the Jews as an ideal 'hated other' for hundreds of years.

~sigh~I'm in a class on the History of Jews in Eastern Europe right now.

[Andrewdoane]

I wonder what the reaction would have been if he said that playing basketball is "sort of part of the Black tradition."

[Begin sarcastic tone] Well, I for one agree with V. I think that when a group tries to maintain some sense of cultural identity, that makes them totally open to stereotypes and oppression. It's all their fault. And rape victims should stop dressing in such sexy clothes if they don't want to get raped.

[V]

Um, there are lots of groups who have faced just that. There are a crapload of Irish people in the states, and now you get Celtic festivals all over, but there used to actually be a practice by which the local (Anglo-Saxon) lord could demand the first night with any local bride as a way to ensure that the local Celts would be bred out of existence. Just because it sucks doesn't mean it's isolated. Not to mention the NINA issues of the nineteenth century.

The point I was trying to make is that yes, it sucks, but it's continuing ignorance that causes people like Thompson to act the way they do, and I...if you READ what I wrote...was commending the people in his audience for NOT blowing this out of proportion.

Which everybody is going to keep on doing whether I write this or not.

[V]

People LIKE to find someone to hate, and if it's a whole group of people, more the better-then they can generalize about that group. Not justifying, just commenting on human nature.

And your example of basketball, where African-Americans had to fight to be accepted at the beginning, is really not even close. As someone pointed out, when your ethnic/religious group is heavily discriminated against and forced to work only in certain professions that others scorn as being beneath them...and when this occurs for hundreds of years...it's going to have a serious effect on the culture of your group of people.

[SwarthyTroll]

I do not trust the jews. They run too much stuff IMO.

To pursue the side path...

The right to the maidenhood of peasants' brides was known as "droit de seigneur" and existed (if it did actually exists, there is controversy) all over Europe, not just in Anglo-Saxon areas. It was more about power (and endless variety of young girls for the lord!) than any desire to breed Celts out of existence.

(Besides -- speaking as a person of at least partial Irish heritage...given the traditional large Irish families, I don't think one bridal night roll in the hay was likely counterbalance decades-worth of childbearing -- at best, and that's with amazing odds, you'd get one partial-mix out of a family of perhaps a dozen.)

As to this idiot, well some people are too stupid to be helped. I'm sure he's more clueless than malicious and he's probably looking around going "Whad-I-say?"

[Acedia]

oops, that was me.

[V]

Anon, I was just doing some background, and was about to add that tidbit about how widespread the practice was. It was still a method of control over the populace, and since first sons usually inherited, it DID have the intended conclusion of watering down unwanted populations.

And Thompson is an idiot. I think the article showed that quite clearly.

[Farmer Bob]

Ahem, it was the Normans who were doing it to the Anglo-Saxons after they beat them at Hastings. The native Anglo-Saxons did not have "droit de seigneur".

The things about the Jews is a bit of a cliche. They got into the money business because Christians at that time couldn't engage in usury, so the Jews stepped in. That's where all those names like Goldschmidt, Silverman, etc. came from.

But that is a cliche, just like saying all Scots are thrifty, or Irish are lucky, or Scandinavians are blonde Vikings, or Koreans own laundry stores, etc.

[Andrewdoane]

Sorry V, you're right, your comments as a whole were not offensive. I picked on you unfairly.

[Andrewdoane]

I note that this isn't mentioned on Thompson's wikipedia page. Surely it should be, right? I bet this would be getting serious attention if not for the nut at VT.

[V]

Very possible Andrew, but the guy at VT is taking over all the headlines.

I was discussing this with some colleagues. Why is it that this kind of crap never seems to happen in Europe or other countries? Our theory is that it
A) happens but doesn't get the same sort of press or
B) doesn't happen because the news there doesn't give this crap the same kind of press
C) people here do this knowing they'll get lots of press and be immortalized

Thoughts?

[V]

No worries, Andrew, I've gotten worse for less :D

[Mark O'Neill]

Witness the end of one person's presidential aspirations.

[Lambiepie]

"He came to woo," Rosner wrote on his blog, "but left behind a crowd of sophisticated adults giggling like teenagers at his expense."

He is presidential only in the current-president sense of the term.

[stopeatingmysesamecake]

"Yay! Tommy Thompson, Attention Whore for President!"

He didn't say that for attention, he said it because he is a dumbass. The headline is JR's. Being a dumbass doesn't necessarily make you racist, but racists by definition are dumbassess.

[Soo]

How many people outside his tri-state area had ever heard of Tommy Thompson before this event? How many people have heard of him now?

To me, that's attention-whoring. If I'm too narrow on my definition, then perhaps I'm a dumbass, too.

Either way, the guy's a clown, and would not get my vote, provided he made it that far.

[V]

So SEMSC, all racists are dumasses, but not all dumbasses are racists-yeah, sounds about right :D

[stopeatingmysesamecake]

No Soo, you are not a dumbass.

I'm sure he'd love to get coverage. But I was only pointing out that although politicians love attention, he did not say *that remark* to get attention - it was just stupid. If I were running for something, I wouldn't want to see an article about a questionable remark I made - there is attention even these guys don't want.

He will not get too far.

"The Jews have all the money and the whites have all the power
And I always in taxicab with driver who no shower" - Christmas Eve

Thompson was governor of Wisconsin when Reggie White made his famous speech to the stage legislature:

"When you look at the black race, black people are very gifted in what we call worship and celebration. A lot of us like to dance, and if you go to black churches, you see people jumping up and down, because they really get into it.

"White people were blessed with the gift of structure and organization. You guys do a good job of building businesses and things of that nature and you know how to tap into money pretty much better than a lot of people do around the world.

"Hispanics are gifted in family structure. You can see a Hispanic person and they can put 20 or 30 people in one home. They were gifted in the family structure.

"When you look at the Asians, the Asian is very gifted in creation, creativity and inventions. If you go to Japan or any Asian country, they can turn a television into a watch. They're very creative. And you look at the Indians, they have been very gifted in the spirituality. "

I guess he didn't learn: sweeping generalizations about a race or religion will always offend.

[lowercase becky]

even his apology was bigoted!

i've had computer malfunctions all day, so i apologize for the lateness of this post.

[Lurker]

Umm...don't see a problem with what he said....isn't it the "truth"....is there ANYONE left with skin thicker than .0000001"?

[d_m_arnold]

granted there's often a germ of truth in any stereotype.

what's amazing about Tommy's performance is it demonstrateds the guy doesn't have the sense of a goose if he'd:
1) make such a remark
2) not realize it was a mistake
3) when someone told him it was a mistake he screwed up his apology.

and this guy wants to be president? (i suppose he's no dumber than the current one.)