The 'Barack Obama' Discussion Thread [merged]

Former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum has already faced a hail of criticism for his bizarre statements about President Obama, race and abortion. But now he’s incurred the wrath of the one dude you don’t want barking up your tree: activist Rev. Al Sharpton.

A quick rewind before we get to the verbal main event: potential 2012 Republican presidential candidate Santorum recently said in an interview with CNS News that, because of his race, Obama’s stance on abortion rights is “almost remarkable for a black man.”

Santorum argued that because he is black, Obama should be able to say definitively that the life of unborn children is protected under the Constitution.

“The question is -- and this is what Barack Obama didn't want to answer -- is that human life a person under the Constitution? And Barack Obama says ‘no,’” Santorum said in the interview. “Well if that person -- human life is not a person -- then I find it almost remarkable for a black man to say, ‘we're going to decide who are people and who are not people.’”

As you might imagine, the comment didn’t sit well with Sharpton, who lashed back at Santorum during a tense appearance with the former senator on Fox News’ “Hannity” show on Monday night.

“My comment was that [Obama] should be sensitive, more so than probably most people, as a civil rights and constitutional lawyer… to how we define people in the Constitution,” Santorum reiterated, not backing down from his original comment.

“You did not say that President Obama as a constitutional lawyer or a civil rights lawyer should be sensitive. You said as a black, which brought race in,” Sharpton hit back.

Santorum appeared to be suggesting that Obama should be vehemently anti-abortion because before emancipation African-Americans were denied personhood, in much the same way Santorum argues that fetuses are denied their humanity.

Politico noted that not only has Santorum not backed down from his comments, he’s actually doubled-down and used the controversy in a fund-raising appeal and written an op-ed that ran in the conservative National Review on Monday that declared life a “civil right.”

While Hannity had Santorum’s back, Sharpton ripped into the senator for inappropriately using the slavery argument, saying that blacks were considered less than full people regardless of what state of biological development they’d reached.

“Blacks were not considered three-fifths of a human being because there was a debate about their humanity,” Sharpton said. “Because if they were 80 years old or a fetus, they were considered less than human. … They didn’t say blacks that hadn’t started a heartbeat yet or blacks that didn’t have lungs yet, any black at any age at any state.”

But, Santorum replied, the high abortion rate in the black community does make it a civil rights issue.

“You look at the child in the womb, and you say there’s a debate of whether that’s a human life,” Santorum said. “Rev. Sharpton, there is no debate. That entity at the moment of conception is alive and it is genetically human … The person who’s most robbed of their civil right is that child in the womb.”

Whose side are you on?

alan smithee wrote:I think Santorum is a jackass and Sharpton is on solid ground with this issue but he's still a hypocrite. Two words. Tawana Brawley.

alan smithee wrote:I think Santorum is a jackass and Sharpton is on solid ground with this issue but he's still a hypocrite. Two words. Tawana Brawley.

tmontyb wrote:

alan smithee wrote:I think Santorum is a jackass and Sharpton is on solid ground with this issue but he's still a hypocrite. Two words. Tawana Brawley.

Tawana Brawley was almost 25 years ago. That's old news and Sharpton has made up and moved on from that. As for Santorum, well.....what can you say?

Impact wrote:Santorum makes idiotic statements to put himself out there on the fringes. He apparently wants to be in the limelight in the light of the fact that he has presidential aspirations. He wants to be recognized and that's the way he feels he can. He's a nobody and stands no chance of winning the republican nomination. Sharpton, on the other hand, will pounce on anyone who makes a potential controversial statement and will play the race card at every opportunity. Both the right and left fringes should stop this nonsense. Fat chance of that!!.

Nystyle709 wrote:Good. What does a 9 and 12 yr old need with Facebook? Hell, most adults don't even need them.....with the way these idiots are losing their jobs and relationships over some bullshit on Facebook.