CLYBURN'S BLUNT COMMENTS ABOUT THE REPUBLICANS

                      CONGRESSMAN JAMES CLYBURN (D- SC)

           [SCROLL DOWN FOR AUDIO OF PART OF REP. CLYBURN'S INTERVIEW]

 EXCLUSIVE

CLYBURN SAYS GOP TOOK “BLOOD OATH” TO STOP OBAMA

By Cash Michaels

Editor, The Carolinian Newspaper

            The third most powerful African-American in Congress says that in their zeal to stop President Barack Obama’s agenda, congressional Republicans were “disloyal” to the nation.

            South Carolina Congressman James Clyburn (D - SC) also charged that Pres. Obama has met with so much opposition, degradation of his character and humanity by the right-wing, because they refuse to believe that an African-American is “not capable” of being president of the United States.

            In an exclusive interview Thursday with the Power 750 WAUG-AM radio program “Make It Happen,” Rep. Clyburn - reacting to the GOP continuing to push the false birther and welfare claims against the nation’s first black president during their Republican National Convention week - charged that the Republicans never had any intention of working with, or even compromising with Pres. Obama for the good of the nation from the moment he took office in 2009.

            “They met on the night that he was sworn-in, and took a blood oath to each other that they would be obstacles to [Obama’s] administration,” Clyburn maintained. “And they set out to do so in a way that demonstrates the ultimate in disloyalty to the country.”

“Every attempt by President Obama has made to “light a candle” to help show the way for progress, for opportunity, for bringing us out of the darkness of the great recession that we just experienced, he had seen those candles, those flames blown out time and time again by these Republicans,” Clyburn charged. “And then they have stood on the sidelines cursing the darkness.”

Rep. Clyburn said the Republican “trickle-down economics,” as first pushed by President Ronald Reagan in the 1980s, didn’t work. The massive Bush tax cuts of the last decade have ballooned the national deficit because they weren’t paid for.

And the economic crash and loss of over 2 million jobs during the final months of President George W. Bush’s administration, crippled America.

            “We were teetering on the brink of [economic] disaster,” when Pres. Obama first came in, Clyburn insists. “That is what greeted this president.”

            The South Carolina Democrat credits Obama’s quick work to shore up the economy, pumping in tens of billions in stimulus, and saving the auto industry from bankruptcy. But Clyburn also recalls how Republicans in Congress refused to work with the president to shore up job growth, even before the Tea Party took over Congress in 2010.

            “ The loyal opposition has been anything but loyal,” Rep. Clyburn said. “We expect for them to be in opposition to [Obama’s] policies, but we would hope that they would be loyal to the country. They have made it very clear, that the only reason for their existence... their number one reason…is to make sure that Barack Obama is a one-term president.”

            “What kind of loyalty to the country is…the number one priority for every elected official, especially those sitting up here in Washington, should be to protect the American people; to secure the futures for the American people; to maintain safety in our communities, and to keep moving our country forward. When you tell me all of that should take a backseat to unseating a president, then I think it tells the public all they need to know about your priorities.

            “Why?” the number three man in House Democratic leadership asked rhetorically.

            Race, according to Clyburn, is certainly a big part of it.
[CLICK TO LISTEN TO CONGRESSMAN CLYBURN]

            “There has been a theory put forth in this country, from its inception, that there are certain gene pools that are not as good as other gene pools, and by that I mean that some people are just inherently unequal,” Clyburn said. “[The theory says] there are some people who are just inherently inferior and not capable of doing certain things.”

            “When people see that this longstanding philosophy that [has been] perpetuated forever is getting a very, serious, in-your-face denigration of its own veracity or validity,

then they try to fight it off.”

             “No African-American is supposed to have the capacity, least more the capability, of being president of the United States,” Rep. Clyburn continued. “There are people who actually feel that way.”

            Clyburn made clear that he “strongly disbelieved” that that was the view of the majority of white Americans. “But there is a big minority of white voters who are absolutely upset that an African-American is president of the United States,” he said.

            Propagating the falsehood that Pres. Obama is a Muslim, know that doing so in a Judeo-Christian culture enflames hatred, in addition to questioning his citizenship and patriotism, are also tools used to “other” the president in the eyes of white voters, Rep. Clyburn says.

            Pundits like MSNBC’s Chris Matthews have echoed that charge directly to the face of RNC Chairman Reince Priebus, who has vigorously denied that Republicans, and specifically the presidential campaign of former Governor Mitt Romney, are “playing the race card.”

            And yet during the RNC Convention, which once again noticeably lacked a large number of black delegates, a black CNN camerawoman was reported taunted by two white RNC attendees who threw peanuts at her saying, “This is how we feed the animals.”

            The Republican racial image also wasn’t helped when GOP House Speaker John Boehner told reporters at the RNC Convention that while, according to polls, African-Americans probably won’t vote for Mitt Romney (an NBC-Wall Street Journal poll reported that zero percent of black supported Romney), “…I’d suggest to you they won’t show up and vote for the president either.”

            Rep. Clyburn says that’s the intent of the GOP ploy in several states to make casting a ballot in November harder for voters of color because of new voter photo identification laws.

            “We can dress it up anyway we want to; we can talk about it anyway we want to, but you know the good Lord has allowed me to live long enough - I’m 72 years old - to…call it as I see it,” Rep. Clyburn said of why the Republicans have vigorously opposed the president.

“That’s what the fact is.”

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