Racism? What racism? No racism in Sarah Palin's tea party world.

On tuesday, the NAACP passed a resolution condemning the racism it sees as coming from certain elements of the Tea Party.

Of course, Mrs. tea Party Mama Grizzly Sarah Palin has derided the resolution and denied any hint of racism coming from the movement she's trying to turn into her own campaign committee. "I am saddened by the NAACP's claim that patriotic Americans who stand up for the United States of America's Constitutional rights are somehow 'racists,'" Palin wrote in a Facebook note.

To Palin, Teabaggers aren't racist because they don't shout "Nigger!". Most of them don't, anyway. But don't forget this guy at a Palin rally in PA in 2008. (h/t Cesca)

But it's not about screaming the N-word anymore. Flashback to Lee Atwater's comments about race. About how it's not necessary, or wise,to shout that anymore. Now they use code words. They all know what it means.

You start out in 1954 by saying, "Nigger, nigger, nigger." By 1968 you can't say "nigger"—that hurts you. Backfires. So you say stuff like forced busing, states' rights and all that stuff. You're getting so abstract now [that] you're talking about cutting taxes, and all these things you're talking about are totally economic things and a byproduct of them is [that] blacks get hurt worse than whites.

And subconsciously maybe that is part of it. I'm not saying that. But I'm saying that if it is getting that abstract, and that coded, that we are doing away with the racial problem one way or the other. You follow me—because obviously sitting around saying, "We want to cut this," is much more abstract than even the busing thing, and a hell of a lot more abstract than "Nigger, nigger"

And the Tea Party uses code words. We want to "take our country back". From whom? Who has the country now, and why aren't they American?

So Palin sees no racism. Then how about Erick Erickson, founder of RedState.com, CNN contributor and known race-baiter? today, Erickson suggested a return to the Nixon/Atwater Southern strategy of using code words to appeal to Southern whites, and their like-minded brethern by bringing back the Willie Horton ads.

Media Matters

"King Samir Shabazz Should Be 2010's Willie Horton," CNN contributor and RedState.com editor-in-chief Erick Erickson wrote of the manufactured scandal over the Justice Department's handling of the New Black Panther Party case: "Republican candidates nationwide should seize on this issue. The Democrats are giving a pass to radicals who advocate killing white kids in the name of racial justice and who try to block voters from the polls."

Erickson added: "The Democrats will scream racism. Let them. Republicans are not going to pick up significant black support anyway."

Who is King Samir Shabazz? He's the Black Panther who showed up at a Philadelphia polling place in 2008 and launched cries of voter intimidation. The Department of Justice investigated, found he was engaged in improper intimidation activities and acted. They placed an injunction banning him from any Philadelphia polling place for the 2012 elections.

The conservative Smear Machine has picked up on this, accusing the DOJ of not doing enough and blowing the racial dog whistle.

Here's Fox News' Megyn Kelly working herself into a lather because one of her guests was not vetted well enough and had the temerity to suggest that Kelly was perhaps overeacting.

ThinkProgress
This afternoon, Kelly invited New York Post columnist — and regular Fox contributor — Kirsten Powers to debate the importance of this story. Kelly bemoaned that “no one seems to give a darn” about the allegations promulgated by former Bush DoJ lawyer J. Christian Adams. The conservative activist claims that the Obama Justice Department dropped voter intimidation charges against the New Black Panther Party due to racial considerations. Contrary to the claims, the Obama DoJ has issued an injunction against the member of the NBPP who was seen engaging in voter intimidation tactics, prohibiting him “from displaying a weapon within 100 feet of any Philadelphia polling place through 2012.”

Powers effectively dismantled the faux scandal for what it is, telling Kelly, “You can put me in the same category of people who don’t really give a darn.” “You don’t seem to know what you’re talking about,” Kelly immediately responded, growing more enraged as the two wrestled, jabbed, and bickered over the facts:

POWERS: The minute I challenge you, you tell me I don’t know what I’m talking about?

KELLY: Because you don’t.

POWERS: You just want people to come on and just agree with you –

KELLY: No, I want informed people.

POWERS: — that what you’ve been doing and the way you’ve been completely doing the “scary black man thing.”

Powers told Kelly, “I don’t remember people screaming” about the Bush administration’s miscarriages of justice in the Civil Rights Division. “Don’t make me cut your mic,” Kelly threatened at one point. Watch the showdown:

What racism? What code words? What dog whistles?

Olbermann deconstructs.