Tennessee GOP Attacks Michelle Obama, Obama Camp Hits Back

The Tennessee GOP hasn't yet had their fill of Obama dirty tricks. A few months ago, they circulated a photo of Barack Obama in traditional Somali garb. Now, they are going after his wife.

Today they have circulated a video of Michelle's now-infamous 'proud' comments, which have been combined with shots of Tennessee voters describing why they are proud of their country:

[WATCH]

The video came bundled with a sarcastic press release, which you can read after the jump.

The Obama camp fired back defending Michelle Obama:

This is a shameful attempt to attack a woman who has repeatedly said she wouldn't be here without the opportunities and blessings of this nation. The Republican Party's pathetic attempts to use the same smear tactics to win elections have failed in Mississippi, failed in Louisiana, and will fail in November because the American people are looking for a positive vision of real change. And if the Tennessee Republican Party has a problem with Senator Obama, maybe next time they'll have the courage to address him directly instead of attacking his family.

Tennessee Press Release:

NASHVILLE, TN - The Tennessee Republican Party welcomes Michelle Obama, wife of Barack Obama, to Nashville today, where she's the guest of honor at a Tennessee Democratic Party fundraiser.

To welcome Mrs. Obama to Nashville and Tennessee, we asked a few Tennesseans to take a few moments to tell her what makes them proud of their country. Viewers will find their statements stand in stark contrast to two incidents in February when Mrs. Obama announced that for "the first time in my adult life" she was proud of America.

And while Mrs. Obama has trouble being proud of the country where she earned degrees from Princeton University and Harvard Law School and then became a multi-millionaire, her husband makes statements that belittle average Americans' response to the difficulties of life, including his recent statement that, in tough times, "it's not surprising then they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations."

The Tennessee Republican Party has always been proud of America. To further honor the occasion of Mrs. Obama's visit, the Tennessee Republican Party has requested the playing of patriotic music by radio stations across the state.

Comments

[kathyhussien]

I could continue listing the litany of your crimes, both against the United States and against foreign nations. I won't. We know what you are and what you have done. Having roughly 1,000,000 dead Iraqis under your belt should have shamed you into the parasitic hole you came out of, attaching yourself to the blood of this nation and sucking it dry. Instead, you parade around, the globe-trotting horror show and anti-Semite that you are.

Yes, you are an anti-Semite
Would you say no, you are not an anti-Semite? Consider your own words when you thought no one was keeping score:

"You know what I'm gonna tell those Jews when I get to Israel, don't you Herman?" a then Governor George W. Bush allegedly asked a reporter for the Austin American-Statesman.

When the journalist, Ken Herman, replied that he did not know, Bush reportedly delivered the punch line: "I'm telling 'em they're all going to hell."
Only an anti-Semite would think this type of humor is acceptable. Did you tell the Jews of Israel they were going to hell? No, instead, you told them that American Democrats are Nazi sympathizers and in an act of sheer indecency, the right wing Likud party orchestrated the greatest applause you ever got. For shame!

[kathyhussien]

In 2005, I had a CENTCOM document leaked to me illustrating that since the start of the Afghanistan and Iraq wars, more than 70,000 men, women, and children have been detained at one of your various camps Mr. Bush. We don't know what happened to them, if they were tortured, raped, or murdered. What we do know is that less than 2% of those 70,000 had any sort of charge brought against them in a court of law. None of those alleged crimes, by the way, were acts of terrorism. We don't know if that 70,000 figure was the actual and full count of detainees in US custody around the world in 2005. But it is safe to say that in the last 3 years since this document was published, the number of detainees has likely grown.
What we also now know, in great horror, is that at least one of your camps had a crematorium in it, which some of the US soldiers stationed there suspected was used for burning bodies:

[torrrep]

Wow. People disagree with her statements and all of a sudden they are "attacking her". Give me a break. Explain to me how someone stating why they are proud of their country is "attacking" Michelle Obama. I guess once again only liberals have free speech. Michelle, here's a tip for you. If you don't want to be "attacked" by people with different views then KEEP YOUR MOUTH SHUT.

[JackLivigni]

Wow, you don't seem so Christian now Mr. Torrep. Maybe you should go back to New Orleans and help some more. Maybe you will shed that nasty Satanic anger and resentment...

Tell us Mr. Torrep... what has Michelle Obama DONE, not felt, DONE to justify the GOP's attacks? You can say she doesn't have pride in America. What has she DONE FOR HER COMMUNITY, for this Country, for the poor, for the sick? Do you know? Do you care?

No, because Michelle Obama to you is just a black woman who offends you. What she has done in her life is of little interest to you. In fact, not once have you probably even looked up online what Michelle Obama's life has been about. YOu just shoot off your nasty republican talking head online. Michelle Obama, besides being a mother, a wife, and an active member of her community, and now of the national community, is a plain ole human being... or maybe you haven't noticed. Prayer helps.

[contrariandy]

Wow. If you disagree with her, it means that you're proud of American politics - which would make you a person who doesn't respect our Democracy - just like the Democracy haters on your radio.

[kathyhussien]

Yet if words alone were your only weapon and words strung together into lies your only crime, you might be seen as simply the loathsome, unethical dilettante and despot that you are. Unfortunately, your crimes are many and so similar to those of the Nazi regime that at times one wonders if you are not yourself reenacting that very history you used today as an insult against a political opponent.
Your very own concentration camps
You ordered the creation of secret camps all over the world and on US territory where you also authorized the torture of countless men, women and children is a violation of the Geneva Conventions, international law, and domestic law. In other words, you authorized war crimes.
We don't know the number of people you have had disappeared, tortured, and possibly murdered. Although we have some idea of what these numbers may be, I doubt the full truth of it all will ever be known.

[kathyhussien]

"...Prima facie case can be made that the United States is guilty of the supreme crime against humanity, that being an illegal war of aggression against a sovereign nation."
Moreover, your reckless verbiage and partisan pandering using something as tragic and criminal as Germany's war of aggression against Poland is an insult to all victims of those atrocities.
My grandfather's sister and parents were having supper in their Warsaw home when a German bomb erased them from this planet. Your evoking the German atrocities against Poland in order to play dirty politics against Democrats is as offensive to me as if you had pinned a swastika onto your lapel.
Even your own words appear to be penned by Hitler's ghost all the while you imply that Democrats are Nazis and/or terrorists - something you have done over and over. Your lies and Hitler's lies even have the same purpose.
When you, Mr. Bush, said "see in my line of work you got to keep repeating things over and over and over again for the truth to sink in, to kind of catapult the propaganda," were you aware of Adolph Hitler's eerily similar statement? Hitler said "If you tell a big enough lie and tell it frequently enough, it will be believed."

[kathyhussien]

In other words, not only was your grandfather a self-professed fascist, he was a Nazi sympathizer and a war profiteer who should have stood trial at the Hague instead of buying his way into the US Senate. He was also a traitor, twice over.
Now clearly the crimes of Prescott Bush are not your fault, Mr. George W. Bush. Let us therefore judge your actions and words on their own merit.
Iraq is your Poland
Your reminiscence today about the invasion of Poland by Nazi Germany should have been seen as your own condemnation of your own abhorrent actions against Iraq. The morbid irony of what you said will likely never register with your or your speechwriter. To truly grasp the grotesqueness of what you said requires that you have both a conscience and some understanding of history. We know you possess neither.
I will therefore make your history lesson brief, but to the point. The unprovoked attack on Poland by Germany was a war crime just as your attack against Iraq - based on lies - is a war crime. This is not my opinion. This is not a political attack. This is a fact. Consider the words of the esteemed former chief prosecutor in the Nuremburg trials, Benjamin Ferencz, regarding your war of aggression against Iraq:

[kathyhussien]

You family did not stop with supporting fascists and Nazis abroad, did they Mr. Bush? Surely you must know of your grandfather's role in the treasonous plot of 1933 to overthrow democracy in America? Let me remind you.
Grandpa Bush - that is to say, your grandfather - wanted fascism imported into the United States, or as you now call this type of transformation, "exporting democracy." Prescott went so far as to subsidize a coup attempt in order to achieve his dream of a fascist America (see BBC report below):
Document uncovers details of a planned coup in the USA in 1933 by right-wing American businessmen. The coup was aimed at toppling President Franklin D Roosevelt with the help of half-a-million war veterans. The plotters, who were alleged to involve some of the most famous families in America, (owners of Heinz, Birds Eye, Goodtea, Maxwell Hse & George Bush's Grandfather, Prescott) believed that their country should adopt the policies of Hitler and Mussolini to beat the great depression. Mike Thomson investigates why so little is known about this biggest ever peacetime threat to American

[kathyhussien]

Both Harrimans and Bush were partners in the New York investment firm of Brown Brothers, Harriman and Co., which handled the financial transactions of the bank as well as other financial dealings with several other companies linked to Bank voor Handel that were confiscated by the U.S. government during World War II.
Union Banking was seized by the government in October 1942 under the Trading with the Enemy Act.
Oh, but there is much more too:
The two Holocaust survivors suing the US government and the Bush family for a total of $40bn in compensation claim both materially benefited from Auschwitz slave labour during the second world war, Kurt Julius Goldstein, 87, and Peter Gingold, 85, began a class action in America in 2001, but the case was thrown out by Judge Rosemary Collier on the grounds that the government cannot be held liable under the principle of "state sovereignty".
I cannot think of one Democrat who can boast this kind of lineage. Can you? No, I don't think so. But you can lie brazenly and attack a sitting US Senator on foreign soil by comparing him to Nazi sympathizers? Let us continue down memory lane to help those who applaud you understand just what it is they are celebrating.
The All American Traitor

[kathyhussien]

Well Mr. Bush, the only thing this comment lacked was a mirror and some historical facts. You want to discuss the crimes of Nazis against my family and millions of other families in Europe during World War II? Let me revive a favorite phrase of yours: Bring. It. On!

The All-American Nazi
Your family's fortune is built on the bones of the very people butchered by the Nazis, my family and the families of those in the Knesset who applauded you today:
WASHINGTON -- President Bush's grandfather was a director of a bank seized by the federal government because of its ties to a German industrialist who helped bankroll Adolf Hitler's rise to power, government documents show.

Prescott Bush was one of seven directors of Union Banking Corp. (search), a New York investment bank owned by a bank controlled by the Thyssen family, according to recently declassified National Archives documents reviewed by The Associated Press.
Fritz Thyssen was an early financial supporter of Hitler, whose Nazi party Thyssen believed was preferable to communism.

[Ramirez]

"...The breaking point for Thyssen was the violent pogrom against the Jews in November 1938 known as Kristallnacht, which caused him to resign from the Council of State. By 1939 he was also bitterly criticising the regime's economic policies, which were subordinating everything to rearmament in preparation for war. [1]

[edit] World War
In September 1939 World War II broke out. Thyssen sent Hermann Goering a telegram saying he was opposed to the war, shortly before leaving for Switzerland with his family. He was expelled from the Nazi Party and the Reichstag, and his company was briefly nationalised. It was returned to other members of the Thyssen family some years after the war. In 1940 Thyssen moved to France, intending to emigrate to Argentina, but was caught by the German occupation of France while he was visiting his ill mother in Belgium. He was arrested and taken back to Germany, where he was confined, first in a sanatorium near Berlin, then from 1943 in Sachsenhausen concentration camp. His wife Amelie instead of escaping to Argentina joined her husband and spent the whole war in the concentration camp with her husband. "She had spent the good times with her husband and would also join him in the difficult times.[citation needed]" In February 1945 he was sent to Dachau concentration camp. He was comparatively well-treated, however, and survived to be liberated by Allied forces in 1945."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fritz_Thyssen

[JackLivigni]

Dear Ramirez,

If you are going to quote wickipedia to try to paint a picture, why do you choose what is less damning? Here let me help you.... here are the phrases that came just before the stuff you decided to cut and paste:

In November, 1932, Thyssen and Hjalmar Schacht were the main organisers of a letter to President Paul von Hindenburg urging him to appoint Hitler as Chancellor. Thyssen also persuaded the Association of German Industrialists to donate 3 million Reichsmarks to the Nazi Party for the March 1933 Reichstag election. As a reward, he was elected a Nazi member of the Reichstag and appointed to the Council of State of Prussia, the largest German state (both purely honorary positions).

Once the Nazi dictatorship took hold, however, Thyssen began to have second thoughts. Although he WELCOMED the suppression of the Communist Party, the Social Democrats AND the trade unions, he disliked the mob violence of the SA. In 1934 he was one of the business leaders who persuaded Hitler to suppress the SA, leading to the "Night of the Long Knives". Thyssen was horrified, however, at the simultaneous murder of various conservative figures such as Kurt von Schleicher.

Thyssen ACCEPTED THE EXCLUSION OF JEWS from German business and professional life by the Nazis, and DISMISSED HIS OWN Jewish employees, but he did not share Hitler's violent anti-Semitism.
______________

I guess with what you wrote, this makes him a really good fellow...? Don't dig when in a hole, sir!

[kathyhussien]

Dear Mr. Bush,
Your speech on the Knesset floor today was not only a disgrace; it was nothing short of treachery. Worse still, your exploitation of the Holocaust in a country carved out of the wounds of that very crime, in order to strike a low blow at American citizens whose politics differs from your own is unforgivable and unpardonable. Let me remind you, Mr. Bush, of your words today:
"Some seem to believe we should negotiate with terrorists and radicals, as if some ingenious argument will persuade them they have been wrong all along," Bush said at Israel's 60th anniversary celebration in Jerusalem.

"We have heard this foolish delusion before," Bush said in remarks to Israel's parliament, the Knesset. "As Nazi tanks crossed into Poland in 1939, an American senator declared: 'Lord, if only I could have talked to Hitler, all of this might have been avoided.' We have an obligation to call this what it is -- the false comfort of appeasement, which has been repeatedly discredited by history."

[TheJibreelaMonsters]

What about Jimmy Carter?

"if the shoe fits...."

[druidlady42]

Thank you , "kathyhussien"! Informative, excellent postings---WORTH READING!

I share your passion and sentiments about our Deceiver-in-Chief! Just wish more Americans were paying attention!

[NightRider]

A blog every American and every Jew should read.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/larisa-alexandrovna/all-the-presidents-nazis_b_102022.html#postComment

[disgusted48]

Warning!!!! Gorilla on the loose!

[snarkopolitan]

A gorilla who's figured out how to copy and paste! Evolution happens.

[JackLivigni]

I wise man once taught me that emotions, like pride, are neither good nor bad; they just are. What is good or bad is what you do with them.

Republicans are accusing Michelle Obama, and her husband by association, of not being patriotic, and of not loving America, because she said she had not been proud of her country.

What we should be asking ourselves is what has Michelle and Barack DONE FOR THEIR COMMUNITY AND COUNTRY!

What have the Republicans done with their pride?

What good is pride when it brings you to give tax cuts to the rich and tax burdens to the poor?

What good is pride when it brings you to consider health-care a priviledge rather than a human right?

What good is pride when millions of American children go to bed hungry?

What good is one's saying they are patriotic and appreciative of the troops but when they get back home they abandon them? Just yesterday a story broke about how Republican leadership has set things up at VA hospitals so that Veterans coming back with Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome are denied a diagnosis of PTSS so they can't collect benefits and burden the system. I though Republicans were proud of the troops? Clearly not when it is time to open the pocketbook and pay taxes.

INSTEAD OF ASKING IF MICHELLE OBAMA IS PROUD OF AMERICA WHY DON'T YOU ASK YOURSELVES IF AMERICA CAN BE PROUD OF YOU!!!!!

[torrrep]

I'll tell you what I did with my pride. I volunteered my time in money helping those in the Gulf Coast. I'm not talking about sending a check. I'm talking about driving there and actually working and listening to the stories of people. I give 15% of my income to the poor. How much do YOU give. I help repair and renovate homes for the elderly and when I have time I volunteer in a tutorial program for schools in poor neighborhoods. What do YOU do for your community. I work hard and I pay MORE than my fair share of taxes. Yes you have a right to health care. But you DON'T have a right to FREE health care. If you have a job then that needs to be your first priority. If you don't have a job then you need to get one. There are PLENTY of jobs available. Don't you DARE sit there and generalize and make accusations when you have no CLUE as to what you are talking about. There are MANY other Americans just like me. But you don't see them. You only see what you WANT to see. Maybe should stop your whining and start doing YOUR part.

[JackLivigni]

Bravo to you Torrep for giving 15% of your income to the poor of your choice. I give 10% to my Church and then donate an additional amount for the poor.

Anyone reading can clearly see that Mr. Torrep conveniently decided to avoid any reference to the Republican agenda, and made it about his valor, and his assumptions about my lack of valor. He assumes I am a welfare leach taking his hard earned tax dollars.

Neglect toward the military; millions of hungry children; companies going oversees and abandoning the employees that made that company; health care being a human right; Republican government backing up insurance companies that drop their insured who need treatment for cancer because 20 years earlier they had a yeast infection...?

Where is your republican pride in that, Mr. Torrep?

Perhaps next time you vote, you should pray and ask the same God that inspires you to go help the poor - why the party you believe in is so un-christian.

When you ask me to go do MY PART, you say more about your resentment and your feeling cheated... this government is cheating you out of your hard earned money and giving it to people like me who "DON'T DO THEIR PART"...

You justify your resentment about welfare because you look at potential cheaters rather than the good your taxes do. Its a shame your greed blinds you. Try feeling good about your taxes and maybe you will sleep better.

[MelArawak]

The Tennessee Republican Party has stooped so low they are beneath a snake's belly. They need to focus on the candidates, not their families, which stoops to a new low. First, lets talk Senator John McCain committed adultery. He has called women "c---ts". He has a nasty temper and filty mouth. He claims he is not elitist; however, he flies around as a kept man on his wife's jet. His wife, Cindy McCain has just unloaded some $2 million in investments from a rogue nation, Sudan. So much for ethical investments. Obviously she has something to hide because she refuses to be transparent, like Barack and Michelle Obama or even Bill and Hillary Clinton. The dirty tricks of the Republican Party's swiftboating failed in three congressional districts, most recently Louisiana and Mississippi. This suggests Americans hunger for change they can believe in, rather than smear tactics and the gutter politics of the Republican Party in Washington, Mississippi and now, sadly, Tennessee. So much for McCain's politics of respect and civility; he is in the gutter with his party and they will pay at the polls in November.

[dwillisno1]

Limbaugh: "If Barack Obama were Caucasian, they would have taken this guy out on the basis of pure ignorance long ago"

First Huckabee talks about aiming guns at Obama, the Rush uses terms like "taking him out?"

Is there a pattern here?