Who let the dogs out?

In case you missed it, both Sarah "Pit Bull with Lipstick" Palin and Rudy "Rottweiler" Giulani slammed Obama for his community organizing experience. (I missed it too, but that's why Al Gore invented Googlez.) Basically, the message was that Obama was a community organizer, and community organizers have no responsibilities and don't do anything, therefore Obama is unqualified to be president. You can read the full text of Palin's speech here, and an article about Giulani's speech here.

Often when right-wing folks go after Obama for his organizing history, it's all kinds of teeth-gnashing about his connections with a particular organization. Conservatives tend to believe fervently that this organization, which shall remain nameless, through "thuggery" and voter fraud, is going to turn our country into Stalinist Russia, starring a young black male - with a hammer-and-sickle embossed grill - as Stalin. Now, I know enough to know that this paranoid fantasy will never be realized. (The dictator will be a 70 year old black woman, duh.)

But this kind of panicky, Red Scare statement would give the wrong idea to the GOP - the idea that community organizing is legitimate and powerful. Instead, both Palin and Giuliani minimized Obama's experience, brushing it off 'cause it ain't no thang. Both of them incited derisive laughter from the crowd. Tee hee, who's afraid of little bitty Barack Obama and his grassroots community organizers? Not me!!

Yup. Dear, sweet, silly community organizers, sitting around, drinking coffee, blogging on the Internetz, daring to think that regular folks should have power, door-knocking all day, phone-banking all night, de-segregating schools, passing the Civil Rights Act, raising the minimum wage, forcing (and saving) the Community Reinvestment Act, shutting down payday lenders, stopping foreclosures. And what's that other thing community organizers do?

Oh, yeah. Win elections.