"Bring Back the Teddy Roosevelt Republicans!"

CNN's iReport is a wonderfully democratic new form of reportage that gives people the opportunity to humiliate themselves in front of an international audience. The latest offering does just that. It's a report on the founders of the website hiphoprepublicans.com:


My favorite moment is definitely when the man interviewed starts a gushing paean to...Teddy Roosevelt? Given Roosevelt's well-known economic liberalism, it's pretty strange to identify him with current Republicans. The comparison to McCain, however, might be a bit more apt. Both of them displayed a remarkably playful attitude towards the devastation of other peoples' countries.

Though silly, this interview gives me an excuse to post Adolph Reed's essay "The Descent of the Black Conservative," a gleefully nasty little piece of work.