PUMA-CIZING THE NEW BLACK PANTHER STORY

Via Mediaite, I see that the wingnut noise machine has found a new way to try to make electoral hay out of the New Black Panther story: by linking the story to the PUMAs' grievance narrative.

New Documentary Alleges That Obama Stole The Primary Election From Hillary

Amidst recent charges that the New Black Panther Party intimidated voters outside a Philadelphia polling place in 2008, a new documentary called We Will Not Be Silenced charges that this was not an isolated incident. The film's director Gigi Gaston appeared on Fox and Friends this weekend and was introduced by host Alyson Camerota who claimed that "the 2008 primary race between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton was rife with stories of voter intimidation and voting violations." ...

Hmmm ... the Mediaite story begins with a reference to the New Black Panther Party. The Fox and Friends clip that leads the film's Web site begins with a reference to the New Black Panther Party:



The Big Journalism post about the film invokes the New Black Panther Party. Message coordination much, guys?

(And guys, you do realize that the NBP incident you're obsessed with these days -- the one in which members of the party stood at the polls and no one was actually intimidated -- took place months after the primaries, on Election Day in November 2008 ... don't you?)

So now they've turned this NBP story into the classic narrative, symbolically if not literally: scary Negroes terrorizing our women! It doesn't track perfectly -- watch the clip and you'll see references to men and non-white women allegedly being intimidated by Obama thugs -- but it doesn't really matter what the literal narrative is. George W. Bush knew that if you repeatedly talked about Saddam and 9/11 together, you didn't actually have to say there was a link; similarly, Fox and Fox's media pals know that you just have to mention the New Panthers and Hillary in the same sentence, over and over again, and a lot of people will think it's time to get the rope.

To make this happen, the noise machine brought this film out of mothballs -- in the clip, the filmmaker complains that it's been in the can since 2008 and she couldn't even get Fox interested in it then. I guess alleged caucus irregularities didn't seem as sexy back in fall '08 as Bill Ayers -- but now the whole thing can be linked to scary brown people, just in time for new elections, so out of the vault the film comes.

Bonus fun fact: the last "witness" in the clip above is Kevin DuJan. He's identified as nothing more than a "volunteer," but in fact he's the founder of the PUMA blog HillBuzz and, as Joe. My. God. notes, he's claimed that Barack Obama and Rahm Emanuel used to patronize a gay bathhouse in the Chicago area and he's now a Sarah Palin fanboy:

When John McCain named Sarah Palin his vice presidential nominee, DuJan was overjoyed, and Palin quickly became his new political idol. He is now eagerly awaiting the arrival of February 6, 2011, the date he has decided that Sarah Palin will announce her 2012 presidential campaign in Tampico, Illinois, to mark the 100th anniversary of hometown hero Ronald Reagan's birthday. DuJan has even picked out the color he wants Palin to use for her presidential campaign logo (green, in order to dilute criticisms from the left that she is anti-environment).

Which reminds me: Will Palin try to catapult this narrative by going on Fox or Twitter or Facebook and announcing that "Mama Grizzlies" won't let themselves be intimidated by Obama's alleged election-fraud goons?

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BY THE WAY: Curiously, the director of this film shares a name with a 1960s French pop star known for "her Gypsy family's escape from Bulgaria, her affair with her stepbrother, her first guitar, her rise up (and fall down) the charts, ... car crashes, funerals, love triangles and [a] murder trial." Norman Mailer wrote about her; Jean-Luc Godard directed a music video for her. Odd coincidence, or a consciously chosen pseudonym? I'm not sure.

The current Gigi Gaston was formerly best known for her work with her life partner, the briefly successful singer Sophie B. Hawkins (who recently denounced Obama).

(I'm not sure what relevance that has, but, well, there's my research, and make of it what you will.)