Charlie Crist Says Race Was Reason GOP Got Mad Over His Hugging Obama

Remember when Charlie Crist hugged President Obama and all the GOPers lost their damned minds over it?

It happened back in May of 2009 right here in Florida and pretty much signaled the end of Crist's relationship with his fellow Republicans forevermore.

Well, Crist appeared on The Colbert Report on Tuesday night, where he addressed the hug. He then managed to piss off GOPers even more when he declared that the hubbub over embracing the president wasn't just politically motivated.

It was also because of racism.

CUE THE PRETEND GOPER OUTRAGE!

"Why do you think it ended it for you?" Colbert asked.

"Several reasons, I think," Crist responded. "Number one, he was there to talk about the Recovery Act, the stimulus, as people call it. And a lot of Republicans took issue with that. So I think that was part of it. Sadly, I think another part of it was that he was a Democrat, but not just a Democrat, an African-American."

When Colbert ribbed him on playing the "race card," Crist responded by saying he was just stating some truth.

"I've seen a level of vitriol directed at this president that I have never seen directed at, you know, President Kennedy or maybe President Johnson or even President Carter," Crist said.

Naturally, the GOP responded to Crist, trotting out a GOPer who happens to have an African-American daughter as well as a white daughter to be the official spokesman of GOP outrage over things that are mostly true.

"Poor old Charlie Crist. It seems as if he's using every deceptive, deceitful kind of thing," Republican committeeman from Oakland Park Buddy Helland said about the interview.

"I think that's high school stuff when people do the color thing. It's not just silly, but I think it's disgusting for him to make a comment like that.

"It seems like he's saying whatever he can to try to gain favor with Democrats," Helland added. "I think they're not dumb enough to fall for it."

Nope. People will not fall for Crist's assertion that Republicans are racist, because there's literally no proof that they've ever been racist in any way toward Obama, except for the time Tennessee GOP legislative staffer for Republican state Sen. Diane Black sent out a racist email about Obama, or that time a vice chairman of the Collin County Republican Party sent out a racist email about Obama, or that time a chairwoman of the Yellowstone County Republicans put up a racist picture of Obama on Facebook, or that time a Republican lynched a chair on his tree in protest toward Obama, or that time a Republican put up a sign telling Obama to go back to Kenya.

Or that time when this bumper sticker was kind of popular among Republicans:

Or that time a Republican in Alaska filed a lawsuit to keep Obama from being on the ballot because the Constitution wasn't written to give blacks voting rights.

Or this:

Or this:

OK, we're getting carpal tunnel now...

Anyway, yeah... no way we're buying your assertion that Republicans are mad about the hug because of racism, Charlie Crist! Nice try, though!

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