Chris Hayes: Rand Paul’s Howard University speech worse than ‘Accidental Racist’

By Eric W. Dolan/Raw Story

On his show Wednesday night, MSNBC host Chris Hayes mocked Sen. Rand Paul’s (R-KY) speech to Howard University by comparing it to the new country song “Accidental Racist.”

Both attempted racial outreaches were admirable, he said, but that didn’t prevent them from also being cringe-worthy.

In his speech to black students at Howard University, Rand appeared to assume that his audience didn’t understand the history of the civil rights movement. The Republican from Kentucky also attempted to rewriting his prior statements about the landmark Civil Rights Act.

“Both Rand Paul and Brad Paisley seem to think the way to bridge the racial divide is a double helping of sheer earnestness,” Hayes remarked. “But earnestness, as nice a trait as it is — believe me, I know of where I speak — is no substitute for a sophisticated understanding of how our past relates to the present, or a commitment to policies that would bring about material improvement.”

“Contra Paul and Paisley, achieving racial progress in this country isn’t just a matter of having the right conversations, it’s about bringing about genuine equality, and if history has taught us one thing, it’s that equality comes from struggle, not from group hugs.”

Watch video, courtesy of MSNBC, below:

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Hayes: Media, conservatives don’t get that U.S. has changed

By David Ferguson/Raw Story

On Wednesday night’s The Rachel Maddow Show, Rachel and Chris Hayes of MSNBC’s Up with Chris Hayes took on the recent outcry in Washington over, of all things, birth control. Conservatives claim that it’s unfair that a provision of the Affordable Health Care Act mandates insurance coverage for contraceptives, a measure that some Catholic institutions like hospitals and universities find objectionable.

During the discussion, Hayes pointed out that time and again, Republicans react with “hysteria” over parts of the bill that they portray as draconian interventions by the “jack-booted” state into the affairs of businesses and individuals. The truth, he said, is that most of the measures and provisions in the bill are more suggestions that states adopt programs which many of them have already implemented.

The two hosts agreed that administration went out of its way to make most of the Affordable Health Care Act’s guidelines “small-c conservative,” fitting them in with established precedent. In Washington, however, opponents of the law would rather see their candidates run on “culture war” issues that the electorate resolved long ago.

Watch the clip, embedded via MSNBC, below: